Health and Wellness

Bollywood star Deepika Padukone shares how she coped with depression during a 'professional high'

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Deepika Padukone attends the screening of "Sorry Angel" during the 71st annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 10, 2018 in Cannes, France.
George Pimentel

Bollywood star Deepika Padukone has spoken out about her battle with depression, calling for greater public discussion to help tackle the mental health crisis.

Padukone, who is one of India's highest-paid actresses, said her experience during a seeming "professional high" revealed the illness' indiscriminatory nature and inspired her to campaign for other sufferers.

"Mental illness crept up on me when I least expected it," Padukone said last week.

"The perception and the general understanding was that I was at a professional high," she said last Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "But what I was also experiencing was this hollow, empty, pittish feeling ... I would just cry out of nowhere."

Padukone was diagnosed with depression in 2014.

The 34-year-old celebrity, who has over 30 movies to her name, said she considered herself lucky that her mother had spotted her symptoms and urged her to seek medical help.

Indian actress Deepika Padukone delivers her acceptance speech during the "Crystal Award" ceremony at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 20, 2020.
Fabrice Coffrini

However, she noted that stigma and lack of awareness surrounding mental illness can make it difficult for sufferers to reach out. In India alone, an estimated 7.5% of the population suffers from some kind of mental illness, according to the World Health Organization, yet provisions remain scarce.

That inspired Padukone to set up the Live, Love, Laugh Foundation in 2015 to support other sufferers. The charity aims to spread awareness of mental health issues, having launched India's first national campaign, as well as working to help people reach diagnoses.

Learning to understand what she was experiencing was the first step to recovery, Padukone said. She encouraged potential sufferers and the people around them to look out for telltale signs of depression, such as prolonged feelings of sadness, sleeping and eating irregularities, as well as suicidal thoughts.

"The toughest part in the journey for me was not understanding what I was feeling," said Padukone. "Just having the diagnoses in itself felt like a massive relief."

Padukone was speaking at the WEF meeting — a gathering of global business leaders and policymakers — where she was honored with the 2020 Crystal Award for her contributions to mental health awareness.

In 2018, she was named as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the year.

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