Justin Bieber was discovered at age 13 . Within a couple of years, he was a pop superstar and had begun amassing millions of dollars and fans. That kind of fame at such a young age was perilous and led him to make “terrible decisions,” he said on Monday in a lengthy and personal Instagram note posted to his 118 million followers.

“I started doing pretty heavy drugs at 19 and abused all of my relationships,” Bieber, now 25, wrote. “I became resentful, disrespectful to women, and angry. I became distant to everyone who loved me, and I was hiding behind, a shell of the person that I had become. I felt like I could never turn it around. ”

Bieber went on to say he was raised in an unstable home and that being overwhelmed with praise so young not only gave him an inflated sense of self, but robbed him of the ability to learn basic life skills.

“Have u noticed the statistics of child stars and the outcome of their life?” he wrote. “There is an insane pressure and responsibility” put on these children, he added, whose “brain, emotions, frontal lobes (decision making) aren’t developed yet.”