As Camila Cabello gears up to make her feature film debut in the leading role of the now 2021-due ‘Cinderella’ reboot, she’s taken to ‘Wall Street Journal’ to confess her life is far from a fairy tale.
Penning a deeply personal essay for the publication to detail her battles with mental health (namely anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder), the award-winning singer-songwriter reveals her on-camera persona has differed from her true self in the past.
“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 I was experiencing,” wrote Cabello. “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.”
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“Embarrassed and ashamed” of her obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Cabello says she initially kept her feelings a secret.
“I didn’t want the people who thought I was strong and capable and confident — the people who most believed in me — to find out that I felt weak,” she wrote. “The little voice in my head was telling me that if I was honest about my mental health struggle and my internal battles (i.e. being human), people would think there was something wrong with me, or that I wasn’t strong, or that I couldn’t handle things.”
However, after consulting with mental health professionals for therapy and other coping mechanisms, the Grammy-nominee believes her condition is under better management.
“For a long time, anxiety felt like it was robbing me of my humor, my joy, my creativity and my trust,” Cabello wrote. “But now anxiety and I are good friends. I listen to her, because I know she’s just trying to keep me safe, but I don’t give her too much attention. And I sure as hell don’t let her make any decisions.”
To conclude the essay, Cabello encouraged fans to speak up and out to seek help if they are dealing with similar struggles.
“We live in a culture that pursues an unattainable perfection,” she wrote. “Social media can make us feel like we should be as perfect as everybody else seems to be. Far from being a sign of weakness, owning our struggles and taking the steps to heal is powerful.”
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Click here to read the essay in full.