Selena Gomez says she contemplated suicide amid bipolar disorder battle
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@selenagomez
Warning: This article discusses suicide and bipolar disorder
Selena Gomez has opened up about her battle with bipolar disorder, explaining she contemplated suicide in her younger years.
Selena, 30, was diagnosed with bipolar back in 2020 after a stint in a mental health facility.
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Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that affects a person's mood, which can swing from one extreme to another.
Those suffering with bipolar often have episodes of depression – including feelings of being very low and lethargic - and mania, in which the person feels very high and overactive.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about her diagnosis, Selena explained she would have times where her highs and lows lasted months at a time.
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“I’m going to be very open with everybody about this: I’ve been to four treatment centres,” she said.
“I think when I started hitting my early twenties 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.”
Selena explained she would move between highs and lows. Highs would include being convinced she needed to buy everyone in her life a new car, because 'I have a gift and I wanted to share it with people' to dark lows, where she would feel depressed before isolating herself from loved ones.
“It would start with depression, then it would go into isolation,” she added. “Then it just was me not being able to move from my bed.
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"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.”
She explained that while she never attempted suicide, she spent a few years contemplating it, adding: “I thought the world would be better if I wasn’t there."
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Selena's upcoming documentary, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me will premiere tomorrow (4 November) on Apple TV+.
The candid doc follows the singer and actor's career over the last six years, and sees Selena open up about her diagnosis.
“I’m just so nervous,” she says of the doc. “Because I have the platform I have, it’s kind of like I’m sacrificing myself a little bit for a greater purpose.
"I don’t want that to sound dramatic, but I almost wasn’t going to put this out. God’s honest truth, a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I could do it.”
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You can find help, support and advice at Bipolar UK and mental health charity Mind.