Selena Gomez talks about coping with everyday mental health struggles

Pop icon Selena Gomez is wearing her heart on her sleeve regarding her mental health struggles and how she manages to tackle them on a daily basis. 

While in conversation with Vogue Australia, the Rare hit maker spoke about her experience battling anxiety and depression and the bipolar disorder which she disclosed last year in a chat with Miley Cyrus.

“I’ve studied DBT, which is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy,” she said when talking about what helps her during her daily mental health struggles.

“I’ve been to four treatment centers. I think in mental health, I never understood the stigma until I went to my first treatment center, because that was years ago. But then there was a photograph that got out, and it’s wild to see how mean they were. It was like: ‘She’s the next this person, she’s the childhood star,’ whatever. And: ‘She’s doing drugs.’ They’re saying all this stuff about me,” she shared.

“I’m watching all of that change, slowly but surely, because now, if any media outlet made fun of me, they’re the ones that look like the [expletive] because we don’t tolerate that anymore. It’s actually crazy that I’m watching it happen, even though I know we have so much more to do. And I have goals. I want to put this as a curriculum into schools,” she went on to say.

“I feel like I practice [DBT] every day…And then I also love being in the studio. Because the first hour I’m in a studio, I just talk. It’s like therapy. You just go in and you share your heart,” she continued.

The singer also gave advice to all those in the same boat as her, saying: “Honestly, I never want to be a person that’s like: ‘I got medication, it’s fine now.’ I do believe in medication, obviously, therapy—all of these things I’ve done to try and make myself better. But my advice isn’t going to be: ‘Oh, you’re going to get over it.’ It’s actually an everyday practice.”

“So if I’m thinking about something, I want to catch it before then. Or if I’ve been alone and isolated for too long, I’ll be like: ‘Oh wait, I need to be around people I love.’ And like I said, I also go to therapy. You can find ways to live in it. But once you understand it, the fear of you admitting that you have something goes away,” she said.

Talking about her upcoming 29th birthday, the singer was thankful to have her loved ones safe and sounds amidst the pandemic.

“I am beyond grateful that my loved ones were really safe during the pandemic. And I’m just really happy with who I am,” she said. “I’m grateful that as I step into 29–even just two years ago–I was different,” she said.

“It’s only gotten better, and that’s kind of what people say, you know, when you get older, you feel a bit more confident with who you are. I don’t know if that’s gonna be every year for me. Maybe it is. But I just feel like I’m constantly growing in the right direction,” she added.