All documentaries choose to focus on something—FX’s Welcome to Wrexham is an entire series dedicated to an underdog football team. In this case, Selena Gomez’s My Mind & Me focuses on mental health and the struggles of understanding the lingering sadness many of us cope with daily.
Gomez not only opens up about her struggles with lupus and her bipolar disorder diagnosis, but she also vocalizes the struggles of dealing with a breakup in the public eye. We’ve always believed that celebrities don’t owe us anything. Their lives do not belong to us despite how much we adore them. They don’t owe us transparency about anything other than the work they put out and how they behave in the real world that directly impacts the lives of others. The rest is their business and theirs alone.
However, since Selena Gomez has chosen to be transparent in My Mind & Me she inspires her fans to open up about their journeys with mental health and how those heartaches affect their day-to-day lives, along with how they affect the work they do every day. It isn’t easy being in the spotlight—that much has always been clear. And for people who’ve been in the eyes of Disney attempting to shed that image and exist solely as themselves, it’s heartbreaking to see how much stardom weighs heavily on people.
Paparazzi aren’t owed anything, yet there’s still a tremendous demand for the exclusives they provide in tabloids that are almost always false. In My Mind & Me, Gomez ventures into some dark places to place the focus on the pain she’s suffered through that not many people are aware of. This isn’t a standard musician documentary but rather a deep dive that’s desperately trying to ensure people see that there are struggles in this world more extensive than what people can handle.
Gomez’s transparency with her faith is something I’ve appreciated as a believer myself, but I was especially moved by a specific moment, one we’ve all experienced in dire times that simply requires silently calling out to Jesus to help us.
Another fascinating thing about the documentary is that Selena Gomez reveals how hard she’s trying not to be defined by her past or her mistakes, even when they’re attempting to govern her. Still, none of this is easy for any human; why should it be for a performer from whom we rely on entertaining us? My Mind & Me reveals all the pieces that bring Gomez’s truth forward. Hopefully, the documentary will allow viewers, fans or not, to understand the importance of remaining empathetic because we’re all facing brutal battles to overcome without the added pressure of what others might think.
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Gomez states that while she wishes she could leave the industry and start a new life away from the spotlight, she firmly believes that she’s meant to do something with the platform she has. My Mind & Me, in more ways than one, is part of that something, as are the charities she’s a part of, along with the Rare Impact Fund.
Selena Gomez’s My Mind & Me is now streaming on Apple TV+.