I Would Keep Crying: Deepika, on her Battle With Depression

Read excerpts from Deepika Padukone’s first ever TV interview on her battle with depression

An emotional Deepika Padukone recounted her experience of struggling with depression, in her first ever television interview on the subject, to NDTV. The actress said that she hopes that by opening up on her experience with depression, she will be able to reach out to other people dealing with it as well. Deepika is also setting up a foundation called The Live Love Laugh Foundation to promote mental health care. Here are some excerpts from Deepika’s television interview:

“The reason why I chose to speak up is if in doing so, if I can impact even one life, because I lost a friend a couple of months ago, so if I can impact even one life in the process of speaking up and letting people know that it’s something that I’ve been through and something that I could deal with because I had a fantastic support system. And which is why it’s important that my mother is here for me today, because she is the one who encouraged me. I realized that something was wrong, I realized that I was being different, I couldn’t pin point what the issue was.” - Deepika Padukone

“It all started on the 15th of Feb last year when I suddenly woke up one morning, where I had won all my awards, all the appreciation for 2013, everything had happened, it was a great time and obviously everyone’s going to think like why is she depressed, she has everything going for her. But I woke up one morning just feeling empty… feeling directionless… I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know what to do. I had these bouts of feeling so low that I d just start crying at the drop of a hat.” - Deepika Padukone

“…I would keep crying, I didn’t understand what was happening to me. There were times when I would feel ok and times when I would feel really low. I remember attending a conclave… I’d cry in my room and then I had to go down and give this talk in front of so many people… with a smile on my face like everything’s ok and that entire session was about being number one.” - Deepika Padukone

“There were days when I’d wake up and feel like it was just too exhausting, I didn’t want to wake up, there were days when I just wanted to be in bed, just sleep, not wake up.” - Deepika Padukone

You can watch excerpts from Deepika’s interview here