It is difficult to pinpoint the initiation of Dwayne Johnson in the public forum – he has simply always been there, keeping his fans entertained and his haters livid. Be it football or wrestling or Hollywood, The Rock has given his blood, sweat, and tears and ultimately dominated every venture he has taken up throughout his adult life.
And despite such a struggle to land at the very top, one can hardly recall a time when the People’s Champion shared the adversities he faced or the times he had to pick himself up after every fall. Now, however, educated on the subject of mental health and well-being, The Rock is beginning to crack the literature on the subject wide open, spreading awareness and helping souls along the way.
In the meantime, one star from Hollywood’s distant cousin film industry has spoken up and cheered him on as Johnson launches the second act of his personal journey.
Deepika Padukone Lauds Dwayne Johnson on Social Media
Bollywood megastar Deepika Padukone is one of the few public celebrities in India who has openly and unflinchingly spoken up about the tenuous journey of mental health, sharing excerpts from her personal experiences after battling clinical depression during her versatile career. With the platform provided to her and the reach she can achieve via her enormous fanbase, the Bollywood star has used her story to reach out to every soul she possibly can, appearing even on an episode of Archetypes, a Spotify original podcast hosted by the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
Keeping true to her initiative, Padukone – who also launched an NGO, The Live Love Laugh Foundation, to raise awareness and help those struggling with mental health – has recently reposted and commented on Dwayne Johnson’s revelations about his own struggles. The Black Adam star recently revealed during a recent appearance on The Pivot podcast,
“I didn’t want to go to school… I was ready to leave. I left school. I didn’t take any midterms, and I just left. But the interesting thing, at that time, is I just didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what mental health was. I didn’t know what depression was. I just knew I didn’t want to be there, wasn’t going to any of the team meetings, wasn’t participating in anything.”
Sharing the interview on social media, the actress who worked alongside Vin Diesel in the $346 million movie XXX: The Return of Xander Cage in 2017, commented, “Mental health matters.”
Dwayne Johnson has been increasingly open about his early years in the past decade. The star has revealed his difficult childhood during which he recalls being evicted and his mother’s suicide attempt, his unfulfilled dreams of joining the NFL and pursuing football, and the terrifying journey involving stigma and discrimination about his physicality during the early years of joining Hollywood.
The Destigmatization of Mental Health Continues Still
Some people are hopelessly cursed with the burden of creative genius – a trait that often comes paired with the weight of feeling emotions on a spectrum unachievable by the generic mind. Troubled artists, genius musicians, brilliant minds that are gone too soon – all sound familiar and yet, it is a human condition that has rarely ever been discussed as openly or commonly or freely as food or films or books or murder podcasts over the past decades or so. And befitting to the situation, progress in the field of mental health remains ever so slow and ignorant.
Somewhere in between the advent of psychiatry as a medical discipline in the 19th century and the eventual long-winded, difficult, and exhausting road right up to the doorsteps of modern society, mental health began to be studied rather than shunned and treated rather than criminalized.
With some non-Western countries still falling behind in catching up to the current predicament, the subject of mental health at the societal micro level is still a taboo As such, Deepika Padukone’s initiative to further the talks and holding an open discussion regarding clinical depression is a considered a bold new step in the right direction.
Source: Instagram | Deepika Padukone
