Vikram Bhatt is currently busy with the promotions of his movie, Tumko Meri Kasam, which stars Anupam Kher, Esha Deol, Adah Sharma, and Ishwak Singh in the lead roles. The filmmaker recently in an interview with Pinkvilla opened up about his autoimmune condition, and also revealed that how actresses like Deepika Padukone and Samantha Ruth Prabhu speaking about their health problem encourages others.
Bhatt stated, "I have always suffered from depression. The reason I did not want to have Shweta (his wife) in my life is because I was like 'why you want to be with a depressed person?' and she said that's not your choice to make. I have an autoimmune condition, it called Axial spondyloarthritis. It is a kind of an arthritis where the bones begin to fuse. The result is a lot of pain."
Further talking about how it wouldn't have been easy to speak about mental health 20 years ago, the Raaz director said, "You were not supposed to talk about mental health. I think one of the first persons to talk about this was Deepika Padukone. Samantha Prabhu has a condition call Myositis which is a very close one to what I suffer from. I think it is very important for people to come out with their mental illnesses because it gives a lot of strength to youngsters, to people who are suffering from it and also keeping it quite."
"When big idols like Deepika Padukone, Samantha, and all of them come out and talk about it, people are energized, in a way encouraged to talk about their problems as well. That would stop so many teenage suicides, anxiety. I think the greatest illness in today's youth is anxiety," he added.
Deepika was actually one of the first Bollywood celebs to reveal that she suffered from depression, and she also started an NGO for mental health named The Live Love Laugh Foundation. Meanwhile, Samantha has been very vocal about her autoimmune condition, Myositis.
