Selena Gomez opens up in documentary 'My Mind and Me'

My mind and Me is a documentary released in November 2022 surrounding Singer/Actress Selena Gomez, an insight into her struggles throughout her recent years. The documentary can be found on Apple TV and is an 1hr and 35 minutes long.

Starting off with a disclaimer of discussions of mental well-being and self-harm. Viewer discretion is advised. Also ending with help lines for those who need it.

The documentary itself explores time periods for Selena’s life where she is struggling, whether that is her Lupus or mental well-being. Throughout she shows raw emotion with many scenes of herself crying. A brave thing to do when you are an influential person in the public eye.

Key parts of the film show her feeling overwhelmed being in the lifestyle she lives, although it is clear she loves what she does. How she experienced a very public heartbreak, in which she was hounded on. She wanted to be seen as her own person not someone she’s tied to.

In the first section on the film, you can see how Selena often self-criticises, very heavily actually, she’s the first to put herself down or pick out things she doesn’t like about herself/performance.

One of her managers, Zack said to her ‘’you’re your own worst enemy’’ and as someone who criticises themself often, it resonated with me.

Within the first 10 minutes I already had tears in my eyes.

There are glimpses of what the media portrays Selena to be, but you get to see an insight to what she was really going through. Her revival tour was cancelled after just 55 shows, some media outlets mention her using drugs. As the audience we get to see how she was dealing with the issues in her life at the time.

‘’Sometimes I wake up and I don’t really feel like I have it in me’’ Selena states. This heart wrenching sentence tipped me over the edge. Not only do I often feel the same, but it’s so upsetting to know others feel this way.

She discusses what it was like to experience a nervous breakdown whilst being taken to a psychiatric hospital. She also goes into a bit of detail about her bipolar diagnosis, which is eye-opening. It was very overwhelming to see her friends and family react to her being emitted, with them just wanting the best for her, worried about what will happen next.

Each part of the film sends me into such a whirlwind of emotions, I just don’t know how to feel.

We get the impression that she is a better place around midway through the film, as we get to experience her revisiting her past as being connected to her past makes her happy. It makes me happy. Watching her visit her old school was the sweetest thing, it was so inspiring for her to talk to the younger generation who were in the same place she was.

Toward the end we see Selena back on track with herself, but once again the public are introduced to ruin that. Her song 'lose you to love me' was released in 2020. After over 2 years of not performing, she performed at the AMAs, in which she got so much criticism for.

She visited Kenya and spoke to a wide range of women about so many things like mental health, talking about their lives, she wished she could do more.

2020 was a crazy year for everyone, Selena mentioned how her plans had been set back in her hopes to encourage therapy in schools, the COVID pandemic was very isolating, and she had a relapse with her Lupus.

The end features her new song My Mind and Me.

I think it’s so amazing that she decided to share herself with us, she didn’t have to but she did. Showing us how she felt in the important times in her life, outlining that your diagnosis doesn’t define you, she is an inspiration.

© Aimee-Michelle O'Connor 2022