Alia’s Sister Shaheen Shares Her Story Of Living With Depression

AIB frontman Rohan Joshi, who Shaheen is dating, also took to social media to show his support.

Shaheen Bhatt, Alia Bhatt’s elder sister, just took to Instagram to share her struggle with depression. In the post, she speaks about how she has been struggling with the illness since she was 13 years old, and how it is her goal to live with depression but not get engulfed by it.

Here’s her post:

I've lived with depression on and off since I was about 13 years old. This is not a revelation or a confession. Those who know me know this about me. It's not something I take any pains to hide, I'm not ashamed of it or particularly troubled by it. It's just a part of who I am. I have days where I feel good and then I have days where I don't. One minute everything's fine and the next it's like someone turned the light off inside my head. I go quiet and it's difficult to get out of bed. Like it always does the world around me loses focus and I struggle to make sense of it. Sometimes these bouts last an hour - sometimes they last days. Today, I'm on day 4. I say I live with depression rather than I struggle with it because for me (and I speak only for myself here) I don't see why it has to be a struggle. I once read an idea by an American essayist called Richard Mitchell which stayed with me; it's now become how I try to approach the dips in my week or month. The idea is this: To be sick, or to suffer, is inevitable. But to become bitter and vindictive in sickness and suffering and to surrender to irrationality, supposing yourself the innocent and virtuous victim of the evils intentions of the world, is not inevitable. The appropriate answer to the question - Why me? is the other question - Why not me? *** Why am I writing about this? Well, I spend a fair amount of time on social media during the course of my day and today I found myself looking for something to post because it's been a few days since I've posted anything. I couldn't find anything so I figured I'd just talk about this - how I'm doing, instead of what I'm doing. It's as simple as that, and we could all stand to do a little more of it. P.S. That picture just seemed to work in this context.

A photo posted by Shaheen Bhatt (@shaheenb) on Nov 23, 2016 at 12:18am PST

All India Bakchod (AIB) member Rohan Joshi, who Shaheen is dating, also showed his support by supporting her when someone commented on how she could possibly suffer from depression, coming as she does from a privileged background. Rohan pointed out that it’s a misconception that people suffering from depression have a “bad” life.

That’s a huge misconception about depression, that things in your life have to be “bad” for you to feel depressed. Please read up about it?

Rohan Joshi, AIB member

@mojorojo is literally the 😬 emoji

A photo posted by Shaheen Bhatt (@shaheenb) on Oct 6, 2016 at 3:01am PDT