Mahira Khan has opened up about her mental health struggle and being diagnosed with manic depression by a psychiatrist. The Pakistani actor said in a recent interview with FWhy Podcast that she learned to face her mental health struggles, especially after stepping into Bollywood with the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees, and the 2017 incident, where pictures of her smoking with actor Ranbir Kapoor emerged online.
Raees was released in 2017, the same year the smoking pictures scandal with Ranbir Kapoor happened. Reflecting on that time, the actor revealed she dealt with immense backlash, calling it ‘unexpected’.
Mahira said,
That (backlash) brought out the anxiety and depression hidden inside me. That was a hard time for me. I felt attacked. The constant backlash… You are getting mean tweets, and comments on their channels (Indian channels). That was a time my faith broke and I developed severe anxiety to the point that one day I had a panic attack and fainted. That was the first time I went to therapy. But that didn’t work out, as I went to several therapists… that year was rough… I couldn’t sleep, my hands used to shake.
“Any little thing triggered my anxiety, eventually I ended up in a psychiatrist’s office,” and said, “We’ll talk about everything later, but I need you to know that you have manic depression”.
Mahira added she has been on antidepressants for the past 6-7 years. She said she tried leaving them in the middle but ‘went into a very, very dark space and a dark whole’. Mahira also said that this is the first time she is opening up about the fact that she has been taking medication for so many years.
Mahira also said that everybody has ups and downs, ‘bad times and happy times, but clinical depression is like any other mental illness or physical illness’.
She also made a special mention about ‘the person (she) is with right now’, who was so understanding despite not having experienced what she was going through. She said that she’s grateful for the ‘glimmer of hope’ that she can still sense, and wants as many people as possible to know that they are not alone if they are experiencing something similar.
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