5 TV Celebs Who Opened Up About Mental Disorders And Broke The Taboo Around It!
Mental Disorder. The moment someone uses this phrase, they suffer the chance of being labeled. In fact, even though it is a known fact that so many of us have or are suffering from mental disorders, it is not given as much importance as physical illness. Words like depression are used with much less gravity than they should be and consulting a psychologist is something that very few of us opt for.
But thanks to our celebs, the taboo around mental illness has started to reduce. There have been a number of Bollywood celebs who have opened up about their experiences of mental disorder and how they overcame it. In fact, our TV celebs have also come forward and revealed how they suffered and got over mental illness. They have spoken about it at large and proved that we, the common people, are not the only ones. Here are 5 TV celebs who opened up about mental disorders:
1. Shama Sikander
Shama Sikander is one of the most prominent Tv personalities who has opened up about her bipolar disorder. While she revealed that she still finds it difficult to even talk about the experience, she also wants to reach out to people suffering the same fate. She said,
"It's the most difficult thing I have done in my life. I don't even know how I survived! I still wonder how strong I must be to be able to survive. I have always been unashamed of my life and not very afraid of sharing it to the world as well to a great extent."
She also said:
"For one year I did not even know what was happening to me so, I had no idea and I just used to feel very dark, gloomy and sad. I did not know what was the reason behind this, but I felt directionless. I felt hopeless and I hope that never happens to anybody because hope is what we survive on and if we don't have hope we have nothing. The feeling was so dark that I would wake up at night and start crying without knowing why I am crying. Only someone who has gone through it can understand and how I feel it is."
2. Kapil Sharma
Kapil Sharma has always found himself at the wrong side and from one of the most popular comedians, he has now become the one who is muddled in controversies. The first began when Kapil had a fallout with Sunil Grover. It got worse after one of his conversations with a journalist was leaked. But Kapil Sharma had made it very clear that he is suffering from depression. He said,
"I actually went into depression. I had stopped drinking to get fit for the film. I lost 12 kg. And if you drink after losing weight, even two pegs act like five. I love my team, I get anxious when I don't see them. I cannot detach myself. I went into depression."
3. Ridhi Dogra
Many might not know but Ridhi Dogra also suffered from depression and said that most of the creative people have both the poison and antidote of depression within them. She wrote on Indianwikimedia and said,
"A couple of years ago I was voluntarily saying no to every role or television show because I had set higher goals for myself and was looking for work that would challenge me as an artist. When I got exhausted from the lack of such work coming my way, instead of accepting the mediocrity all around I ended up feeling pretty low on self-worth. Some of the symptoms of depression are a constant feeling of self-pity, self-doubt, losing interest in everything around, being numb to feelings of happiness or sadness, unexplainable mood swings."
4. Sidharth Sagar
Comedian Sidharth Sagar was suffering from a bad phase in his life and he was so entangled in it that he finally decided to come out and address his problem to the media. He revealed how he was extremely close to his mom, but things suddenly changed. He revealed,
"There came a time when I started feeling really low and I had put on weight. And since I was trying to stop smoking, I was taking too much coffee. Soon I realised, I was depressed. My speech slurred and I was in a bad zone. When I told my parents about it, they said that they have put me on medicines for bipolar disease. I was shell-shocked when I heard it. I know about bipolar and I didn’t have any of the symptoms and here my parents were giving me drugs by mixing it in my food."
He blames his mother for this phase and also revealed that he got into substance abuse to get out of depression!
5. Divyajyotee Sharma
Remeber Chachi of Dil Bole Oberoi. Yes, Divyajyotee Sharma too suffered from depression and that too for 5 years. In an interview with TOI, she revealed that
"I always wanted to be an actress. I used to do theatre in Delhi but family responsibilities had put a pause to my career. It is only after my divorce, due to unfortunate reasons, that I decided to come to Mumbai and test my luck. I didn't know where to take my life after the divorce, and becoming an actor was the only hope for me. In 1998, I came to the city of dreams and bought my own house, and only then I informed my parents that I have shifted. I couldn't gather courage to move forward after my divorce. Despite my brave attempt to move to a strange city, I was in depression for five long years."
While these celebs courageously fought back from their mental disorders and depression, a young and talented actress like Pratyusha Banerjee ended her life! Talking about mental illness is important and do so before it is late!