For those struggling with mental illness, a diagnosis can change how you see yourself — often for the better. It’s a label that helps you make sense of your symptoms, somewhere concrete to moor emotions that often make you feel out of control. While some people resist labels and grapple with them, others feel validated.
Personally, they provided me with relief. When I was hospitalized in the early 2000s and diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, something I had long suspected was confirmed. Language allowed me to make some meaning of the situation and take control of my own mental health narratives. A diagnosis let me work toward healing.
But it can also bring conflicting feelings. Selena Gomez, in the new documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me,” explores how a bipolar disorder diagnosis changed her life and led her on a pathway to healing. But it wasn’t initially clear to her that knowing what ailed her would be a welcome development. “I didn’t know how I’d cope with my diagnosis,” she says early on in the film, out on Apple+ Friday.
Gomez admitted that she didn’t want to seek treatment at first. “I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t wanna go to the mental health hospital,” she says in the documentary. “I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to be trapped in myself and my mind anymore. I thought my life was over; I thought, ‘This is what my life’s going to be like forever.’”
