Megan Haf Donoher
Selena Gomez opens up about her struggles with mental health in her new documentary, ‘My Mind & Me,’ which launched on Apple TV+, and achieves a level of vulnerability rarely seen in our culture of curation.
The intimate documentary follows Selena across a six-year period in the star’s search for authentic self-expression. From her trip to Kenya to avoiding the paparazzi, and most intimately, as she visits her childhood neighbourhood, Selena courageously allows the camera to linger as stares blankly into space, or sobs over her most intrusive thoughts.
Selena was diagnosed with Lupus back in 2016, which began a spiralling journey of crippling anxiety and depression. She has since undergone a kidney transplant, followed by hospitalisation for a psychotic break, whereby she received a bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2019.
“I want to know how to breathe again.”
Opening up about her difficulties in coming to terms with her diagnosis, the singer-actor reads excerpts from her personal journal throughout the documentary, filled with anxiety and self-doubt, including lines such as “I want to know how to breathe again.”
The project is, at times, meant to be unsettling and harrowing to an audience. We see Selena breaking down in front of her tour crew, attempting to navigate work-induced anxiety attacks, and battling the physical demands of lupus.
The documentary, directed by Alek Keshishian, is an unfiltered portrait of mental illness that shows Selena, the modern celebrity, essentially, in crisis. It uncovers the complications that Selena’s emotional and physical state have imposed on her social life and career, while not taking it to an unnecessarily exaggerated extreme. The 90-minute film is a candid reflection of what happens when poor mental health complicates the idea of perfection too often associated with celebrity lifestyles. It is an honest look at her darkest moments, and an attempt to redefine pop stardom.
“a beautiful but blunt attempt to show the world who Selena is”
And yet, there comes a point when the purpose of celebrity documentaries is questioned, and the level of honesty is met with comments of it being too invasive. Selena mentions her somewhat traumatic time at Disney without expanding on the details of what haunts her.
My Mind & Me is a beautiful but blunt attempt to show the world who Selena is behind the rumours and perceptions that have defined her since girlhood. The natural-born storyteller refuses to exploit issues of mental health for the purpose of stardom. Instead, the film predominantly highlights Selena’s ambitions and the life-changing work she has achieved with the Rare Impact Fund by aiming to raise awareness and accessibility to mental health services for young people.
“help often comes one step and one person at a time”
Despite the Disney popstar working since the age of seven, this is, perhaps, the first time fans have caught a sincere glimpse into who she really is. Whilst Selena has been open about her struggles with anxiety and bipolar disorder in the past, her honesty about mental health has never been expressed as starkly as in the documentary.
By shining a light on her own battles, Selena can hopefully assuage the stigma that surrounds mental illness, which makes treating it more difficult. As the documentary asserts, help often comes one step and one person at a time.
Featured image courtesy of Marcel Strauß via Unsplash. Image licence found here. No changes were made to this image.
