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Mahira Khan is a popular Pakistani actress well known for her performance of Khirad Hussain in the romantic drama Humsafar. However, she is also known for appearing opposite Shah Rukh Khan in the 2017 film Raees in India. Now the actress is speaking about her bipolar disorder diagnosis.
In a new interview, Mahira said that she is currently on medication and that her illness became worse after what happened when Pakistani artists were banned from working in India following the 2016 Uri attack. Scroll down to know more.
Mahira Khan recently appeared on On the FWhy podcast wherein she spoke at great length about her experience with mental illness and said that her symptoms became almost unbearable when she decided to briefly stop taking her medication last year. She said that it has now been around six or seven years since her diagnosis.
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The backlash that she experienced after Raees was a trigger. Mahira Khan said. “I ended up in a psychiatrist’s office, and she said, ‘We’ll talk about everything later, but I need you to know that you have manic depression’. This is the first time I’m saying that, I don’t know if I should. It’s been six-seven years, and I’ve been on anti-depressants. I tried leaving them in the middle, and I went into a very, very dark space.”
Mahira Khan prided herself on being a “very optimistic person” by nature, but she knew that praying or hanging out with friends wouldn’t help her overcome the challenges she was facing. Until things became really bad last year, according to Mahira, she was “in and out of hospitals.” She added that while everyone has happy and sad times, success and failure, clinical depression is a real disorder and that, although she had triggers, a significant portion of it was inherited.
The 38-year-old actress also described how she felt when she was at her lowest after she decided to stop taking her medicines. “Last year, I was bad, I was in bed… I remember, very well, that I couldn’t even get up from my bed to go to the bathroom. I was that bad, it was that dark. I remember praying, ‘I promise you Allah, if you show me even this much hope or light, I will take it and I will run with it.’ And when he did, and when I went back on my medicines, I woke up feeling like, ‘Oh my god, I feel like I can smile, feel lighter’.”
She added, “Even in my darkest, worst moments, I never project it. It’s all inside me, mere andar tabahi mach rahi hai, but… It’s been a journey with my depression. I’ve had to work through it, I’ve had to dance through it…” Mahira thanked her friends, family, and therapist for standing by her side through it all.
Mahira Khan also mentioned the person she is with, emphasizing their remarkable understanding even though they haven’t personally undergone her experiences. She expressed gratitude for the flicker of hope she still perceives and expressed her desire for others facing similar challenges to recognize that they are not alone.
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