Honest and bubbly Pakistani actress Yashma Gill recently opened up about her mental health journey. FWhy PodcastIt sheds light on the battle with depression, anxiety, and the importance of tackling mental health issues head on.
In a candid conversation with Frieha Altaf, Yashma revealed that she was diagnosed with depression at the age of 21, just before leaving for Australia for university. that much Kel The actor has since said that she struggles with panic attacks and a rare dissociative disorder called derealization, in which people with depression or high levels of anxiety feel the world is unreal and people and objects around them appear lifeless or foggy.
He once told a psychiatrist, “I can handle depression and panic attacks, but losing my sense of reality is so scary,” and the psychiatrist emphasized that depression was the root cause. “If we treat that, all the other panic attacks, anxiety and derealization will go away,” he assured her. This revelation was a turning point for Yashma, who began to realize that her own mental health issues were interconnected.
Reflecting on the societal changes surrounding mental health, Yashma said: “Finally, people are talking about depression and people are understanding it. They know what depression is, they know what anxiety is. “People recognize that other people have it and try to help.” She contrasted this with her mother's generation, where admitting mental health problems was shameful. “In that era, if someone felt this way, they were embarrassed to admit it,” she said.
For those who are hesitant to receive treatment sadness of love The actor likened the brain to other organs in the body. “Just as the kidneys, lungs, and heart are organs, the brain is also an organ. If you have a chemical imbalance, you need to fix it because there are medications that can fix it. “Just as a diabetic knows their trigger is sugar, a person with depression needs to know what their trigger is.”
For Yashma, the high-pressure environment of the entertainment industry often means long working hours and emotional repression. “I find that people in the industry, especially because they work 12-hour days, have a habit of suppressing emotional pain or getting distracted by busy schedules,” she explained. “I discovered that the more you suppress it and try to escape, the more it actually stays there and grows inside you. We will try to find a way out one way or another. That’s why I think it’s so important to sit with that pain, experience it, feel it, and let it pass.”
Yashma's journey with mental health started early and manifested itself in unhealthy behaviors such as crash dieting. Like many teenagers, the actor's diet habit started because of a crush on a guy. “I started dieting when I was 12 years old. One day in class, my teacher called me out when I looked pale and asked if I was okay. Little did she know that I wasn't eating at all. It was unhealthy. I don’t support that at all.” She highlighted her side effects, saying, “The crash diet method was really bad, and I felt like my hair was falling out because I wasn’t getting much nutrition.” Her story was one that her host Frieha could relate to as well, revealing that her toxic relationship with food started at the age of 13.
The conversation then turned from childhood crushes to love and heartbreak, during which Yashma revealed that despite her struggles, she found hope in heartbreak and sees it as a hidden gift. “I think heartbreak gives you depth and makes you emotionally and intellectually… It makes you more mature. Whenever my heart aches, I turn that pain into passion. I consider it a blessing in disguise because it has always motivated me to do better in life.”
On a lighter note, Yashma shared a humorous anecdote about her mother's matchmaking mishap. This particular affair involved her co-star's cousin, who is four years younger than her, which doesn't seem to have been an issue for her mother. She said, “Her mom tried to get me to marry her cousin. She will say that he too is becoming a model. And I have to tell her that he is younger than me and she always used to say that age is just a number.”
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