Nargis Fakhri recently spoke up about how she decided to move away from the film industry due to mental health issues. Here are some other actresses who’ve also spoken up about mental health quite often.
Actress Nargis Fakhri is back in the limelight for the past couple of days ever she spoke up about why she decided to take a step back from Bollywood. The actress had been one of the most popular names in the last decade after doing films like ‘Rockstar’, ‘Madras Café’, ‘Main Tera Hero’, ‘Housefull 3’ and others. But, she decided to leave it all and go to the US a few years back. During a recent interview, she spoke up about the reason for her quitting the film industry.
Speaking to ETimes, Fakhri said, "Somewhere down the line, I realised that I was overworked and stressed. I missed my family and friends. I remember that 2016-2017 was a period of realisation for me. I felt that I wasn’t doing things that made me happy. I did films back-to-back and thought there was just too much happening, and I needed to stop. I felt the need to pause to balance my mind and body. And that’s when I took the step."
"It is definitely difficult for those who go back alone to an empty home. It is important that, as humans, you have a support system in your family or have good friends around. That is also the reason I moved back to New York. I hadn’t seen my mother and friends for a long time. So, when I went back, I spent a lot of time with my mother and shared everything with her. Nothing can compensate for the time you spend with your family," she added.
Mental health has been an issue that many other celebrities have spoken about before Nargis Fakhri.
After surviving a long period of depression, she has guided her life to huge success. She spoke out to her fans about her mental health and described her own everyday struggles with it. In fact, she went so far as to construct a mental health centre to help individuals who are going through the same trauma she was. She claimed that she no longer felt like living and that she did not want anybody else to go through what she has gone through.
The actress discussed her experience with Body Dysmorphia, a mental health disease in which a person cannot stop obsessing about imperfections in their looks. She was not afraid to speak about it, and she was also awarded the Woman of Substance Award for her activism at the 21st World Congress for Mental Health.
The actress has also experienced anxiety in her life, and she hasn’t shied away from speaking about it in public forums. She is a prominent voice among the actresses and isn't scared to speak up about topics that need to be addressed but aren't generally brought up in public. She aims to make it her mission to educate more people about mental illness and dispel the stigma that surrounds it. Normalizing mental health and freely addressing it, according to the actor, is the way to go.
The actress said a few years back that she went through a melancholy spell in 2014-15. She said she had no money left after her movie failed to do well at the box office. Add to that a personal heartbreak in her life. She described herself as a 'classic filmy unhappy girl,' curled up in her room, sobbing all day, with a chest discomfort that wouldn't go away. But she claims that individuals like her brother and a few other friends pulled her out of the abyss by just being there for her and supporting her and that she herself determined that it was up to her to get herself out of this hole.
Shraddha Kapoor once told a top digital site that she was unaware she suffered anxiety for a long time. She claimed to have observed physical signs of worry in her body that had no physiological explanation, despite the fact that all of her tests were negative. While she eventually realised the cause and dealt with it, she says she still deals with it to this day, but she accepts it as a part of herself and is kind and loving to herself even during those times.