Photo: Instagram/@selenagomez
Selena Gomez recently opened up about going through depression during the Covid-19 lockdown. The singer and actor who has always advocated for an open conversation around mental health while being vocal about her own issues, sat down for a virtual conversation with Dr Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general under President Barack Obama.
The chat discussing chronic loneliness took place on Instagram Live as part of Gomez’s Rare Beauty Mental Health Social Summit for World Mental Health Day (October 10) and saw her speak about her struggles at the beginning of quarantine. “I’d say I’m a big-time extrovert so I get that it’s a bit harder,” she said after asking Dr Murthy if and how the struggles are different for extroverts and introverts. “Or at least I feel that because my other [introverted] friend feels what you’re explaining as peaceful and having time to process. and I’m like, ‘I need to talk to someone! I need to do something!’ So I definitely get that.”
The 28-year-old later went on to share that “in the beginning, I couldn’t deal with it [quarantine] that well,” saying that she went into “a bit of a depression.” She continued to say: “Then I started going into a place where I was really writing and being active. And then I guess it just forced me to have that time. And again, I’ve been able to spend time with those quality people a lot more than I ever have. And spending a lot more time with my family, and I almost feel like I’ve become normalized in this situation that’s not normal.”
Gomez also admitted that not being able to do her job as a public personality who thrives in social interaction had been difficult. “But yeah, I mean, my job is a lot of travel, connecting with people, making people happy, and that makes me happy, so it has been a struggle,” she said. “I think I even posted on my Instagram where I was crying, explaining to all the people who were following me how much I miss them.”
Sharing how she managed to get through feeling low, Gomez said, “Slowly, toward the end, I’ve found the things that I’m doing are coming out and that was something extremely exciting for me. I worked on personal things like a beauty line that has—our goal is to reach $100 million in 10 years for mental health. And we have all of these different things so that has kept me busy. And recently, I’ve been able to go into the studio so I would say right now, I’m fully coming out again. I just think I had handle it the way I needed to handle it, and I got through that with the right people and doing the right things and doing the right steps to not make me go crazy.”
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