If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
Selena Gomez is opening up more than ever before about her mental health struggles ahead of the release of her documentary, "Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me."
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the singer and actor said she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder after she had been treated at a mental health center. She said that due to the two medications she takes for the disorder, it is unlikely for her to be able to carry her own children.
"That's a very big, big, present thing in my life," she told Rolling Stone. "However I’m meant to have them, I will."
The 30-year-old shared that she suffered a period of psychosis in 2018 that led to her diagnosis. She said she started hearing voices, and that she ended up in a treatment center. She was overwhelmed by paranoia and didn’t trust those around her. Her friends said they didn’t recognize her.
Afterward, Gomez said she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and doctors prescribed her numerous medications to try to find something that would work for her. "It was just that I was gone," she said of the effect the drugs had on her. "There was no part of me that was there anymore."
The "Only Murders in the Building" star eventually found a psychiatrist who took her off all of the drugs except for two, and she started to feel more like herself.
"He really guided me," Gomez said. "But I had to detox, essentially, from the medications I was on. I had to learn how to remember certain words. I would forget where I was when we were talking. It took a lot of hard work for me to (a) accept that I was bipolar, but (b) learn how to deal with it because it wasn’t going to go away."
The former Disney Channel star said she never attempted suicide but had seriously contemplated it for several years. "I thought the world would be better if I wasn’t there," she said.
"I'm going to be very open with everybody about this: I've been to four treatment centers," Gomez continued. "I think when I started hitting my early 20s is when it started to get really dark, when I started to feel like I was not in control of what I was feeling, whether that was really great or really bad."
Gomez added that she would go through bouts of mania, once feeling the need to buy everyone in her life a car. "I have a gift and I wanted to share it with people," she recalled of her thought process at the time.
"Then it just was me not being able to move from my bed," she said. "I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. My friends would bring me food because they love me, but none of us knew what it was. Sometimes it was weeks I’d be in bed, to where even walking downstairs would get me out of breath."
Gomez also has lupus, an autoimmune disease sometimes triggered by stress, which prompted her to need a kidney transplant in 2017. She spoke of possibly needing another donor in the future, as her donated kidney may only last for 30 years. "(It's) fine," she said. "I might be like, 'Peace out,' anyway."
Gomez began filming what became "My Mind & Me" when she was 24 and continued through the COVID-19 pandemic and her mental health struggles. She said she's only seen the documentary a handful of times, and she struggled over whether to release it.
She said she eventually went to a screening of the film, not to watch the documentary but to see the audience's reaction, which was emotional and impactful. "I was like, 'OK, if I can just do that for one person, imagine what it could do,'" she said. "Eventually I just kind of went for it. I just said, 'Yes.'"
"Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me" premieres on Apple+ on Nov. 4.
