SCOUT LaRue Willis has shown her support for her younger sister Tallulah after she revealed she was diagnosed with autism.
On Friday, Tallulah, 30, shared a throwback video of her and her dad Bruce Willis, 68, on Instagram.
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Tallulah is the youngest daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore, 61.
The video captured a young Tallulah in Bruce’s arms as he was giving an interview for the film The Whole Ten Yards on April 4, 2004, in Los Angeles, California.
The little girl was focused on her father as she placed her hands on his head, face, and ears.
Tallulah was 10 years old at the time.
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“Tell me your autistic without telling me your autistic,” she captioned her post.
‘IT’S CHANGED MY LIFE’
In the comment section, one fan was curious to know if she was diagnosed when she was a child.
In response, Tallulah said, “Actually this is the first time I’ve ever publicly shared my diagnosis. Found out this summer and it’s changed my life.”
In another comment, Scout, 32, wrote, “She’s stimming.”
Stimming helps people manage their emotions and eliminate any overstimulating feelings.
Examples of stimming are hand-flapping, rocking, repeating words or phrases, rubbing the skin, hair pulling.
“Dude the ear curl. I wish we had stronger audio,” Tallulah responded.
A second fan said, “What an amazing memory of you and your dad. Neurospicy [Neurodivergent] folx make the world a better place.”
Tallulah repeated the word “Neurospicy” and tagged her older sister, Rumer, 35.
In the past, the 30-year-old has been very candid about her mental health and how her dad’s health struggles has affected her.
IN HER OWN WORDS
Last June, she wrote an essay that was published in Vogue.
She acknowledged: “I admit that I have met Bruce’s decline in recent years with a share of avoidance and denial that I’m not proud of. The truth is that I was too sick myself to handle it.”
Tallulah revealed: “For the last four years, I have suffered from anorexia nervosa, which I’ve been reluctant to talk about because, after getting sober at age 20, restricting food has felt like the last vice that I got to hold on to.
“When I was 25, I was admitted to a residential treatment facility in Malibu to address the depression that I had lived with through my adolescence… I was also diagnosed with ADHD and started on stimulant medication, which was transformative.”
However, she singled out a devastating moment during which her TV and film star father’s condition sank in.
“But I remember a moment when it hit me painfully: I was at a wedding in the summer of 2021 on Martha’s Vineyard, and the bride’s father made a moving speech,” she said.
“Suddenly I realized that I would never get that moment, my dad speaking about me in adulthood at my wedding. It was devastating. I left the dinner table, stepped outside, and wept in the bushes.”
Unfortunately, Tallulah continued to fight her own health struggles alongside the late realization of Bruce’s dementia: “And yet I remained focused on my body.
“By the spring of 2022, I weighed about 84 pounds. I was always freezing. I was calling mobile IV teams to come to my house, and I couldn’t walk in my Los Angeles neighborhood because I was afraid of not having a place to sit down and catch my breath.”
2022 was also the year Bruce retired from acting after his aphasia diagnosis.
BRUCE’S DIAGNOSIS
Aphasia is the inability to comprehend or formulate language due to damage in parts of the brain.
In February 2023, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, the most common form of dementia in people under 60.
Symptoms include personality changes, obsessive behavior, and speaking difficulties.
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