A pop and electropop album, Symptoms chronicles Tisdale's silent battle with depression and anxiety, while employing implicit lyrics to give the songs multiple meanings.

[5] It debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200, selling 25,000 copies in the first week; this was significantly lower than the first-week sales for her previous album Headstrong (2007).

[7] While promoting the film Scary Movie 5 (2013), in which she starred, Tisdale said in an interview to MTV that she was inspired to create music again and confirmed that since 2012 she has been recording for her third studio album.

[8] Tisdale became engaged to musician Christopher French in August 2013 and they began working together on music for her third studio album.

[10] However, the song was not promoted to radio and Tisdale eventually paused working on the album because she "wasn't excited about anything [she] was doing"[7] and began adventuring into other ventures such as makeup and clothing lines.

[11][12][13] In 2016, Tisdale relaunched her YouTube channel and began posting acoustic cover versions of hit songs, collaborating with other artists such as Vanessa Hudgens, Lea Michele, Echosmith's Sydney Sierota and her husband Chris French.

[14] The success of the Paramore's "Still into You" cover featuring Chris French led Tisdale to release it as a promotional single in 2016.

Later in 2018, she discussed the mental health issues she had gone through with her co-writer Rachel West, and together they wrote a song titled "Symptoms", which led Tisdale to be inspired to resume work on her third studio album.

[17] Tisdale eventually signed with then-newly launched label Big Noise and in July, 2018, announced her third studio album would be titled Symptoms, which was then set to be released sometime in the fall of 2018.

Symptoms received positive reviews from music critics, with the only complaints pointing the album's short length.

[21] Ineye Komonibo, writing for Marie Claire, referred to the record as "emotionally-charged" and a "candid and vulnerable account of what it feels like to go through [anxiety] — and a passionate reminder that you're never alone".