16 Celebs Who Didn't Shy Away From Conversing About Mental Health & Sharing Their Own Struggles
The worst thing about mental illness is that sometimes it's hard to gauge whether you or your loved ones are suffering from it. Unlike other physical diseases, mental disease doesn't show any prominent symptoms. Neither is there a test that can conclude positive or negative results to show whether or not a person is suffering from such a disease.?
Sometimes, it gets really difficult to tell the difference between the signs of mental disorders or expected behaviors of people. It can make people behave irrationally sometimes.?
What's worse about this is the stigma and taboo that society has placed around it. Most people don't open up about their struggles because they are mocked, misjudged and misinterpreted.?
Bollywood Celebrities who opened up on their own Mental Health struggles?
It's important to normalise conversations about it so that people, without second thoughts, can open up about their feelings, consult doctors and undergo the necessary treatment.?
Opening up about depression, anxiety and mental illness is not considered worthy of attention but indeed it is. Normalising this conversation, several Bollywood stars have opened up about their own battles of having panic attacks and painful numbness and motivated people to reach out for support.?
1. Aamir Khan and daughter Ira Khan
On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, Aamir Khan and daughter Ira Khan shared a video spreading mental health awareness and letting people know that seeking therapy is as normal as seeking help from a doctor or a carpenter.
Aamir Khan says in the video, "My daughter Ira and I have been reaping the benefits of therapy for years. If you also feel like you're going through mental or emotional issues, you can seek a trained professional's help. There's no shame in that. All the best."
His daughter Ira Khan says, "Similarly, if we ever need help with our mental or emotional health, we should seek help, with the same ease and lack of hesitation, from someone who's trained and is a professional."
2. Shaheen Bhatt
?Alia Bhatt¡¯s sister Shaheen Bhatt authored a book that details her struggle with mental health. She said that she has been battling it since the age of 12.
¡°Mental illness has been a part of my life ever since I was 12. I woke up one day and felt empty, hollow and just... confused,¡± she told Humans Of Bombay.?
She said she would think of herself as a ¡°typical teenager - one who was irritable, slept too much and never left her room¡±. She would refuse to get help for six years because she ¡°didn't want to seem ¡®weak or crazy.¡¯¡±
She was left out of a photoshoot with sisters Alia and Pooja because she was "overweight and much darker."?
¡°Incidents like these, along with my schoolmates making fun of me for my weight made me feel like I'm not good enough,¡± she added.
3. Alia Bhatt
The actress who taught us that seeking therapy is not a sign of weakness but a step towards understanding the cause of our problems and overcoming them in the healthiest way possible, faced bouts of anxiety herself.
¡°I haven't been depressed but I've had bouts of anxiety. It comes and goes. It's been happening quite a bit since the past five to six months. It's not like an anxiety attack but I just feel low. Thankfully, I'm aware of it because of my sister. She¡¯s fought depression. I¡¯ve read her book,¡± she told Filmfare in an interview.
4. Masaba Gupta
Daughter of Neena Gupta and celebrity designer Masaba Gupta de-tabooed the stigma around mental health and admitted that she is struggling and going for therapy.
¡°If Deepika Padukone can admit she battled depression, so can I,¡± she wrote.
¡°I think, for me, so much of my anxiety comes from the need for validation. People assume that being an artist, I can effortlessly put myself out there, but it¡¯s tough. Every time I showcase my work, like anything else, it is critiqued. It¡¯s like a part of me is being scrutinised.¡±
She also opened up on going for therapy. ¡° I started going to therapy, talking to people that were close to me. While all this helped, I knew that I couldn¡¯t depend on others forever; I needed to help myself. So I taught myself how to do that. I constantly talked to myself about how I was feeling, so I could actually understand what was happening. I think that for me, the greatest antidote to anxiety is the acceptance of reality.I¡¯ve had to learn to live with this feeling and not get angry at myself for it, and every time I¡¯m able to talk myself out of it, I count it as a win,¡± she wrote.
5. Manisha Koirala
Manisha Koirala has suffered from acute clinical depression allegedly due to issues in her marital life.
¡°There have been times when I¡¯ve broken down and done all those horrible things you do when you¡¯re depressed. I still go through it. And while I give in to my sorrow and cry like hell, and the whole drama that the world is crashing down is going on in my head, there¡¯s also an awareness that this too shall pass. All that hurt me deeply could have broken someone else but only made me stronger,¡± she said in an interview.?
6. Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone has often spoken about her long battle with depression and the daily struggles that she had to live with.?
When depression sank in, she came to terms with it in the year 2014, she had said. ¡°It all started on February 15 last year. I¡¯d won all my awards and all the appreciation for 2013 and everything had been accomplished. It was a great time. But I woke up one morning, just feeling empty. I woke up feeling directionless. I didn¡¯t know where to go. I didn¡¯t know what to do¡±.
She would cry inconsolably and her mother got worried. ¡°I kept crying. I think my mother sort of sensed that something was wrong. She asked me if it had something to do with my personal life. Is it your work? Has someone said something to you? And it was none of these reasons¡±.
While seeking professional help is considered to be highly skeptical in our society, Deepika said her family helped through it. "It was my parents who said when you have a headache or when you have a fever you take medicine so don¡¯t think twice."
¡°Realise that you are not alone, that we are in this together and most importantly that there is hope,¡± she told NDTV in an interview.
7. Honey Singh
Honey Singh was on the peak of his career when his mental health went for a toss. He was a judge/mentor on a reality show, but things turned upside down and he had to leave it mid-way. After years, he revealed to the fans, he had bipolar disorder.
For years nobody knew where Honey Singh was. ¡°The last 18 months were the darkest phase of my life, and I wasn¡¯t in a state to talk to anyone. I know there were rumours that I was in rehab (for drug overdose), but I was in my Noida house throughout,¡± he told TOI in an interview.
¡°The truth is I was suffering from bipolar disorder. It went on for 18 months, during which I changed four doctors, the medication wasn¡¯t working on me and crazy things were happening. I must confess that I was bipolar and an alcoholic, which aggravated the condition,¡± he said.??
8. Shama Sikander?
Shama Sikander has been very vocal about her struggles with bipolar disorder and depression. After successfully battling it, she called the illness a "pandemic."
¡°That is the darkest time anybody can ever have. That is like waking up with a pandemic almost every moment and minute of your life. You don't know what's going to happen, you are so uncertain. You don't even have desires at that time. The saddest part is that you don't have any hope. A desire is something that keeps a human being alive because if we lose all desires then you don't know the purpose of your life,¡± she told IANS.
It was in 2016, when Shama, who rose to fame playing Pooja in the 2004 slice-of-life TV show Yeh Meri Life Hai, came out and spoke about her struggles.
¡°Depression or bipolar are mental situations where you tend to lose hope and desires and that is the darkest space any human being can ever be in,¡± she said, adding, ¡°I don't think there is anything sadder than that. It's the worse a human being can go through and if you survive that you can survive anything, any pandemic."
9. Ileana D'Cruz?
Ileana D'Cruz battled depression and body dysmorphic disorder.
¡°There was a period; approximately 3 years ago, I had gone from happy to being completely depressed and not knowing what it was. The most comforting thought for me was what if I end things now! And I thankfully realised that this is not right. I never thought I'd be somebody dealing with anxiety or depression,¡± she said in 2017.
But she added that it all changed with acceptance, and called it the first step towards battling depression. "They told me you know that you have depression; you have anxiety, you're going through body dysmorphic disorder. There was an acceptance that almost came in immediately and I think that it is one of the biggest steps that you can take towards change or you can't move forward otherwise. I don't care if I'm gonna fail again! I just wanna keep pushing and you know you're not meant to be perfect; you're meant to be flawed," said the actor.
10. Anushka Sharma
It was in 2017 that Anushka Sharma confessed that she suffered from anxiety.
¡°I have anxiety. And I¡¯m treating my anxiety. I¡¯m on medication for my anxiety. Why am I saying this? Because it¡¯s a completely normal thing. It¡¯s a biological problem. In my family there have been cases of depression. More and more people should talk openly about it. There is nothing shameful about it or something to hide. If you had constant stomach pain, wouldn¡¯t you go to the doctor? It¡¯s that simple. I want to make this my mission, to take any shame out of this, to educate people about this¡±.
11. Shraddha Kapoor?
In 2019, Shraddha Kapoor also opened up on facing anxiety issues for six long years. The 32-year old actor said that after the release of Aashiqui 2 in 2013, she realised about experiencing pain that did not have any physiological diagnosis.
"I didn¡¯t even know what was anxiety. We didn¡¯t know it for a very long time. It was just after Aashiqui 2 where I had these physical manifestations of anxiety. There¡¯s this pain happening where there was no physiological diagnosis. We got so many tests done but there was nothing wrong with me in the doctor¡¯s report. It¡¯s bizarre because I kept thinking about why I was getting that pain. Then I kept asking myself why that is happening," she told Pinkvilla.
12. Hrithik Roshan
Hrithik Roshan had also revealed about experiencing "depression and confusion". He said mental illness shall not be stigmatised because it is a serious issue that people need help with.
¡°Sometimes your brain takes over and it kinds of feeds you with unwanted thoughts. Feeds you with thoughts which are not aligned with what you want to do in life and that is the time you need an objective point of view or a third person to look at you and tell you that this is what has happened because you lose awareness at that time.¡±
13. Karan Johar
Karan Johar revealed he suffered an anxiety attack for the first time in the middle of a meeting.
¡°There was a phase in my life when I was really depressed. When I went through that phase, I thought I was going to have a cardiac arrest. I felt it in the middle of a meeting two and half years ago, after which I left the meeting in between saying I have something urgent to do and rushed to the doctor. He then said I am having an anxiety attack. I went to a psychologist post. Then I realised that I had some internal issues to deal with, which got built up to such a point that it resulted in anxiety.¡±
He said he had a lot of pent up issues to deal with. ¡°Those sessions (medication) made a big difference to me. During those sessions, we touched on many things in my life. I felt that I did not deal entirely with the loss of my father, though it's been 11or 12 years, I felt the pain and hurt of certain relationships that had dwindled from my life and I was carrying all that baggage. And the fear of the future, the fear that I was not being able to find a life partner. At one point the lack of love in my life was really bothering me. Today I feel a lot more free of it. I feel there are loads of other things to look forward to.¡±
14. Shah Rukh Khan
Shah Rukh Khan suffered from depression post his shoulder surgery in 2010.?
¡°Due to the shoulder injury and the suffering I had got into a depression mode but now I am out of it. I feel happy and boosted with energy. I feel so much healthier and refreshed from within,¡± he said.
15. Varun Dhawan
While shooting for his film Badlapur, Varun Dhawan was battling depression.?
¡°I was depressed. I was not clinically declared depressed but I was heading there. I was very sad to a certain degree. I don't want to use the term 'depression' loosely because it's a serious illness. It definitely affected my mental health. I was prescribed and did see a doctor for it as well.¡±
16. Randeep Hooda
Randeep Hooda opened up about being depressed during the shoot of Imtiaz Ali's Highway and Sarbjit, for which he shed around 18 kg in 28 days by just surviving on coffee.
¡°There was a big hangover after 'Sarbjit' because of the involvement that was required in the film. It all lingers on. It has happened before as well. After ¡®Highway¡¯, I was depressed for a long time. I had to tell myself that I am not a petty taxi driver and that is not my life. Nobody loves me the way other characters loved mine in the film. You have to go through such things at times.¡±
On World Mental Health Day, we hope that this will give you the courage to fight whatever that's consuming you from within.
(If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918)? ??
