Selena Gomez Reveals She Contemplated Suicide for 'Years'
Selena Gomez has been open about her mental health struggles her entire career, and with a new documentary on the way, the Only Murders in the Building star is ready to share even more details. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Gomez said she contemplated suicide for years. She also revealed that she cannot have children due to her bipolar medication.
"I'm going to be very open with everybody about this: I've been to four treatment centers," Gomez told Rolling Stone. "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."
Gomez, 30, could not quite understand why she would go weeks or months through periods of extreme highs and lows. Sometimes, she couldn't sleep for days. At one point, she would be convinced she had to buy everyone she knew a car before another "low" period would start.
"It would start with depression, then it would go into isolation," the former Disney Channel star explained. "Then it just was me not being able to move from my bed. 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."
Although she never attempted suicide, she told Rolling Stone she contemplated it for years. "I thought the world would be better if I wasn't there," Gomez told the magazine.
Gomez was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which helped her understand what she was going through. However, it also meant that doctors were prescribing her a long list of medications. After she left a drug treatment facility, a doctor realized she was over-prescribed and helped her get off all but two medications.
"He really guided me," Gomez said of the doctor. "But I had to detox, essentially, from the medications I was on. I had to learn how to remember certain words. I would forget where I was when we were talking. It took a lot of hard work for me to (a) accept that I was bipolar, but (b) learn how to deal with it because it wasn't going to go away."
Gomez later revealed that the two medications she still takes for her bipolar disorder mean that she may not be able to carry her own children. "That's a very big, big, present thing in my life," Gomez said. She is trying to remain positive about it though, adding, "However I'm meant to have them, I will."
Gomez went public with her bipolar diagnosis in an episode of Miley Cyrus' Bright Minded Instagram show in April 2020. She said she was treated at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. The singer praised the hospital as "one of the best" during a recent stop on The Kelly Clarkson Show. "They're kind of covering everything in the mental health space. So, I was able to say my diagnosis out loud for the first time," she said. "And it gave me such strength, and – it wasn't easy." Gomez's new documentary, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, will be released on Apple TV+ Friday.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The previous Lifeline phone number (1-800-273-8255) will always remain available.