Deepika Padukone, Tahira Kashyap, Shah Rukh Khan: Bollywood Celebs Who Spoke About the Importance of Mental Health

In India, discussing about mental illness is still considered to be a topic of no importance. However, the world is changing and so in past years many Bollywood celebrities have openly talked about how they dealt with depression. Obviously, one needs to have guts to speak about something this personal and thanks to a few Indian stars, the topic is gaining momentum. Also, there is one thing about mental disorder and it never discriminates. Depression will not see your social status and hit you, but anyone can fall prey to it.

So, here we bring to you a list of Bollywood celebrities who have battled their way from a mental disorder and proved nothing is impossible:

Tahira Kashyap

The latest celeb to open about depression is none other than Ayushmann Khurrana's wife, Tahira Kashyap. In her recent interview with Mid-Day she talked about the tough times she went through. “I never treated my body, mind and soul as one entity. I always thought physical health was important, and mental toh kuch hota hi nahin hai. So, I exercised a lot. But I think [the cancer] was a manifestation of the negativity that I had been harbouring,” she said.

“Had I gone to a doctor, I would have been declared clinically depressed. But I chose to cry every night instead of visiting one. I was living a dual life. My husband was shooting; I would spend hours at night crying, and put up the front of a happy person in the morning so that I didn’t look like a loser before my children, who were aged two and four then,” she added.

Shah Rukh Khan

Up next, we have superstar Shahrukh Khan who also had made it official that he was caught in the clutches of depression in 2010 after his shoulder surgery.

During the time, SRK had said, "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."

Deepika Padukone

The leggy lass, Deepika Padukone shared her encounter with depression during a TV interview. But it did not stop there, as she now owns an institute which helps people to cope up with the mental disorder.

"I thought it was stress, so I tried to distract myself by focusing on work, and surrounding myself with people, which helped for a while. But the nagging feeling didn’t go away. My breath was shallow, I suffered from lack of concentration and I broke down often", DP had said in the interview. Deepika Padukone Takes a Dig on Salman Khan for His ‘Luxury of Depression’ Statement.

Anushka Sharma

The Zero actress via Twitter shared her thoughts on a quote related to depression. She had written, "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 a 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."

Varun Dhawan

This last name might come as a shocker, but actor Varun Dhawan in one of his interviews had revealed that went through a tough time while shooting for Badlapur. He had said, "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," he added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 25, 2019 06:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).