Deepika Padukone reveals how her depression episode was being kept secret while she wondered, 'Why can’t people know?'

Deepika Padukone recalled her battle with depression as she launched a special initiative to promote mental wellbeing backed by her Live, Love Laugh foundation on Clubhouse. The Padmaavat actress revealed that there’s not a day that goes by where she doesn’t think about her mental health and works towards keeping maintain a routine without which she says she won’t survive.

Joining the launch of ‘Care Package’ on Clubhouse, Deepika recalled how she was diagnosed with depression in 2014 and what went through her mind then. “I would just feel empty and directionless. It just felt like life had no purpose. I couldn’t feel anything emotionally or physically. I started feeling like this for days and weeks until one day my mother was here. They were on their way back home and when they were packing their bags I was sitting in their room and I suddenly broke down. I think that’s when my mother realised for the first time that something was different. It wasn’t the usual boyfriend issue or stress at work. She kept asking me what it was but I couldn’t pinpoint one specific reason. She then encouraged me to seek help,” Deepika said during the discussion.

Deepika sought professional help to get over her depression talking about how life changed thereafter she said, “That’s when I got professional help in the form of a therapist and a psychiatrist. I had a particular life before depression and I live a very different life after that. There’s not a day that goes by without me thinking about my mental health. I have to work every single day on myself to be able to get to a place where I don’t go back to that space again. Therefore, the focus is on the quality of my sleep, nutrition, hydration, exercise and mindfulness and it’s not because they are some fancy words but because I wouldn’t be able to survive if I didn’t do all of this."

The actress who has worked hard to create conversation about mental health, especially with her Live, Love, Laugh foundation revealed how being a public person, there were concerns about keeping her depression battle a well guarded secret. “When I went through that entire experience, I felt like we were being really hush-hush about everything. We didn’t want my name to go out. We were scared about which therapist to reach out to and who would keep this information confidential. At that point, I just went with the flow because I just needed help,” the actress said.

Talking about taking her depression episode public, Deepika added, “It was months after that when I was thinking about how this whole thing went about and I said, ‘Why were we trying to be quiet about it? Why can’t people know? Why shouldn’t people know that this is what I have been through?’ I think that also came from my journey of wanting to be as authentic and honest as possible and if this is the experience I had then the world needs to know that. I think me coming out and talking about my experience was to let people know that ‘You are not alone and we are in this together.'"