“I am not feeling strong, capable, secure.” Imran Khan opened up about grappling with mental health challenges during his break from Bollywood.
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00:00Your films didn't work, so you felt depressed and so you went away
00:04Finally resorted to steroid use as well
00:06My heart is racing and there's all this feeling
00:08I would wake up in the middle of the night, it was 4 am
00:10Just lie there, heart racing, throat constricting, unable to breathe
00:15And I would lie there until sunrise
00:22You put up a post with, you know, putting up water on your body
00:28And you spoke about the dark times that you've had
00:31At what point did this start happening with you?
00:35Where do you think that this really began?
00:37Particularly with the rise of the superhero genre
00:40Over here, again, the thing is very much the same
00:43Hrithik was a major proponent of that
00:46You know, even back in the 90s, Salman, Sanjay Dutt
00:48These guys were massively muscled dudes
00:51And you start to see it more and more and more
00:54You very much start to feel the pressure
00:56And you're like, I need to look like that
00:59I have to have that kind of a body
01:02And we are driven more and more to it
01:05I think social media has, in a lot of ways, intensified it
01:10For a long time, tried to conform to that
01:14But I'm not built like Captain America, you know
01:17I don't have the Thor physique
01:19I tried my best, I took all of the stuff
01:23Finally resorted to steroid use as well
01:26Uh, it's not sustainable
01:29It's not sustainable
01:30Part of the narrative, which is a very, very simplistic thing
01:33Is to put it as your films didn't work
01:37So you felt depressed and so you went away
01:40It's nothing to do with that
01:41Yeah
01:42I'm not the first actor to have upset downs
01:45Certainly not
01:47The industry was certainly not unfair to me
01:51And the audience was not unkind to me
01:53In any way, in any meaningful way
01:56Different to anyone else
01:58My experience was internal
02:02It was an increasingly built-up voice that was telling me
02:06These are the things by which you are measured as a man
02:10As an individual
02:14You must make this much money
02:16You must have this much stardom
02:17You must have this kind of social status
02:19Unfortunately, the ecosystem that started to foster itself around me
02:27There was a scarcity of balanced voices
02:31The voices were all ones that reinforced the negative
02:36What it comes down to is
02:38The support system that you have around you
02:42And whether that is supporting you and empowering you
02:48Or whether that in itself is eroding your sense of self-worth
02:52I didn't think that I had anxiety
02:54Yeah
02:54Just I feel very like my heart is racing
02:58And there's all this feeling
03:01I couldn't put a name to it
03:04I would wake up in the middle of the night
03:05It was 4 a.m.
03:06Just lie there heart racing
03:08Throat constricting
03:09Unable to breathe
03:11And I would lie there until sunrise
03:15And I never connected it
03:16And I said, oh, this is anxiety
03:19Like you had, I mean, Amir at your home
03:21You had your mother who's a psychoanalyst, you know
03:24Were you able to speak about these things to them?
03:26As it happens, I was not
03:29You know, for the closeness
03:31And the consideration that I have for Amir
03:37He's a very busy guy
03:40You know, so we would meet infrequently
03:46He would be eyeball deep in three films
03:49That has been pre-production, it's impossible
03:51You know, so the conversations would
03:54Never quite have the chance to get there
03:59Life is such, you know, everyone's got so much going on
04:01That over there never got there
04:06It was ultimately my mom who was able to kind of
04:10Help me out with that thing
04:11Where I would start to talk to her and say
04:14Hey, you know, I'm feeling this thing
04:16Or I'm feeling this
04:17I am not feeling strong, capable, secure
04:22I'm feeling ill at ease
04:24I'm feeling like I cannot function properly
04:31That is where I started to feel
04:32That I really need to seek help for this