What Selena Gomez Learned From Her Battle With Lupus

Being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus is a frightening experience for everyone, even for A-list Hollywood star Selena Gomez. In fact, she believes she may have made the wrong decisions back then since she initially just couldn’t accept that she had the disease.

Gomez opened up about her private battle with lupus, which shows she’s just as fragile as the rest when facing the dreaded disease. In fact, she had a hard time accepting her condition. “I don’t think I made the right decisions because I didn’t accept it,” Selena Gomez told NBC in an interview.

Thus, she pushed herself too hard even after she was diagnosed with the disease back in 2015. “Extremely selfish and at the same time really … just unnecessary … You know I’m not really proud of that,” Gomez opened up about her initial reaction.

In hindsight, the singer-actress believes that her actions back then might have something to do with the pressure she felt due to her fame. “I don’t think I ever accepted the position I had,” Gomez revealed. “It was me feeling almost guilty about fame. People could see anyone in my position and just say, ‘Wow, they have it all figured out. They’ve got everything, they got to live this cool life.’”

And just like previous celebrities before her, she found out that fame has a price, and it’s a steep one at that. “You’re isolated,” the actress described how she felt back then. “You’re being looked at. You’re being judged.”

However, the singer believes that those experiences are not necessarily negative. “I think all the stuff that I went through made me … defined everything that I am right now,” she shared. “And it’s a really beautiful thing, I have to remind myself that it’s not a negative experience.”

But it’s when the going gets tough that one will really know who their true friends are. In Gomez case, it was her close friend, Francia Raísa, who stood by her during her darkest hours and even gave one of her kidneys to her.

“There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raísa,” Gomez wrote on Instagram, thanking her friend and donor. “She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me.”