People often wonder why celebrities who have it all suffer from depression. Deepika Padukone, one of the most celebrated actors of Bollywood at present, has some answers to this question. Deepika, who has earlier come out on record saying she suffered from depression at some point of her life, spoke about the death of fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain in her recent Instagram post.
Talking about depression and the stigma around it, Deepika shared a long message with The Live Love Laugh Foundation (TLLLF), her organisation that deals which mental illness. The post began with the WHO statistics of suicide deaths as she said: “Every 40 seconds a person dies by suicide.”
She went on to talk about Kate and Anthony, “Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain were pioneers in their fields… and to the outside world they ‘had it all’ and were seemingly ‘happy’”. Here is the post that Deepika shared.
Last year, in an opinion piece for Hindustan Times, Deepika Padukone wrote: “Back in 2014, when I was in pain, suffering alone, and breaking down repeatedly, I didn’t know I was depressed. I was going about my day, posing for cameras, getting interviewed and signing autographs. But what nobody saw was that I didn’t feel like myself, I felt ‘different’ somehow. My breathing was irregular and shallow, my stomach was in knots, getting out of bed was a struggle and I would break down for no reason. All I wanted to do was to curl up and stay in bed.”
She added, “Luckily for me, my mother understood that this was more than just passing sadness and got me the help I required. And thanks to the timely expert intervention of Anna Chandy and Shyam Bhat, and the love and support of my parents, sister, and friends, I was able to treat my depression with medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes.”