Selena Gomez Opens Up About Her Treatment For Anxiety And Depression

“It was one of the hardest things I've done, but it was the best thing I've done.”

Selena Gomez is back in the spotlight since taking time off to manage her anxiety and depression.

The singer canceled the latter half of her Revival tour, including a gig at the 3Arena in Dublin, to seek treatment, and told Vogue Magazine that, “Tours are a really lonely place for me, I started to have panic attacks right before getting on stage, or right after leaving the stage. I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it.”

Selena checked herself into a facility in Tennessee, where she took part in individual therapy, group therapy, and equine therapy with a small group of other young women for 90 days. During that time, she had no access to her phone or the outside world to focus entirely on her mental health. Even now, she avoids using social media where possible. “I always end up feeling like sh*t when I look at Instagram,” she explains, because it brings up things she doesn’t want to see or that she doesn’t care about.

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“You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls, real people who couldn’t give two sh*ts about who I was, who were fighting for their lives,” Selena told Vogue. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done.”

The 24-year-old still sees her therapist five times a week, and participates in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to learn mindfulness and help regulate her emotions.

“DBT has completely changed my life,” Selena says. “I wish more people would talk about therapy. We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back, the girl who’s down. We also need to feel allowed to fall apart.”