Featured Image Credit: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images. Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Topics: Selena Gomez, Social Media, Mental Health
Stewart Perrie
Topics: Selena Gomez, Social Media, Mental Health
Selena Gomez has opened up about the toll social media took on her mental health.
The pop star and actor was enjoying a holiday in Australia back in 2018 when photographers snapped a few pictures of her dressed in a two-piece bikini.
While she looked stunning while on a large boat, it seems like internet trolls didn't agree.
They flocked to social media to write nasty things about her body and Selena was told about many of the comments.
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The torrent of awful trolling was so big at the time that Gomez broke her social media hiatus to issue a message to her haters.
She wrote on Instagram: "The beauty myth- an obsession with physical perfection that traps modern woman in an endless cycle of hopelessness, self consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of flawless beauty.
"I chose to take care of myself because I want to, not to prove anything to anyone. Wind in her sails."
The 31-year-old has opened up about that experience during an interview with Fast Company.
She said she realized around this time that she no longer had a 'teenager's body' when she did a magazine shoot and 'none of the sample sizes were fitting'.
She said that made her feel 'embarrassed', however she discovered: "How unrealistic is it to expect a normal woman’s body not to change?”
The paparazzi photos from that day in 2018 were compounded by the fact she had only just split with her longtime boyfriend Justin Bieber.
“I had just gotten my heart broken. I didn’t need to see what everyone was doing," she told Fast Company in regards to her social media break.
“Then there were those moments of not feeling positive about how I looked because of what I’d see on Instagram. ‘Wow, I wish my body looked like that’.”
Her mental health journey was helped two years later when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which helped her realize why some days were vastly different to each other.
“I went through a really hard season. It was my highs and my lows, and I didn’t know what to do, so I couldn’t control it,” she explained.
“I would want to cancel things. It was just a tormented feeling.
“That’s why, when I found out my [bipolar] diagnosis, it was just, ‘Oh, okay, I feel a bit relieved, I understand a bit more.’ I got second opinions. I went to doctors. I’m fortunate enough to be able to have people who can help me survive every day.”