Selena Gomez reveals that in the last decade she has entered "rehab centers" four times and admits that she suffered from suicidal thoughts.
Selena Gomez is opening up about her struggles with mental health in more detail than ever before.
In an interview with Rolling Stone on the occasion of the premiere of her new documentary "My Mind & Me", the 30-year-old singer confirmed that she has entered four different treatment units since her early twenties. She also spent a few years contemplating suicide, although she never attempted to end her life.
Just minutes into the documentary, we see Selnea Gomez canceling her 2016 'Revival' tour early in order to tearfully enter a treatment center, as well as scenes where she 'can't get out of bed, scenes of her lashing out at friends, scenes of her wandering aimlessly around her house, and scenes of her collapsing in the middle of a press tour."
In fact, it was so real that as recently as a few weeks ago, Selena Gomez said she was considering canceling the documentary.
“Because I have the platform that I have, it's like I'm sacrificing a little bit of myself for a greater cause. I don't want to sound dramatic, but I almost didn't release it. To be honest, a few weeks ago I wasn't sure I could do it," she said.
But, she noted, it was important to share her story, which perhaps explains why she also revealed some of the toughest battles she's faced in her life off camera.
“I'll be very honest with everyone about this: I've been to four treatment centers. "I think when I started to get into my early 20s, that's when things started to get really bleak, when I started to feel like I wasn't in control of what I was feeling, whether that was really good or really bad," she revealed.
Selena Gomez added about the possibility of suicide: "I thought the world would be better if I wasn't there."
For a time, Selena Gomez attributed her mental illness to her artistic struggles as she tried to shed her Disney image and become a more mature artist. Being single at 25 also contributed to her sadness.
“I grew up thinking I would get married at 25. It broke me that I was nowhere near it – I couldn't be further from it. It was so stupid, but I really thought my world had ended. I never fit in with a cool group of girls who were famous," she said.
“My only friend in the industry is really Taylor (Swift), so I remember feeling like I didn't fit in. I felt the presence of everyone around me living full lives. I had this position and I was really happy, but… was I? Do these materialistic things make me happy? I just didn't like who I was, because I didn't know who I was," she continued.
Selena Gomez battled psychosis in 2018, and when she finally got over it, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Doctors immediately put her on various medications, but she said that these too had a negative effect on her: “It was just like I was gone. There was no longer any part of me that was there."
Eventually Selena Gomez met a psychiatrist who told her that many of the medications she was taking were actually unnecessary. With the help of the psychiatrist, Gomez began to detox from certain drugs and felt that she was returning to a more stable state.
"It really helped me. But I had to detox, basically, from the drugs I was taking. I had to learn how to remember certain words. I used to forget where I was when we were talking. It took a lot of hard work to (a) accept that I was bipolar, but (b) learn how to deal with it because it wasn't going to go away,” she admitted.
Gomez sheds even more light on her mental health in her new documentary "My Mind and Me," available on Apple TV+ starting November 4.
