Mental health in India has always been seen as a hush-hush affair. Being the taboo that it is, we rarely find people or even celebrities willing to address it. Recently, Bigg Boss 14 winner, Rubina Dilaik broke away from convention and joined the ranks of people who have opened up about their mental health.
Rubina has always been one of the most open and outspoken people in the Bigg Boss house, and she dropped a bombshell when she spoke about her depression in one of the episodes. In a recent interview, she opened up about her experience.
In the interview with Bollywood Bubble, Rubina talks about understanding and then trying to overcome her depression. She shared with her viewers that she “did not understand it back then because no one spoke about depression back then.”
Image Credit: Instagram/rubinadilaik
Rubina, who has not shoed away from displaying her own weaknesses and working on them, took the audience through the grueling journey she went through about seven to eight years ago.
She said, “All I could do is turn up to self-care groups, listen to audiotapes. Here it was taboo to even lookup for a psychologist and at that time, we were aware of these things. I think I started taking therapy online and started healing.”
Image Credit: Instagram/rubinadilaik
We now live in a world where the words ‘therapy’ and ‘mental health’ do not immediately put people off, but still, a lot of us shy away from accepting professional help when it comes to things like depression. This is because of the negative portrayal of depression in popular media.
Depression comes with a lot of side effects, and this is not something many people know about or are told about. Talking about her mental health, Rubina said, “You just don’t feel like attracting new people, you want to sleep all day, you would be irritable. And that is when you realise you want to give up on yourself, give up on life.”
Image Credit: Instagram/rubinadilaik
Sadly, this is a common theme when it comes to depression and many other mental illnesses. The correct way to tackle this problem is by getting professional help. Even though mental health was not something that was talked about at that time, Rubina also got help via online counseling and therapy.
And now, she is helping to pass on knowledge and break the silence around mental health!
Image Credit: Instagram/rubinadilaik
We need people like Rubina, who speak up about issues and make it a commonplace topic rather than hiding ideas of mental health and depression behind layers of metaphors and jokes. The mental health conversation is many many years too late, and it is about time that pop media starts depicting it realistically.
Social and lead image credit: Instagram/rubinadilaik
