Selena Gomez wasn't sure how she was going to cope with her bipolar diagnosis — until she remembered something her mother had told her as a child.
In her upcoming documentary, My Mind & Me, Selena takes a look back on her life shortly after being released from the treatment center that diagnosed her.
At the time, Selena admitted to being fearful about dealing with her mental health in the future.
"When I first got out, I didn’t know how I’d cope with my diagnosis," Selena said in a documentary clip shared with Vanity Fair.
She added, "What if it happened again? What if the next time, I couldn’t come back? I needed to keep learning about it. I needed to take it day by day."
Learning about bipolar disorder proved to be one of the most important ways Selena coped. She says that educating herself was actually very similar to the way her mother taught her to overcome her fears as a child.
"When I was a kid I was terrified of thunderstorms. I grew up in Texas and I was so scared that lightning and thunder would mean a tornado was coming," Selena explained.
Selena says her mom then purchased her books about thunder and lightning storms so she could understand what was happening.
"[She] basically said, 'The more you learn about it, the less you’re going to be afraid of it.' And it really helped," Selena said.
It sounds like Selena applied that lesson as an adult, learning as much as she could about her bipolar disorder to help her be less fearful about the future.
My Mind & Me premieres Nov. 4 on Apple TV+.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.