Deepti Naval opens up on divorce with Prakash Jha, says she went into depression: ‘I would sit in the garage for hours at end…’

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She recalled how the two of them felt something was wrong with their marriage very early into the union and said, “There was a time right after my marriage that within a few years I realised that things weren’t working out like the way I thought they would. At one point, our relationship came to a place where the communication between us had completely crashed. When the marriage didn’t work out, and being the kind of person I am, I went through very bad depression. I was a student of psychology in school, and I had certain experiences, or witnessed them rather. I had a friend who used to have depressive episodes, and I saw the kind of characteristics she possessed and the kind of person she was. I connected the dots, and I realised after my marriage that I was going through something very identical.”

She shared how dealing with mental health issues is much more difficult for celebrities, as they are always in the public light and hence always the subject of scrutiny. “When you hit rock bottom, you are the only one that can pull yourself from that pit. Being a celebrity, you couldn’t run to someone for your mental health, because I was always conscious of what people would think if the news got out that I was taking someone’s help. So I decided that I will help myself out of this. Every 20-25 days, I used to feel that nothing in life was working out, that I was wrong for leaving my family to come to America. I even thought that my choice of career was the wrong decision and that this unstable kind of life wasn’t for me. My writing and painting became my crutch, and I used to sit in my garage for hours on end, and I filled so many canvases and diaries.

Deepti and Prakash adopted a daughter named Disha Jha in 1988.