Secret Superstar actress Zaira Wasim revealed in a lengthy Instagram post that she has been suffering from depression for the past four years.
The 17-year-old National award-winning actress said she needed a “complete break” from work and school to figure things out. She also admitted to having suicidal thoughts.
“I’m writing this to admit and confess that I, for a very long time have been suffering from severe anxiety and depression. It’s almost been four years and I’ve always been embarrassed and scared to admit it not only because of the stigma that goes around with the word depression with it but most importantly because of always being told that ‘You’re too young to be depressed’ or ‘It’s just a phase’,” Zaira wrote in her post.
Wasim said there were days when she had popped five antidepressants, and on occasions she even had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night. She has also had to deal with hallucinations, unexplained fatigue, body ache, self loathing, nervous breakdowns and suicidal thoughts.
Wasim had her first panic attack when she was 12. She was always made to believe that there was nothing wrong with her. “But I knew- I always did and I still do. I remember being told that there’s no such thing as depression, it only happens to people to were above 25. But I could never actually accept the fact that I suffer from a disorder called depression- that affects almost 350 million people worldwide; without asking for their permission to ruin their mental and emotional state or asking them their age,” she said.
Wasim is not the first Bollywood actress to open up about depression. Deepika Padukone recently revealed that talking about her battle with depression in 2015 was instrumental in changing her life.
"For various reasons, there’s a stigma attached to mental illness, which is why people choose not to talk about it. There were several reasons I chose to speak up. One, because it transformed my life in many ways. It was the most difficult experience I’ve been through, but it also taught me a lot about myself and about life,” Padukone told Vogue.
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