Camila Cabello just released a new song alongside Pitbull and J Balvin, which will be on the Fate of the Furious new movie in just a couple of weeks. Now the songstress is on the April cover of Latina magazine where she opens up about coping with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and anxiety.
Cabello explains that everything started to fall apart late 2015 and the beginning of 2016. “ I had terrible OCD, and it was just totally out of control,” she says to Latina. “I would wake up with a super-accelerated heartbeat and really negative, intrusive, compulsive thoughts. I was so inside my head, and I didn’t know what was happening.”
It was something that was consuming her career and her life, so she had to teach herself about the importance of self-care. “I totally understand now, being in it, why there shouldn’t be such a stigma on mental illness, because it’s a pretty common thing for people,” she said. “But, you can get help. If you’re dedicated to making it better, you can—because I’m in a much better place now. I started reading books about it and it really helped a lot when I understood [the illness], and that [the thoughts I was having] weren’t real. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to slow down and take care of yourself.”
Last year she talked about her bouts of anxiety to Billboard, describing what a typical day felt like. ““My heart would beat really fast the whole day. Two hours after I woke up, I’d need a nap because my body was so hyperactive. It was so eff ― sorry, but it was so f**ked up. I was scared of what would happen to me, of the things my brain might tell me. I realized the stuff I thought was important isn’t worth my health.”
Perhaps this contributed to her leaving Fifth Harmony. “I started in the group when I was just 15. I needed to follow my heart and my artistic vision. I’m grateful for everything we had in Fifth Harmony and for [this new] opportunity. I am less focused on success and more on doing my best and pursuing my artistic vision to the fullest, wherever that takes me,” she says.