Pathaan and Project K actress Deepika Padukone, whose film Gehraiyaan released early this year, recently joined Meghan Markle, Duchess Of Sussex, to discuss the stigma surrounding mental health issues in the Duchess’ podcast, Archetypes.
Opening up to Meghan about her mental health journey, and what it was like to go public about her personal experience with depression, Deepika dropped some truth bombs about people’s reaction to the ordeal she went through.
Deepika narrated how hard it was for her to process what she was going through
Credit: Dharma Productions, Viacom18 Studios, Jouska Films
Deepika talked about how she herself took time to process what was happening when she first experienced depression: “It just came out of the blue. I woke up, I fell, my blood pressure dropped, and then the next thing I know, my life just felt meaningless. I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I struggled with this for many, many months. I would break down at the drop of a hat. All of it felt so disorienting.”
The fact that despite going through this harrowing experience, Deepika still went ahead and put herself out there just to help other people. She spoke about it and had to relive her trauma for the sake of being of service to others. One would think this would be applauded, but unfortunately, even this raised questions.
Deepika got brutally honest about the negative reactions she received
Credit: Dharma Productions, Viacom18 Studios, Jouska Films
Deepika opened up about how suspicions were raised about the authenticity of her experiences. Talking about how she was accused of talking about depression for publicity, and for advertising medicines, Deepika got real about the cynicism her story was met with.
She said, “With everything good that you do, there will always be skepticism. There were a bunch of people who felt that either I was doing this to promote a movie, or they thought I was being paid by a pharmaceutical company. There were articles on this where they thought that I was being paid by a pharmaceutical company, and that I’m now going to start advertising for some sort of medication.”
Deepika said that surviving depression made her want to help others
Credit: Dharma Productions, Viacom18 Studios, Jouska Films
Deepika cleared up, once and for all, why she decided to talk about this issue in public. Discussing how coming out of that dark phase propelled her to do good things for others, she said, “In 2015, after I’d come out of mental illness, as difficult as dealing with mental illness was, I’m also grateful that I went through that experience. My life then on has been about purpose. I’ve had this sort of life and death experience and when you come out the other side, there’s so much to be grateful for. It’s no more about what is that paycheck I’m taking. It’s about when I leave this place, when I leave the earth, what is it that I can leave behind and how many lives can I positively impact.”
Surely, she should be supported and encouraged in her efforts to raise awareness about mental health conditions, instead of being derided.
Lead image credit: Reuters, Dharma Productions, Viacom18 Studios, Jouska Films
