Deepika Padukone is a well-known name in the film industry for her beauty and versatility in acting. Padukone is one of the highest-paid actresses in India. The actress has opened up about mental health issues several times and how important it is to understand and talk about them openly. She started the Live, love, Laugh Foundation in 2015 to create awareness about mental illnesses and to overcome it. Recently, Deepika Padukone has launched a Care Package Audio Festival to talk about mental health. It’s an audio festival to feature conversations on caring and a performance by Prateek Kuhad. She did the Welcome Note with Paul Davison who is Co-Founder of Clubhouse.

Deepika posted on her Instagram, “I’m super excited to launch ‘Care Package’ – An Audio-First Festival that Cares! This package, curated by me, is a box full of conversations and performances from thought leaders around the world that prioritize ‘Care’. Join me today, 20th July, from 7 PM-8.30 PM IST at Clubhouse! Link in Bio!”

The Care Package Audio Festival was divided into three segments :

  • ‘My Relationship with Self-care, this session will be conducted by Deepika Padukone along with Raghava KK, Aarthi Ramamurthy, and Sriram Krishnan.
  • ‘Breathe, By TheArtidote’ conducted by JOVA (Jovanny Varela).
  • ‘Love & Care – How is it different?’ by Deepika Padukone, Jay Shetty, Radhi Devlukia, Sriram Krishnanand Aarthi Ramamurthy.

During Clubhouse, she talks about the bad mental health days and shares, “It basically started in February 2014. I would just feel empty and directionless. It just felt like life had no purpose. I couldn’t feel anything emotionally or physically. I started feeling like this for days and weeks until one day my mother was here. Her mom was the one to realize that it wasn’t a usual boyfriend issue and her cry was different. She kept asking me if it was this or that. I couldn’t pinpoint one specific reason. It was her experience and presence of mind that she encouraged me to seek help.”

She also talked about how they were conscious of news becoming public. Deepika said, “At that point when I went through the entire experience, I felt like we were being extremely 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’s going to keep this information confidential. At that point, I went with the flow because I wanted help,”

Then she decided to let everyone know about her suffering and know that they are not alone in this and suffer silently. Padukone added,“It was also about letting people know that mental illness exists and it’s okay to seek help because most of us suffer in silence because it’s not something you seek externally so there is a guilt attached to it because you feel you are the only one going through it. You also feel like you are inconveniencing your caregivers and people around you. Me coming out was really just letting people know you are not alone and we are in it together,”

She also talked about how she came a long way with the help of diagnosis. In the end, Deepika concluded,“Life post mental illness is a ‘before and after’. I had a particular life before depression and I have a very different life after that. I keep saying that there’s not a day that goes by without me thinking about my mental health. To ensure I don’t go back into that space, it’s very important for me to focus on the quality of my sleep, nutrition, hydration, exercise, how do I process stress and my thoughts and mindfulness. These are the things I have to do on a daily basis not because they are fancy words or it’s cool to do this but I won’t be able to survive if I don’t do all these things.”

Related to work : Some of deepika’s upcoming movies are Fighter(2022), Pathan(2022), The Intern(2022), ShakunBatra’s Next(2021), and 83(2021).

“People talk about physical fitness, but mental health is equally important. I see people suffering, and their families feel a sense of shame about it, which doesn’t help. One needs support and understanding. I am now working on an initiative to create awareness about anxiety and depression and help people.”

–DeepikaPadukone