Kayla Blanton

Gomez has long been open about her experience with lupus, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks its own tissues, causing inflammation in the joints, skin, heart, lungs, kidneys, and elsewhere. The condition results in a slew of symptoms, including chronic pain, fatigue, fevers, mouth sores, and kidney problems.Gomez first publicly discussed her lupus diagnosis in 2015, after she took a break from her global tour to undergo chemotherapy and mentally process it all. “I could’ve had a stroke,” she told Billboard. “I locked myself away until I was confident and comfortable again.”In 2017, Gomez revealed that she was additionally diagnosed with lupus nephritis—a lupus complication that affects the kidneys—and had to receive a kidney transplant that year. “It actually got to a point where it was life or death,” Gomez said at the 2017 Lupus Research Alliance’s Breaking Through Gala, per E! News. “Thankfully, one of my best friends [Francia Raisa] gave me her kidney and it was the ultimate gift of life. And I am doing quite well now.”The 31-year-old has continued to candidly speak about living with lupus—including how it affects her mental health and medication side effects—in the hope of raising awareness about chronic illness. “Yeah, we have days where maybe we feel like sh*t, but I would much rather be healthy and take care of myself,” she said in a TikTok live stream shared to Twitter in February. “My medications are important, and I believe they’re what helps me.” She continued: “I just wanted to…encourage anyone out there who feels any sort of shame for exactly what they’re going through, and no one knows the real story.”3. Venus WilliamsPascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesIn 2011, after withdrawing from the US Open due to illness, Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune condition characterized by joint pain, fatigue, and its hallmark symptoms: dry eyes and dry mouth. It took the tennis player seven years of feeling “off” to finally get answers about her condition, she said in a 2022 YouTube video.

In 2021, Tia Mowry shared with People that her eczema had been misdiagnosed for years. “Eczema is definitely a chronic condition that’s very prominent within the African American community, but unfortunately, there’s a huge percentage of people suffering with [it] and it actually goes underdiagnosed,” she said.She told InStyle that when she was in her 20s, her Black gynecologist noticed the peeling skin on her hands and referred her to a dermatologist. But her symptoms first popped up during childhood in the form of raised, itchy round spots on her arms. “When my mother would take me to the pediatrician, the doctor told us they were sunspots,” she told People.According to the National Eczema Association, eczema flare-ups in people with deeper skin tones tend to appear as brown, purple, or gray rashes, rather than the pink or red patches that appear on people with lighter skin.Now that she understands what triggers her flare-ups, including stress and certain foods she identified via allergy testing (less dairy, no alcohol), Mowry has felt a “huge shift” and has learned how to better care for her condition. And she wants other people of color to know they’re not alone if their story feels similar to hers: “I feel like that’s why I’m extremely passionate about representation and why it is so important. When you see someone that resonates with you or that looks like you, it makes a huge impact.”

It’s highly unlikely that you’ve ever seen Dolly Parton without a smile on her face. But just like any other person, the “Jolene” singer experiences the full spectrum of human emotions, including anger. It’s how she channels her rage that makes her who she is. “I don’t lose my temper, but I use my temper,” she recently said in an interview with Nancy O’Dell on TalkShopLive, per People. “Of course, I’ve lost it a few times but it’s not that I’m losing my temper, I’m trying to use it because sometimes there are just some people you have to speak up to.”As Anusha Atmakuri, LPC, the founder and CEO of Antara Counseling and Wellness in Austin previously told SELF, “Anger is often the first layer of emotion, protecting or masking other emotions like disappointment, overwhelm, hurt, hunger, guilt, or shame.” And when the fire you’re feeling intensifies, the only way to put it out is to take a step back.“To stop the anger spiral, create space between your emotions and actions,” Stacey B. Daughters, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist previously told SELF. (Listen to a meditation app, go for a rage run, or let it all out in a journal, for example.)Parton combines some of those techniques with her go-to coping skill: songwriting. Anger is particularly apparent in her recent single, “World on Fire.” The track comments on the polarized climate in the US, with lyrics like: “Now how are we to live in a world like this? Greedy politicians, present and past. They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ‘em in the ass.”She told O’Dell that she wrote it after waking up in the middle of the night with a heavy heart. “With all the greed and the hate and just everything, it just bottled up in me,” she explained. “And I felt I needed to say something because I just felt like I should and somebody might listen.”If a tense situation involves Parton’s work or family, though, it’s more difficult to neatly package her anger into a song. “I’m just a regular person. I’m not one where I’m one person out here and another [in private]. I’m a businessperson. Sometimes you’ve just kind of gotta pitch a fit to get it done or get it done right,” she said. “Like I’ve always said, I’ll tell ya where to put it if I don’t like where you got it. I think anybody’s like that.”She did admit, though, that it takes a lot for her to reach that point: “You gotta push me pretty far to get me stirred up.” Related: 

We’ve all heard the term “mid-life crisis” used around a person’s 50th birthday, but what Stacy London didn’t realize until she hit that age is that the phrase bypasses (or at the very least, skims over) the world-shaking transition that is menopause.“At around 47, when I started to experience a difference in my career, difference in my physical appearance, difference in my mood, difference in my financial situation, I started to think, ‘Oh my God, is this a midlife crisis?’” the former What Not to Wear host, now 54, recently told People. “And frankly, I didn’t know anything about menopause. I didn’t know anything about hormonal fluctuation and I didn’t know how it affected all parts of the body.”Menopause, a stage that marks the end of a person’s period, can trigger all sorts of symptoms, not just the hot flashes and vaginal dryness that make punchlines in movies. According to the Office on Women’s Health, it can also lead to trouble sleeping, brain fog, urinary problems, and emotional ups and downs. “[The symptoms] also feel scary when it’s about mood, rage, anxiety, dread, depression,” London added. “When all of those things happen around the same time or you don’t know that they’re connected to each other, it can feel like a deluge of things are going wrong.”It can be confusing, too. “I remember saying to my therapist, ‘I think I have early Alzheimer’s,’ and she was like, ‘Well, you probably have brain fog,’” London told Alloy, a menopause solutions company, in June. “It’s not just understanding what’s going on with your hormones so that you can take care of yourself, physically. There is a huge mental health component here, which for me was essential to understand. Not understanding it really led to a crisis of confidence.”London’s mission is to make sure people know “it’s not wrong for any of these things to happen.” In the US, most people experience menopause by age 52, and its arrival doesn’t have to be a crisis at all. “It’s that we have to connect the dots in order to understand what is happening to us—because any one of those symptoms by themselves is very easy to brush aside and dismiss,” she stressed.She added that the grind of everyday life tends to compound these struggles, so it’s important to speak with a doctor to help you navigate potential treatments like hormone therapy. “We need to rid menopause of stigma and shame and fear, and it is a very natural transition that we have sort of almost villainized in our society,” London said. “It is something that we need to learn to accept and sort of shift our perspective around so that we can really have great tools to manage it and see what happens on the other side of it.”Related:

When Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia that later progressed into dementia, his wife, Emma Heming Willis, became his primary caregiver—or, as she calls it, “care partner.” The experience hasn’t been easy—but she’s determined to find the beauty in it, and she hopes other caregivers do too.On Monday, after taking a solo hike, the 45-year-old shared an Instagram video that encouraged caregivers to make time for themselves, even when it’s hard. “It’s so important for us to sort of break up our thinking, which can feel, for me, very much like doom and gloom,” she said. “I know it looks like I’m out living my best life. I have to make a conscious effort every single day…. I do that for myself, I do that for our two children, and Bruce, who would not want me to live any other way.”Instagram contentThis content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.As Willis clarified, just because she shares personal glimpses of positivity doesn’t mean she goes without darkness. “I don’t want it to be misconstrued that, like, I’m good. Because I’m not. I’m not good,” she said. “But I have to put my best foot forward for the sake of myself and my family.”Willis is still learning how to balance caregiving with nourishing herself—but that process became especially necessary when her initial self-neglect began taking a toll. “I plan, organize, look after everyone and I still rarely make time for me,” she wrote in an April Instagram post. “[My family is] giving me the permission—almost begging me to make time for myself—and I need to shhhh, listen, and just go.”With that lesson in mind, in her recent post, Willis invited other care partners to join her by sharing pictures of their days with her. “I just want you to take a moment,” she said. “And I know that your day is stressful. And I know that your day is hard. But I want you to just break it up for a minute, just for a second, and just look for something beautiful.”Followers appreciated the authenticity and encouraging words. “When the airline oxygen masks fall, you’re told to put your mask on first,” one person commented. “You have to do what you need to do to help you get through this,” another added.In Willis’s caption, she called the clip a “care partner PSA,” adding: “My message is simple. When we are not looking after ourselves, we are no good to the people we love who we want to show up for and take care of. I don’t have this down to a fine science either, but I try.”Related:

In 2003, Brooke Shields gave birth to her first child, Rowan Francis—but, to her surprise, she didn’t “feel at all joyful” when she welcomed her daughter. Instead, she was overwhelmed, felt disconnected from her baby, and “feelings of doom” and suicidal thoughts crept in. She was ultimately diagnosed with postpartum depression (PPD) and prescribed an antidepressant along with weekly therapy sessions, she wrote in a New York Times op-ed published in 2005.Nearly 20 years later, Kelly Clarkson is thanking Shields for being so open about what she went through—especially during a time when discussing mental health was far more stigmatized (even though we still have a long way to go with that). “I have a lot of friends who have suffered from postpartum depression,” Clarkson recently told Shields on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “And people don’t understand it if you’ve never experienced it.”PPD isn’t just the “baby blues,” or the feelings of sadness that often develop after childbirth, typically within a few days after delivery. Around one in nine people who give birth develop PPD, a mental health condition that’s triggered by extreme hormonal fluctuations during and after pregnancy, as well as other physical and emotional changes that occur after giving birth, according to the Office on Women’s Health.PPD is typically characterized by severe mental health symptoms that last longer than two weeks after giving birth, like feelings of depression, anxiety, detachment toward the baby, guilt or worthlessness, insomnia, and suicidal ideation, among others. (On August 4, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first prescription pill to treat the condition.)Although Clarkson, who has two children of her own, didn’t experience PPD, she admired Shields’s honesty about hers, which didn’t come without public resistance. “I love how, not only you were open about it, but then people came against you about it, and you ended up writing an op-ed,” the singer said. “It’s so important because not a lot of people have a voice for that, and you have a giant spotlight on you. So for you to not only stand up for yourself, but stand up for all those other women, it was incredible.”Shields insisted that she felt like she had to speak up. “I don’t know if it was courageous, but it was necessary,” she said. “And I think that, as a mother of a daughter, at the time, now two daughters, I owe it to them to tell the truth about something that is so frightening. So many people suffer. Untreated, [PPD] can be devastating.”In an April interview on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, Shields recalled ceasing her medication “cold turkey” after she started feeling better. “I thought I was going to drive my car into the wall on the 405,” she said, referring to a freeway in California, per Page Six. She quickly called her doctor, who told her to resume her prescription “immediately.”

Salma Hayek is embracing her grays—and everything they represent. Over the weekend the actor, 56, shared a carousel of car selfies and playfully joked about the “wisdom” she’s gaining in the form of salt-and-pepper roots.This is the second selfie Hayek has recently shared featuring her silver streaks. On June 6, she posted a refreshingly close-up selfie that depicted a few gray flyaways. “Me waking up and counting how many white hairs and wrinkles have crashed the party this morning,” she wrote.Following in the footsteps of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Andie MacDowell, Hayek stands firmly in the camp that aging is “beautiful,” as she told Glamour in February. In fact, when asked if there was a part of getting older that she thought would be different, she simply answered: “everything.”Instagram contentThis content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.Societal norms and Hollywood beauty standards made Hayek believe that, over time, aging would kill her career, and even affect her chances of having a fulfilling relationship. But she’s proven that wrong every day. “I thought getting older meant I wasn’t going to work; I’m working. I thought getting older maybe meant that you’re not in love anymore; I’m in love,” she said. “I don’t feel that I lost my flexibility or my agility or even my strength. I do have to say that I have found it beautiful, getting older with someone.”In a 2021 interview with Today, she shared a similar sentiment while discussing the ups and downs of menopause. “You can kick ass at any age,” she said. “You can hold your own at any age, you can dream at any age, you can be romantic at any age. We have the right to be loved for who we are at the place that we are.”Now, Hayek is simply leaning into gratitude. “Hell, I’m still going,” she told Glamour. “I’m still here. And it’s kind of like a laughter more than ‘I’ve made it.’”Related:

Six months after Martina Navratilova shared her “double whammy” cancer diagnosis with the world—stage 1 throat cancer and unrelated early-stage breast cancer—doctors have declared her free of the disease. But the tennis star is still processing the emotional whiplash she endured during treatment.“I was diagnosed early December and I finally got the all-clear three weeks ago, so it really has been seven months of hell, emotionally and physically,” the 66-year-old said in a recent interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, per People.In late 2022, Navratilova noticed a sore lump on her neck. Testing revealed it as stage 1 throat cancer linked to human papillomavirus, which she was told “responds very well to treatment,” she wrote in an announcement. However, upon undergoing additional screenings, a “suspicious form” was detected in her breast and diagnosed as cancerous.While undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, Navratilova lost about 25 pounds. In a recent interview with The Washington Post, she added that she also experienced insomnia and extreme weakness that required her to hold a glass of water with two hands. “Everything felt just wrong,” she said.Then there were the other physical side effects—an inability to stay warm, and pain when swallowing, for example. “The actual treatment was horrific,” she told Good Morning Britain. “It really beat me up. It was brutal.”In tennis, Navratilova prided herself on being in control of her game, and cancer treatment forced her to let go of that, which was difficult. “As a top-level athlete, you think you’re going to live to a hundred and that you can rehab it all,” she told The Washington Post. “And then you realize, ‘I can’t rehab this.’” In her interview with Good Morning Britain, she admitted that “powerlessness definitely came for me.”Thanks to her support system—including her wife, Real Housewives of Miami star Julia Lemigova, and her longtime tennis rival and friend, Chris Evert (who was also diagnosed with cancer in 2021)—Navratilova kept going.Lemigova “would come in and out” of filming to be with her, she said. “And of course, Chris and I had gone through the same thing essentially and [were] supporting each other.”This journey marks Navratilova’s second one with breast cancer—she was also treated for it in 2010. On June 19, she celebrated being cancer-free once again. “I got the all clear!” she tweeted. “What a relief.”Related: 

It’s official: Simone Biles is returning to the competition floor for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics—but not without some mental preparation.In June, a USA Gymnastics press release announced that the 26-year-old will compete at the 2023 US Classic in August alongside fellow Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee and 2020 Olympic floor champion Jade Carey, among other medalists. Biles confirmed the news on Twitter, writing that she’s “overwhelmed” by fans’ support and “excited to get back.”In honor of the announcement, Biles recently hosted an Instagram Story Q&A, per People, and when a fan asked her how she’s “handling the mental side” of her comeback, she answered honestly.“Lots of therapy,” she reportedly wrote. “I go once a week for almost two hours. I’ve had so much trauma, so being able to work on some of the traumas and work on healing is a blessing.”At the pandemic-postponed Tokyo games in 2021, Biles withdrew from the US women’s gymnastics team all-around final after making some rare mistakes in the qualifying round. Although she did return to earn bronze on the balance beam, she later attributed her errors to a case of the twisties, which occurs when an athlete’s mind and body have a disconnect midair, resulting in a potentially dangerous loss of muscle memory and spatial awareness, SELF previously reported. She also cited the need to focus on her mental health.In a post-games interview with Today, Biles connected the severity of her twisties to longtime repression of being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. “Over the years, after suppressing so many emotions and putting up a front on a global scene, I think really all of that came to light,” she said. “My body and my mind allowed me to suppress all of that stuff for so many years for as long as it could take. And as soon as we stepped on the Olympics scene, it just decided it couldn’t do it anymore, and it cracked.”Since then, Biles has continued to speak candidly about her withdrawal and has become one of professional sports’ top mental health advocates. “It’s challenging to talk about how you’re doing mentally since it’s an invisible injury,” she told Good Housekeeping last year. “People can’t see it, so it’s harder to understand, but I think that’s why it’s so important we feel empowered to open up about it.”In 2021, Biles admitted to Today that she was “still scared” to do certain gymnastics moves, but therapy, time, and the support of family, friends, and fans have fueled her imminent return. In her Q&A, she recalled discovering the sport on a day care field trip. “I instantly fell in love,” she wrote. “And have done it ever since.”Related: 

Five years after Demi Lovato experienced a near-fatal overdose, the 30-year-old singer continues to live with long-term complications, including partial hearing and vision loss, she recently shared on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, per E! News.The topic came up when Lovato told Cohen that she wouldn’t change her life’s path despite its challenges. “The closest thing that I get to a regret is when I overdosed,” they explained. “It actually caused a disability. I have vision impairment and hearing impairment to this day.” She doesn’t drive because of “blind spots” in her vision. In fact, she said she couldn’t fully see Cohen during their interview.These life-altering complications serve as a “constant reminder to stay on the right path,” she said, “because I never want that to happen again.”In July 2018, emergency medical personnel reportedly transported Lovato to a Los Angeles hospital after responding to a call of an overdose. Lovato said she took OxyContin which she believes also contained fentanyl, another synthetic opioid. Research has shown that opioids can cause auditory and visual damage in the form of blurred vision, double vision, partial or total vision loss, progressive or sudden hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo, among other effects. In the weeks before Lovato’s overdose, she was using various substances, as SELF previously reported. “I’d never done meth before, I tried meth. I mixed it with molly, with coke, weed, alcohol, OxyContin. And that alone should have killed me,” she said in her 2021 YouTube docuseries Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, per ET Online.The overdose also caused her to have three strokes and a heart attack. “I was left with brain damage,” she said. For a couple of months, she had a “really hard time reading,” they added, “because my vision was so blurry.”Now that she’s sober, the “Confident” singer is “in a more positive mind space,” she told Cohen. “I’m not focusing on the shame at all because I have a lot of sympathy for where I was at at that time and the choices that I made, and I understand why it happened and what happened. But there’s no shame that comes with it because it was just a life lesson that I had to learn.”Instead, she chooses to focus on the fact that she survived. “It could’ve been so much worse,” they said. “I’m grateful that it is only what it is.”Related: