"I was suicidal at times": Deepika on her battle with depression

MUMBAI: Deepika Padukone has never shied away from sharing how she was diagnosed with depression, her remedial course of action, and how she basically dealt with it. She is one of the very few actors in the industry who went public with her battle with depression and has spoken about it on various occasions.

On Thursday, Deepika once again shed light on how she battled months-long depression and overcame many bumps that came her way, including suicidal thoughts.

Speaking at an event in Mumbai, Deepika shared anecdotes from the time she was dealing with depression and how her mother came to her rescue. Deepika said, "I give all the credit to my mother for recognizing the signs and symptoms...because it just happened out of the blue..." "I was on a career-high, and everything was going well, so there was no reason or no apparent reason why I should've felt the way I was feeling, but I would break down for no reason. There were days when I just didn't want to wake up, I would sleep because sleep for me was an escape, I was suicidal at times," she added.

Explaining further about how loved ones came to her rescue during her tough times, she said "My parents live in Bengaluru and every time they visited me, even now when they visit me, I always put on a brave front, like everything's okay, you know you always want to show your parents that you're fine...so I was doing one of those things like I'm fine...until they were leaving one day, they were going back to Bengaluru and I broke down and my mother asked me the usual hygiene questions like...is it a boyfriend? Is it someone at work? Has something happened? And I just didn't have answers...it was none of these things. And it just came from a really empty, hollow place. And she knew instantly, and I think that for me was God sent."

Deepika runs an NGO that aims to give hope to every person experiencing stress, anxiety, and depression. Speaking further about the idea behind the foundation 'Live Love Laugh', Deepika added, "This (her depression diagnosis) was one of the reasons why I set up this foundation, for us to be able to create that awareness, to be sensitive to the people around us, to look around us."

Talking about how she overcame this rough patch, Deepika said, "Coming back to me... I needed professional help. And then the journey went on...I was put on to a psychiatrist, medication which went back and forth for many months. I was resistant to that at first because there was so much stigma attached to mental illness, so that went on for a couple of months until I finally started taking medication and started feeling better."

Deepika concluded by saying that the journey of mental illness can be lonely and her mission is to make sure that not even one life is lost due to mental illness