Selena Gomez is opening up about a big realization she had when she learned she had bipolar disorder.
The “Wolves” singer, 29, sat down with Elle magazine for the September issue and discussed her mental health struggles as well as the relief she felt after her bipolar diagnosis.
“I felt a huge weight lifted off me when I found out,” Gomez said. “I could take a deep breath and go, ‘Okay, that explains so much.'”
The “Wizards of Waverly Place” actress continued, “There were all things that honestly should have taken me down. Every time I went through something, I was like, ‘What else? What else am I going to have to deal with?'”
Gomez was also diagnosed with lupus in 2014 and subsequently underwent a kidney transplant and chemotherapy. She revealed the mantra she told herself every day to help her through her painful ordeals: “‘You’re going to help people.’ [That is] really what kept me going,” she said.
She added that staying off social media has helped alleviate her anxiety and that she gave her passwords to her assistant in 2017.
“I’m like, ‘I’ve got to do something [more]. After I’m gone, I want people to remember me for my heart,'” the songstress explained. “This tiny little phone that had 150 million people on it — I just put it down. That was such a relief for me.”
“There could have been a time when I wasn’t strong enough and would have done something to hurt myself,” Gomez added.
The Texas native has previously been candid about her anxiety and depression battles. She first revealed her bipolar disorder in April 2020 during Miley Cyrus’ Instagram Live show “Bright Minded.”
Gomez told her ex-Disney co-star, “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. “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.”