Selena Gomez Reflects on 2016 Hospitalization and Bipolar Diagnosis

I found out I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't want to go to a mental health hospital, but I didn't want to be trapped in myself, in my mind anymore. I thought my life was over. I was like, this is how I'm going to be forever. Selena Gomez, her friends and family get emotional, recalling her hospitalization and diagnosis with bipolar disorder. She was in recovery herself, but she wanted really to help other people, and that meant having to share some of the private moments of her life. She says, I want you to film this, film the pain. Back in 2016, Selena made headlines when her revival tour was abruptly cancelled after 55 performances, and she was hospitalized to focus on her mental health. To be sharing something honest and saying, hey, I'm taking a break because I need it, I'm being honest, and I think that's just who I am. Now, fans get a little more insight into what really went down in her new Apple TV Plus documentary, My Mind and Me. At one point, she's like, I don't want to be alive right now. And it was one of those moments where you look in her eyes and there's nothing there. You're like, okay, f*** this, like, this needs to end, like, we need to go home. I just remember it being very chaotic, and she was hearing all of these voices. They just kept getting louder and louder and louder. That triggered some sort of psychotic break. I was scared she was going to die. I feel like it is, it's a time capsule of a period of my life where I look back and I actually feel bad for that version of myself. And I think that it was good for me to see how I was responding to my body, the way I was acting, the way it was so irrational at moments. And I think it was really healing for me to see that and get it out. Sel's mom, Mandy Teepee, says that at the time, her daughter wasn't speaking to her. So she found out about Sel's hospitalization through a media outlet that reached out for comment. The media is constantly saying outrageous things to her. Talk about voices in your head. You know, she had voices in her head, but some of those voices were coming from the outside in. And following her bipolar diagnosis, Selena admits she has a lot of regret about the way she treated her mom and stepdad, saying they never gave up on her, even when so many times they probably should have. All that echoes what Selena told ET about her family's tight bond back in 2009, in the early stages of her career. I always say in this business, you get told a lot of things that you shouldn't be told. Yes, you're this. Yes, you're perfect. And my mom's there to tell me no. My family calls me whenever they see something that they're not really proud of. So then they're like, um, what's going on? And that keeps me on the ground, too. Now Selena says she needed to go through all that to be who she is today. She's not just an advocate for mental health. She's not just a pop star. She is also a woman dealing daily with her own kind of challenges and trying to be a good person through all of it.