Deepika Padukone - Bollywood superstar

 Interviewer: You're an actress, you're a filmproducer... but more importantly for us, a mental health advocate and a successful one,and you have done a lot. I was saying to your colleagues, the TripleL Foundation - The Live, Love and Laugh. As you know, the very definition of healthis health is a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being. It's not merely an absence of disease of infirmity. But as you also know, mental health is themost neglected and people with mental health face severe human rights violations, stigmaand discrimination. But only that. Around 80% of them, people with mental healthconditions, do not have access to the mental health care they need. So the problem is really, really serious andfor someone like Deepika to really take on this big cause is, for WHO, such a great opportunityand for me today a great opportunity, too. People like you, like Deepika, will reallychange the tide and I hope this moment will also increase the awareness, improve the awarenessand help people think about the innermost problem we are facing, especially with mentalhealth, and decide to join your movement. So having said this and congratulating youfor all your achievements and expressing my respect - for people maybe who may not befamiliar with what you're doing. You're a very strong advocate of mental health,but what triggered that? Why? Deepika: Thank you for that lovely introductionand good afternoon everybody. Mental illness crept up on me when I leastexpected it. I think most often, or at least in my case,it comes with absolutely no warning signs and I was going through a phase that the perceptionand the general understanding was that I was at a professional high. I'd had successful consecutive hits professionallyat the movies. I was in an amazing relationship. My parents and my sister have always beenextremely supportive of everything that I have done in my life. And so everything that we think should beokay in our lives was going more than okay. It was absolutely perfect. And I remember waking up, just one morning,leading an absolutely normal - or what I thought was normal -- It started with -- I fell. I fainted. There was a complete blackout. I fainted. I hit my head -- And I used to live aloneat this time and luckily the house help had arrived and she saw me lying on the floorand sort of revived me and then I gained consciousness. I sort of slept through the day. I got an appointment with a general practitioner. I went and saw him. He said, "Oh, it's nothing. It was probably just exhaustion or your BPjust fluctuated" and that was it. That was sort of the physical symptom. But what I was also experiencing was thissort of hollow, sort of empty pit-ish feeling in my stomach. I would break into a sweat every now and then. I would just suddenly get into these sortof panic phases where I just felt like I needed to just get out and gasp for breath and Iwould just cry. Like out of nowhere, I would just break downand cry. There was no one who really had to say anythingto me or I didn't necessarily have to be in a specific place. I would just -- You know, I could be in thisroom and suddenly just feel like I need to cry and express myself. You know? And then there were days when I just didn'twant to get out of bed. I would just want to sleep and not wake up,because to me sleep felt like my escape and I felt like I didn't have to deal with thereality of what I was experiencing. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to interact with anybody. I didn't want to go to work. I had lost motivation with absolutely everything. Fortunately, my mother happened to be therea couple of months into this. My parents live in a different city and theyhad come to visit. I was sitting in their room and they werepacking up and ready to leave and I had one of those moments where I was just watchingher pack and I suddenly just broke down. She looked at me and she said "What happened? Is everything okay?" and I said that yes everythingwas okay, but clearly everything was not okay. She asked me the routine questions about isit my relationship, is it something at work and I just kept saying no and I didn't know. What was that one thing? I couldn't point my finger at it. And she immediately looked at me and said"Deepika, I think you need professional help" and that's when we called Anna Chandy, whoat the point was a family friend but also a trained psychologist. But at that point, we felt like we wantedto share this with somebody who we could trust and someone who was not going to -- We wereconcerned about what the media was going to say and we didn't want to be seen outsideof a psychiatric clinic. So everything was hush hush. I remember calling up Anna. She was in the middle of a personal crisis. She was travelling. And I called her and literally she asked metwo questions and she said "I am flying down to see you right away. You need professional help. You need to see a psychiatrist". Immediately, I think literally that same eveningor the next day, she was on a flight. She came to see me. We then together went to another doctor whofinally diagnosed it as clinical depression. And I remember having, after struggling forso many months of having to go about the motions of doing everything, going about my professionalengagements, having to speak at events, having to perform scenes, having to engage with peopleand having to do all of those things but actually not being present. I remember feeling a sense of relief; that"Wow!" At least now we know what this is that I wasexperiencing, because I think that the toughest part in the journey for me was not understandingwhat I was feeling or not understanding what I was experiencing and not being able to explainto people what it is that I am feeling. 22111 So if people would say "Hey, how have youbeen?" I would have to lie and say "I've been great! I'm fine", when actually I was not feelingokay because I didn't have the strength and I didn't have the words to explain to somebodywhat I was experiencing. So just the diagnosis in itself to me feltlike a massive relief. At least now we knew what this was. But I think this is where my journey to recoverybegan, because I think accepting what Dr. Shyam Bhat told me was equally an importantpart of my journey to recovery and I think what I see around me very, very often is twothings. For example, when my mother said "I thinkyou need help" I could have easily rejected that and said "No, mom. That's crazy. This doesn't make any sense. I am not seeking professional help" - A. B- The other situation could have been my mother could have completely discouraged me fromseeking professional help. So I think the two things that we managedto achieve here as a family is - one - the fact that somebody close to me, within myfamily, recognized the signs and symptoms - one. Two - encouraged me to seek help. Three - that I was open to the idea of seekinghelp and I accepted the fact that OK, if our body is sort of susceptible to illness, socan the mind and I think that's when I understood the importance of the mind and the body andunderstanding that in the same way that we take care of our physical health it's equallyimportant for us to take care of our emotional health and our mental health. And then of course that's how my journey torecovery began. It was during that time I realized that therewas a lot of stigma, there was a lot of hush hush and there was a lot of not wanting toshare with too many people what I was experiencing; and I think all of those experiences mademe reflect on why we were behaving - including myself - why we were behaving a certain way. Why was I not telling somebody that I am notfeeling okay emotionally? Why is it that I was seeking professionalhelp privately? Why was I not confident enough to do thispublicly and with people supporting me? That's okay. And it was all of those experiences that mademe think and reflect and say "One second". I took a step back and I said, "Why have Iand why have we gone about it this way?" And I think that's when I realized the stigmaand the lack of awareness that's associated with mental health and mental illness andthat's what led me to come out publicly with my experience with anxiety and clinical depressionand subsequently setting up the Live, Love, Laugh Foundation because through that processI felt like -- -- You know, through an interview or throughthe press or through the foundation, if I was able to express the signs and symptomsthat I experienced and if there was even one person in this room who identified with thosesigns and said "You know what? I am going through the exact same thing butI have not been able to put a finger on what it is that I am going through", I wanted tomake that journey that I had been through of the unknown, of not understanding whatI was going through. I wanted to help somebody who is probablyin that same situation, not understanding what they are going through and probably helpthem understand their signs and symptoms and that was sort of the intention of going publicwith the illness and then also subsequently setting up the Live, Love, Laugh Foundation. Interviewer: Thank you. I mean, that is so moving and one of the soulsactually who saved herself. I think from your story many young peoplecan learn. We are losing a lot - 800,000 a year. This is one of the largest killers of youngpeople. It's serious and that's why. So what would be your advice to young peopleon what they should do for themselves and what they should do to help others? Deepika: I think there's a lot of things thatthe youth can do and I think that we can do as individuals. I think to begin with, just to become a littlemore aware as people. So let me give this in two perspectives. One is say for someone like me who is experiencinganxiety and depression. I think if I feel certain signs and symptoms...whether it's restlessness, whether it's not being able to sleep, sleeping too much orlack of sleep, whether it's irregular -- -- Your eating patterns. Are you eating less or are you eating more? Are you feeling a sense of sadness or lowfor a prolonged period of time? And I think it's very important to understandthe difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is something that we all go throughin our lives for various reasons. Death, failure of an exam, heartbreak. I think sadness is transient. Depression is not transient. I think depression sort of lasts for a muchlonger period of time and I think that's when you realize that "Okay. This is where I need to share. This is where I need to express". So for someone who is experiencing that, Ithink it's important at that very moment to share with somebody that you are close to. It could be a friend. It could be a colleague. It could be a family member. It could be a sibling. But I think the first step really is to sharewith somebody around you how you are feeling. I think for people around it's important tonot just sort of dismiss it as attention seeking. It's important for us to feel empathy towardsthe person who is telling us something. I think we all have now a habit of askingeach other how we're doing without really listening to whether we actually -- If I askyou how you are doing, am I actually interested in how you are doing, and would you be vulnerableenough to share with me how you are doing? So I think all of those things. I think just in the way that we engage withpeople on a daily basis, sharing with each other, understanding from each other and thenof course, seeking help. So it's important for caregivers to encouragethose feeling certain signs and symptoms to seek professional help. There is a lot of stigma, especially in ourcountry, especially in India. There is a lot of stigma with regards to seekingprofessional help. Parents do not want to take their childrento counselors or to psychiatric treatment because they are concerned about what otherfamily members will think. They are concerned about what society willthink. I have come across situations where thereare people experiencing mental illness who want to seek help but somewhere the familyis not willing to allow them to do that; and sometimes it's the other way around wherethe parents want their children to seek professional help and the child is resistant to that. In my personal experience, I think acceptanceof medication -- I think for me, it was a combination. Again, I am not someone who can prescribeand say "Yes, you should take medication" but I will say that in my personal experienceit was a combination of taking medication as well as lifestyle changes that have ledto where I am today, but it also a constant taking care of myself. It is an illness that can come back. So I have to take care of myself on a dailybasis. The amount I sleep, what I eat, exercise,mindfulness - all of those things are things that I still have to do on a regular basisto ensure that I don't go back into that dark world and dark space again. Interviewer: Thank you. So together we hope to make a difference. Namaste. Deepika: Namaste. Thank you.