Camila Cabello may be one of the biggest pop stars, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t struggle with her mental health. In a candid Instagram post Sunday afternoon, the 22-year-old star opened up about her personal struggle with anxiety and how she has learned to cope with being “incredibly nervous” and “socially anxious.”
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“I remember growing up hearing stories of the singers I loved, all the stories sounded the same, kids who would grow up performing for their families and putting on talent shows for their parents when they were little who grew up to be dazzling to me. I was the opposite,” the “Havana” singer began her lengthy post.
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“I never ever sang in front of my parents or friends and would get flustered when they would ask me to, I sang in my room when my parents left for Walmart and cried when one day I saw them filming me through the crack of the door, I got teary-eyed when people sang happy birthday to me because people looking at me actually made me overwhelmed,” she continued. “I was generally incredibly nervous and socially anxious when I was little; and people always have this look of disbelief when I tell them that.”
Cabello went on the explain that she again received that reaction during a recent interview after she chose to open up about her struggles.
“I feel like my whole life there’s been two Camila’s in me,” she wrote. “There’s little Camila that is terrified of the unknown, is aware of all the ways everything can go wrong, (actually can picture them vividly lol), and thinks it’s safer to stay home than to play ball. Then there’s the other Camila. And she knows what she wants out of life, is aware of how little time I have to let little Camila run the show while time passes by, and grabs young me by the hand and forces her out the door saying ‘Let’s go. You’ll survive, and I’m not gonna miss out on this. Let’s go.’ And that is literally how I can sum up how I’ve gotten to this point in my life.”
The singer went on to recall “feeling discouraged when I felt like some people were just ‘born’ to do things,” writing that “they always had it in them. ‘They were always this outgoing, they always loved to entertain, they were always this bold, they were always this outspoken.’”
“The truth is you decide who you’re going to be. Every day,” she continued in a second post. “I’m not talking about talent or success. I just mean the type of person you’re going to be. If you haven’t been very brave, or very social, or wild, or an adventure seeker, if you describe yourself as the opposite of those things… it doesn’t mean you can’t be. The other you needs to grab little you by the hand, yank you by the hairs and tell you, ‘Let’s go.’”
Cabello ended her post by telling her fans that “you choose who you’re going to be. Force yourself to do what you’re afraid of, always- and go after what you want and who you want to be, because you’re worth that. You’re worth the fight. It’s the most worthwhile one there is. Love you.”
