Camila Cabello is speaking out about her mental health for Mental Health Month.
The 23-year-old singer wrote an essay for WSJ Magazine where she details her struggles, and speaks about her battles with OCD and anxiety.
“If you look at the pictures I’ve posted on Instagram over the last year, you’ll find pictures of me writing in the studio, pictures in a hallway in a bomb-dot-com outfit before going onstage to perform, pictures of me cuddled up with my dog, Eugene, on a couch, and pictures of me bursting with excitement to play you my music,” Camila wrote. “But here’s what there aren’t pictures of from the last year: me crying in the car talking to my mom about how much anxiety and how many symptoms of OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder] I was experiencing. My mom and me in a hotel room reading books about OCD because I was desperate for relief. Me experiencing what felt like constant, unwavering, relentless anxiety that made day-to-day life painfully hard.”
“I didn’t want to tell you what was going on for the same reason a lot of us don’t want to talk about what it feels like to be at war in our minds and in our bodies. I was embarrassed and ashamed,” she added.
“For a few months, I felt messed up, with a capital UP. My anxiety manifested in the form of obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD is not how it’s stereotyped, like, ‘She’s so OCD about her desk being organized, etc.’ OCD can take many different forms, and for me it was obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors,” Camila continued.
“To put it simply, it made me feel like my mind was playing a cruel trick on me. It affected me physically, too. I couldn’t sleep for a long time, I had a constant knot in my throat, I had chronic headaches, and my body went through what felt like multiple roller-coaster rides every day,” she said. “I kept going and kept showing up, never letting people around me know how much I was really struggling. But you probably felt my distance on some level. All my loved ones did.”
For more of Camila Cabello‘s essay, visit WSJmagazine.com!
