From Barney & Friends child star to starring roles on Disney Channel and also being a music artist, Selena Gomez has always been in the spotlight. Though her roles and success might look glamorous, life is not always smooth sailing for this young woman.
Vogue featured Gomez on their April 2017 cover which makes it a first in her career. Teen Vogue shares that this is a huge step for Gomez in the fashion industry as she models clothing from Michael Kors Collection and is named the face of Coach. In her interview with Vogue she opens up about her life in the past year.
On August 15, 2016 Gomez, 24, posted her last post on Instagram for the next three months. During her three-month break, Gomez flew to Tennessee and joined a therapy group with six other women. She attended with no cell phone or with any other celebrities, but other real women who were struggling with things just like her.
“You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls,” she says, “real people who couldn’t give two shits about who I was, who were fighting for their lives. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done,” Gomez tells Vogue.
For 90 days Gomez attended individual therapy, group therapy and even horse therapy. In November, Gomez made an appearance at the American Music Awards, making it her first since being back from her treatment. Later in the night she accepted an award for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and followed with a speech touching on her struggles that went viral.
With raw and real emotion, Gomez begins to be honest with the world about how she is affected by the life she lives. She explains to Vogue about how tours were making her feel, and how social media was having a toll on her by having the title of “most followed person on Instagram.”
“Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she explains. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion…,” says Gomez.
“[Instagram] had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit,” says Gomez
There is a stigma behind having a mental illness. A stigma that is doing harm to people who are struggling because it is targeting an internal problem that screams “there is something wrong with you.” People of all social status struggle with the stigma and lifestyle of mental illness.
In 2015 students who reported feeling hopeless was 49.5% according to USA Today College and 60.5% of students who reported feeling lonely, which is a symptom of depression.
In an article by Upworthy.com, they hear from 31 different celebrities who share about their experiences with mental illness and quotes about how they are fighting against this stigma some people put on it.
“If you are broken, you don’t have to stay broken,” says Selena Gomez in her speech on the AMAs in 2016.
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