Selena Gomez has said she felt ‘a huge weight’ lifted after she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
The singer and actress told Elle magazine she had faced a ‘struggle’ with depression and anxiety before being diagnosed with bipolar in 2019.
‘My lupus, my kidney transplant, chemotherapy, having a mental illness, going through very public heartbreaks – these were all things that honestly should have taken me down,’ she told the magazine.
‘Every time I went through something, I was like, ‘What else? What else am I going to have to deal with?’
The 29-year-old said that deciding to help others is ‘really what kept me going’.
She explained: ‘There could have been a time when I wasn’t strong enough, and would have done something to hurt myself.’
The singer opened up in the latest issue of Elle magazine (Picture: Inez & Vinoodh)
Discussing her bipolar diagnosis, she added: ‘I felt a huge weight lifted off me when I found out. I could take a deep breath and go, “OK, that explains so much”.’
Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder that ’causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks,’ according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
The actress – who will next appear in the Hulu comedy Only Murders in the Building alongside Steve Martin and Martin Short – has long been open about her mental and physical health battles.
The full interview is available in Elle’s September 2021 Latinx issue (Picture: Inez & Vinoodh)
She first revealed her bipolar diagnosis in April 2020 during an episode of Miley Cyrus’ Instagram Live show, Bright Minded.
‘Recently I went to one of the best mental hospitals in America, McLean Hospital, and I discussed that, after years of going through a lot of different things, I realized that I was bipolar,’ she said at the time.
‘And so when I go to know more information, it actually helps me. It doesn’t scare me once I know it… I wanted to know everything about it, and it took the fear away.’
The September Latinx issue of Elle Magazine is available now.
