Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone on Friday (October 31) lauded Indian cricket all-rounder Jemimah Rodrigues who opened up about her mental health at a press conference post-match and spoke about her anxiety leading up to the ICC Women’s World Cup tournaments.
Padukone who is a fierce advocate for mental health, has always been open about her struggles with depression in the past and also has her own foundation and NGO called Live Love Laugh which offers free tele-counselling, helplines and resources for those who are struggling with their psychological well being. She reposted Jemima Rodrigues’s video to her Instagram story and praised her for her vulnerability and courage in speaking about such a sensitive topic. She captioned it: “Thank you @jemimahrodrigues for your vulnerability and for sharing your story..”
Jemimah’s emotional post-match interview
Although attitudes around mental health are shifting in the country, the pace is glacial. The topic of one’s psychological well-being is still taboo in many circles in the country, something to be hidden and dealt with in secret or a stiff upper lip. The youth of this country are trying to have more open conversations around the topic but for the majority of the population still have conservative attitudes towards the topic of mental health.
So, for a public figure like Jemima to open up on such a major platform as a post-match conference is a bigger deal than many realize. It takes immense bravery to open up about something so personal and yet she succeeded in doing so. When asked to speak about her emotions regarding a missed match during the ODI World Cup, the young cricketer, voice trembling with tears, shared, “I’ll be very vulnerable here because I know if someone is watching this, they might be going through the same thing. And that’s my whole purpose of saying it because nobody likes to talk about their weakness. I was going through a lot of anxiety at the starting of the tournament and it was a lot before few games also I used to call my mom and cry.”
“Cry the entire time, let it all out, because when you’re going through anxiety, you just feel numb. You don’t know what to do. You’re trying to be yourself. And also in this time, my mom, my dad, they supported me a lot. And also, there was Arundhati who I think almost every day I’ve cried in front – almost every day I’ve cried in front of her. Later, I was joking, I said, you don’t come in front of me, I’ll start crying. But she checked on me every single day,” she added.
Watch the video here:
Her advice to those dealing with anxiety
The breaking point that led to her anxiety was when she was benched during the initial matches of the tournament. Speaking about how the incident affected her she said, “I was dropped from the team. That really hit me. And, when you’re dropped, you have a lot of doubts because I always want to contribute to the team. But that day I couldn’t do much sitting out. And then when you come back in, it’s a lot more pressure with everything that was happening in the past month.”
“But sometimes all you need to do is just hang in there and things fall into place. So, I think, yeah, so I’m very grateful for the people who believed in me when I couldn’t and were there for me and understood me because I couldn’t do this on my own,” she concluded.
It is worth noting that Jemima’s unbeaten score of 127 led India to a smooth victory against the defending champions Australia with a record chase of 339 runs at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Thursday, October 30. The Indian women’s national cricket team won by 5 wickets and will be facing off South Africa in the final on Sunday.