Alia Bhatt’s sister Shaheen to pen a book describing her battle with depression

Star kids and celebrity rarely open up about the personal issues they face in life. Celebrities Deepika Padukone and Karan Johar had opened up on mental health. And now Alia Bhatt’s sister is about to reveal her tryst with depression two years ago.

Recently, Shaheen’s mother Soni and Alia ha said in an interview with DNA: “Shaheen is penning down her experiences in a book and she is doing it to help other people understand that there’s nothing wrong in accepting your condition. Shaheen is a strong, creative girl.  It’s brave of her to talk about it on a platform like this. She is a great writer and when she told us about her decision to write the book, we were happy.”

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Shaheen had opened up about her depression phase in a post which she shared on her Instagram handle in 2017. She wrote, “I’ve lived with depression on and off since I was about 13 years old. This is not a revelation or a confession. Those who know me know this about me. It’s not something I take any pains to hide, I’m not ashamed of it or particularly troubled by it. It’s just a part of who I am. I have days where I feel good and then I have days where I don’t. One minute everything’s fine and the next it’s like someone turned the light off inside my head. I go quiet and it’s difficult to get out of bed. Like it always does the world around me loses focus and I struggle to make sense of it. Sometimes these bouts last an hour – sometimes they last days. Today, I’m on day 4. I say I live with depression rather than I struggle with it because for me (and I speak only for myself here) I don’t see why it has to be a struggle.”

I’ve lived with depression on and off since I was about 13 years old. This is not a revelation or a confession. Those who know me know this about me. It’s not something I take any pains to hide, I’m not ashamed of it or particularly troubled by it. It’s just a part of who I am. I have days where I feel good and then I have days where I don’t. One minute everything’s fine and the next it’s like someone turned the light off inside my head. I go quiet and it’s difficult to get out of bed. Like it always does the world around me loses focus and I struggle to make sense of it. Sometimes these bouts last an hour – sometimes they last days. Today, I’m on day 4. I say I live with depression rather than I struggle with it because for me (and I speak only for myself here) I don’t see why it has to be a struggle. I once read an idea by an American essayist called Richard Mitchell which stayed with me; it’s now become how I try to approach the dips in my week or month. The idea is this: To be sick, or to suffer, is inevitable. But to become bitter and vindictive in sickness and suffering and to surrender to irrationality, supposing yourself the innocent and virtuous victim of the evils intentions of the world, is not inevitable. The appropriate answer to the question – Why me? is the other question – Why not me? *** Why am I writing about this? Well, I spend a fair amount of time on social media during the course of my day and today I found myself looking for something to post because it’s been a few days since I’ve posted anything. I couldn’t find anything so I figured I’d just talk about this – how I’m doing, instead of what I’m doing. It’s as simple as that, and we could all stand to do a little more of it. P.S. That picture just seemed to work in this context.

A post shared by Shaheen Bhatt (@shaheenb) on Nov 23, 2016 at 12:18am PST

Shaheen will release the book a few months from now. She also added that “All of us, including (Mahesh) Bhatt saab, Alia and I, stand by her.”

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Two days after Shaheen shared the post in 2017, Alia Bhatt’s film Dear Zindagi which was on struggling with depression and insomnia was released.