Mental health conditions are often considered a taboo in desi communities such as India. It takes years for anxious and depressed individuals to come out of their shell and a great amount of courage on their part to battle the demons within. Deepika Padukone was one of the first Bollywood stars who mustered up the courage speak about her struggle with depression, paving the way for an open discussion on the subject. While many B-town A-listers followed suit right after, the latest star kid to come forward with her story is Amitabh Bachchan’s granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda, the eldest child of his daughter Shweta Bachchan.
Navya is now working towards normalising the conversation around mental health with her organisation Aara Health. On Tuesday, the new-fangled organisation’s Instagram page uploaded a clip in which Navya spoke about her own struggle with anxiety and why she opted for therapy. She was speaking alongside the other co-founders of Aara Health. “It was something new for me as well. I wanted to kind of experience it myself before talking about it. Obviously, my family knows that I am in therapy but I don’t think any of my friends do. I don’t know if would still go and tell them,” she said.
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Navya added, “I went fairly recently, like you said that you realise when you hit rock bottom. I feel like I hit rock bottom multiple times and I just couldn’t figure out why. I was like okay, obviously something has to change, I need to talk about it. I think it helped coming to that conclusion. Now once a week I am in that routine and I don’t think I am even close to hitting rock bottom because I have everything in control, I am talking to someone. Now I can identify what are the things that even get me to hit rock bottom. People realise too late sometimes that they need to get help.” She revealed that being surrounded by positive energy and her loved ones helped her to cope with anxiety. “There have been times in my life when I haven’t been surrounded by positive people and I have seen how negatively it has impacted the way that I think. Not just about myself but about the world. I have learnt from then on that I am only going to surround myself with people who make me feel good and happy,” Navya concluded.