Deepika Padukone didn’t want people to know she was consulting a psychiatrist for depression

Deepika was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2014. The actress spoke about it a year later and also opened an NGO for mental health called ‘Live Love Laugh’.

New Delhi: Actress Deepika Padukone is an advocate of mental health and has openly spoken up about her battle with depression. The 35 years old however reveals that she was secretive when she first seeked clinical help for her mental illness and did not want ‘her name to go out.’ “When I went through that entire experience, I felt like we were being really hush-hush about everything. We didn’t want my name to go out. We were scared about which therapist to reach out to and who would keep this information confidential,” shared Deepika at the launch of her initiative ‘Care Package’ on social networking app Clubhouse on Tuesday. The ‘Padmaavat’ actress continued, “At that point, I just went with the flow because I just needed help. But it was months after that when I was thinking about how this whole thing went about and I said, ‘Why were we trying to be quiet about it? Why can’t people know? Why shouldn’t people know that this is what I have been through?’ I think that also came from my journey of wanting to be as authentic and honest as possible and if this is the experience I had then the world needs to know that. I think me coming out and talking about my experience was to let people know that ‘You are not alone and we are in this together.”