Living with depression and anxiety is not easy--even if you're a celebrity

Because celebrities are humans beings too.

  • Depression is difficult to deal with. And it can happen to anybody. When we say anybody, we mean that even the seemingly strong celebrities can't escape the wrath of this psychological issue that literally consumes the sufferer.
     
    While some give in to the darkness of the disorder, some fight against it and come out stronger. The heart-felt tales of these 7 celebrities will touch your heart and move you:

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  • Deepika Padukone
    Deepika was one of the very first prominent Indian celebrities to have come out in the open and speak about her depression in an interview. "I thought it was stress, so I tried to distract myself by focusing on work, and surrounding myself with people, which helped for a while. But the nagging feeling didn't go away. My breath was shallow, I suffered from lack of concentration and I broke down often," she said. In fact, the hit-maker has also established a centre for mental health to help people going through the same phase.

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  • Anushka Sharma
    Anushka, who is known to be chirpy and jovial, also experienced anxiety. Luckily for her, she chose to get it treated at the initial stage before it could turn into clinical depression. And luckily for us, the actress discussed it openly on her Twitter handle with a post that read, "I have anxiety. And I'm treating my anxiety. I'm on medication for my anxiety. Why am I saying this? Because it's a completely normal thing. It's a biological problem. In my family there have been cases of depression. More and more people should talk openly about it. There is nothing shameful about it or something to hide. If you had a constant stomach pain, wouldn't you go to the doctor? It's that simple. I want to make this my mission, to take any shame out of this, to educate people about this."

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  • Jiah Khan
    Jiah, who made a debut opposite Amitabh Bachchan in Ram Gopal Verma's Nishabd unfortunately gave in to depression because of her career problems and trauma in her personal life. Unfortunately, she committed suicide at a young age of 25.

    "I am broken inside. You may not have known this but you affected me deeply to a point where I lost myself in loving you. Yet you tortured me every day. These days I see no light I wake up not wanting to wake up," she wrote in her suicide note.

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  • Shama Sikander
    Television actress and now a web-series sensation, Shama hit a rough patch when she was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder. "For one year I did not even know what was happening to me so, I had no idea and I just used to feel very dark, gloomy and sad. I did not know what was the reason behind this, but I felt directionless. I felt hopeless and I hope that never happens to anybody because hope is what we survive on and if we don't have hope we have nothing. The feeling was so dark that I would wake up at night and start crying without knowing why I am crying. Only someone who has gone through it can understand and how I feel it is,"she said as she spoke about that phase in an interview to Miss Malini.

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  • Shaheen Bhatt
    Alia Bhatt is definitely a heroine on screen, but her sister, Shaheen is one off-screen. In an Instagram post that read, "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 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," Shaheen came out clean about her depression.

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  • Manisha Koirala
    Blame it on the a tough marriage and an unstable career, Manisha too suffered from depression. "I have hit rock bottom many times. The world didn't know what was going on because acting is such a camouflage. You are playing the other person and don't have the time to delve into your own sorrow. I take it as a challenge and overcome it," she said.

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  • Illeana D' Cruz
    After she heard about Deepika's confession about her depression, Illeana decided to talk about hers too. "Anxiety has been a big problem for me, but I think my biggest struggle has been depression. There was a time I didn't want to get out of the house - I used to get really emotional, I used to sit in a corner and just cry for hours. And I didn't even want to go out to get groceries, that's how bad it was. It can be really consuming if you let it get there. The pretty shitty thing about it is that only you can help yourself, but it helps having a great support system around you," she said.

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