Bollywood actress Deepika reveals how depression wrecked her life

The glamorous 29-year-old actress recently confessed on television how she battled depression and coped painfully with negative publicity to survive in the Indian cinema industry.

While depression is a 'taboo word' in many societies, the darling of millions of cinephiles has openly revealed her sufferings and trauma which she went through -- locking herself up in the bathroom and crying for hours.

The actress said early last year, she woke up one morning feeling empty and had pittish feeling in her stomach and felt aimless.

"I didn't know where to go, I didn't know what to do and I had these bouts of feelings so low that I would just start crying," she said in an exclusive talkshow with NDTV's Barkha Dutt.

The show discussed World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics that Indians were the highest number of people suffering from depression and about 100,000 people committed suicide yearly, a mental disorder generally described as a 'silent killer'.

A recent study also stated that the highest suicides rate in the world was in the 15-29 age group.

Deepika's experience prompted her to set up the 'Live Love Laugh Foundation' to assist those suffering from the disorder.

The actress, daughter of legendary Indian badminton player Prakash Padukone, also admitted there were days when she did not want to wake up from her bed and just wanted to sleep because that was her "escapism".

She said in India, every four people were depressed and unlike any other medical disorder, depression did not manifest physical symptom.

"Just writing in the manner that they did, I think we need to become little more sensitive about how we write about these things," said Deepika, struggling to contain her tears on the screen.