Selena Gomez has opened out about the terrible toll that her lupus and mental health issues have had on her, acknowledging that her ailments and previous heartbreaks in public “honestly should have taken me down.” 

With a kidney transplant and chemotherapy required for her lupus diagnosis, which she disclosed in 2015, the 29-year-old opened out about her mental health issues as the cover girl of Elle’s inaugural Latinx issue.

The singer expressed surprise at having overcome all of her medical and mental challenges as she looked back on them, stating, “My lupus, my kidney transplant, chemotherapy, having a mental illness, going through very public heartbreaks – these were all things that honestly should have taken me down.”

When Selena declared in 2016 that she was taking a leave of absence from work to address the anxiety, despair, and panic attacks she had been experiencing due to her lupus, she opened out about her mental health issues for the first time.  

In 2018, she disclosed that she had received a bipolar disorder diagnosis. She expressed relief from the news, stating that it provided a “great explanation” for all that had happened to her in the years before. 

“When I found out, I felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me,” she said to Elle. I might inhale deeply and conclude, “Well, that explains a lot.”    

Selena said that there was a darker period when she felt unprepared to handle all of her problems, even though she has since discovered strategies to safeguard her mental health, such as removing all social media apps from her phone. 

‘What else?’ I thought to myself after every experience. “What else am I going to have to deal with?” she asked, reflecting that there might have been a moment when she hadn’t been strong enough and she would have damaged herself.