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Selena Gomez’s mental fitness ecosystem, Wondermind, has Camila Cabello as its May (Mental Health Awareness Month) cover star. During an open and honest conversation, the Cuban descent singer shared her struggles when making her new album, “Familia,” and the misconceptions around mental health, including the best mental health-related advice she has received.
Camila previously shared how much she loves singing and speaking in her first language because it connects her to her childhood; however, she was going through a lot while making her Spanish-language album. “At the beginning of that album, I was at the worst of my mental health journey—well, probably the [most recent] worst. At the beginning of that period, before I even went in, I didn’t even feel like I was ready to go into the studio,” she revealed to Selena.
“So my condition for going into the studio was going in with people who I felt emotionally safe with so that if I was like ‘Hey, I have these obsessive-compulsive behaviors when I have really bad anxiety,’ or ‘I’m having anxiety right now.’ They were people that made me feel safe to say things like that,” she added.
For Cabello, her path to treating her anxiety includes therapy and medication use. “I have been taking an SSRI, and that definitely has helped a lot,” she notes. “Especially while I was doing therapy, too. I felt like I needed that to get to a place where I could go below the surface level loops and manifestations of it and get to the thought patterns and things that were really causing me anxiety. I definitely feel like medication can be really helpful and necessary.”
Although Camila Cabello has been very open about her struggles, she also knows the stigma surrounding mental health, especially in the Hispanic community. “There’s obviously such shame that sometimes comes with mental health. From the outside, my life looks great. I can make an album, or I’m in this relationship, whatever. I almost shamed myself by thinking people wouldn’t understand that I have anxiety, because why?” she said.
“I think the best mental health advice I’ve ever received is that faking or pretending [that I’m ok] is the worst thing for my mental health,” Cabello tells Gomez about tackling anxiety.