On World Mental Health Day, Bollywood Superstar Aamir Khan’s daughter, Ira Khan had revealed that she was clinically depressed.
In a continuation on the mental health conversation, Ira again took to Instagram; addressing her privilege, her experience with depression and even sexual abuse.
In her nearly 10 minute long video, Ira talked about how, despite all the privileges she got in life by being Aamir’s daughter, she was still diagnosed with depression.
She penned a lengthy caption for her video –
“I never spoke to anyone about anything because I assumed that my privilege meant I should handle my stuff on my own, or if there was something bigger, it would make people need a better answer than “I don’t know.” It made me feel like I needed a better answer and until I had that answer, my feelings weren’t something I should bother anyone else with. No problem was big enough to ponder too long about. What would anyone do? I had everything. What would anyone say? I had said it all,”
I still think there’s a small part of me that thinks I’m making all this up, that I have nothing to feel bad about, that I’m not trying hard enough, that maybe I’m overreacting. Old habits die hard. It takes me feeling my worst to make myself believe that it’s bad enough to take seriously.
And no matter how many things I have, how nice to me people are because of my dad, how nice to me people are because they love and care about me… if I feel a certain way, a certain not nice way, then how much can rationally trying to explain these things to myself do?
Shouldn’t I instead get up and try and fix things? And if I can’t do that for myself? Shouldn’t I ask for help?”
When talking about the reasons behind her depression, Ira couldn’t figure out what was making her sad. She said that even her parents’ divorce; Aamir and his ex-wife Reena Dutta, did not scar her.
“When I was small, my parents got divorced. But that didn’t seem like something that would traumatize me because my parents’ divorce was amicable. They are friends, the whole family is still friends. We are not a broken family by any means,” she said in her video.
Ira appeared to be hinting at Kangana Ranaut‘s claims that – while there can be many reasons for depression, children from broken families suffer more.
“My parents were very good about being parents to Junaid and me, even after divorce. And when people would say ‘Oh I am so sorry to hear about your parents’ divorce, I would be like (shrugs) ‘What are you talking about? It is not a bad thing. Another privilege I didn’t realise. It could be something that could scar you. It didn’t scar me. I don’t remember most of it but I didn’t feel like my parents’ divorce is something that could bother me. So that can’t be the reason why I am feeling so sad.”
She then talked about her experience of sexual abuse.
She said, “When I was 14, I was sexually harassed/ abused. That was slightly an odd situation as I didn’t know what that person was doing and if they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t happening every day. So it took me a year to be sure that they knew what they are doing and that is what they are doing. Immediately I wrote my parents an email and got myself out of the situation. Once I was out of the situation, I didn’t feel bad anymore. I wasn’t scared. I felt like this is not happening to me anymore and it’s over. And I moved on. It was not something that has scarred me for life and something that could make me feel bad.”
She said that her own sense of feeling that she had to have a good reason to feel sad stopped her from seeking help or talking to her near ones.