Tahira Kashyap on battling depression: Had to put up a happy front for my Kids!

National Award winner and Bollywood actor Ayushmann Khurrana’s wife Tahira Kashyap has been in the news for quite some time now. The star-wife, who underwent a preventive double mastectomy last year after which she was diagnosed with breast cancer, opened up about the importance of discussing mental health and why it is necessary to seek help when necessary. 

Sharing her own experiences of how she battled depression, Tahira told Mid-Day, “I never treated my body, mind and soul as one entity. I always thought physical health was important, and mental toh kuch hota hi nahin hai. So, I exercised a lot. But I think [the cancer] was a manifestation of the negativity that I had been harbouring.”

“Had I gone to a doctor, I would have been declared clinically depressed. But I chose to cry every night instead of visiting one. I was living a dual life. My husband was shooting; I would spend hours at night crying, and put up the front of a happy person in the morning so that I didn’t look like a loser before my children, who were aged two and four then,” she added further.

Talking about how her health got better, Tahira revealed, “It was only after I practised Buddhist chanting, and focused on my mental health that things changed. In a way, I’m glad that [I was diagnosed with cancer] at a time when I was strong enough to deal with it.”

Tahira along with Ayushmann has written a book on her husband’s journey in Bollywood, named Cracking the Code: My Journey in Bollywood, the book follows Ayushmann’s personal experiences as a rising star in Bollywood.

(Also Read: I gave up on our marriage but he didn’t: Tahira Kashyap on her marriage with Ayushmann Khurrana)