Shaheen Bhatt’s journey of battling depression highlights why mental health needs to be spoken about

Shaheen Bhatt, sister of Bollywood actor Alia Bhatt, recently shared her story of battling depression and poor mental health during childhood. Her inspiring journey was shared on Facebook page ‘Humans of Bombay’. Her post has gone viral for all the right reasons and highlights on the importance of good mental health and well-being.

In a recent trend, Bollywood actors and celebrities are stepping forward to discuss about importance of mental health and well-being. One amongst the top celebrities who have openly spoken about this is Deepika Padukone. At various platforms, Deepika has discussed about how she battled depression and loneliness to come out stronger. Alia Bhatt’s sister and writer Shaheen Bhatt has always been vocal about her childhood days when she underwent a lot of depression. Recently, the writer shared incidents about how she has been battling depression since age of 12. Bhatt’s post has gone viral for all the good reasons. It also shows the need for open discussions about mental health and well-being.

A heart-warming Facebook post

Shaheen shared about her battling poor mental health on Facebook page ‘Humans of Bombay’.

According to the post, Shaheen says that mental illness has been a part of her life since age of 12. There were days when she woke up and felt just empty and hollow and she did not even know the reason why. She would look out of the window for hours, desperately trying to make sense of how broken she felt, but couldn’t find the answer. According to Shaheen, it was because no one really spoke about mental illness back then.

Initially, she thought it was a teenager problem. When photo-shoots happened inside her home, she was side-lined by photographers due to her skin colour and also because she was chubby. Her sisters Alia and Pooja Bhatt were photographed together when she had to stay out of it and watch as a spectator. She also underwent harassment at school.

She avoided therapy merely because she did not want to be thought of as crazy or weak. Soon, she became suicidal and sought clinical help. Shaheen also talks about how supportive her family was, especially Alia, when they came to know about what she underwent. Shaheen gathered all her broken pieces and even wrote a book about depression.

“Today, I can say that I accept and love myself in ways that I never did before. I don’t wait for things to go bad to take care of myself and my mental health — I deserve to be loved and cared for even on good days! And if I’m having a bad day, I don’t beat myself up about it — it’s kind of like the weather; when it’s raining, yo don’t yell at the skies to stop! So, I take a deep breath, go chill with my cats, and just have faith that eventually, it’ll pass”, says Shaheen.

A lot of love from social media users

Shaheen’s post was flooded with comments with love and support from across the world.

“Beautiful, Blessed & Brave you are”, commented Lydia Sunil.

“It’s high time people realise that mental illness needs to be given equal attention in fact more than physical illness..feel free to speak to people around you and ask for help..thrre should be no stigma attached to it..glad that u came out if it..stay blessed”, commented Aarti Khan.

“Mental illness is such, one moment u r absolutely fine and other u r broken in pieces… There are relapses and we never heal completely…. But yes, after the treatment we understand what we are going through and that makes the journey smooth fr us…. Sending u much love”, commented Shivani Iyer.

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