Debbie Gibson Reveals How Her Lyme Disease Is Affecting ‘Dancing with the Stars’

Singer and actress Debbie Gibson is getting candid about her Lyme disease diagnosis and her decision to do “Dancing with the Stars.”

After her first dance with her partner Alan, Gibson spoke with “Extra's” Terri Seymour about how she was feeling, saying, “Right now, I'm running on adrenaline and just the joyfulness of what just happened. I was in a panic this morning, my nervous system was doing weird things. I had a practioner come to the set, my life has been very unpredictable, a little more dramatic than I'd like it to be, but it's my life, and I have just chosen this moment to embrace it and stop harping on what I can't do and what my body can't do and start focusing on what I can do.”

Touching on her Lyme disease, she said, “I've had it almost five years, diagnosed four years and when it goes about a year without being diagnosed it goes deep into your neurological systems and causes really random, unpredictable symptoms and you see me now, standing here feeling relatively healthy. I've had many days where I woke up and couldn't move.”

“Even this week," Alan chimed in.

Despite her struggles, Debbie didn't want to give up, saying, “The deep voice in my head said, 'This is not your life, there's a way out of this, keep going, keep going,' and this is part of that process for me.”

As for why she chose to do the competition show, the 47-year-old explained, “I felt like I was starting to get stuck and I wasn't fully healing staying at home and resting and eating right. I was doing all the right things, and yet I was still stuck in a cycle. I thought what's missing from my life is the joy of performing – the lights, camera, action – the interaction with great people and this is a big, bold way to kinda test myself and see what I can do. "