On her way, in a flight recently, actor Fatima Sana Shaikh started getting seizures. Soon she was rushed to the medical facility at the airport, then to a hospital where she had to stay for two days. Shaikh recalls, she had five clusters of seizures, and was all alone with no familiar face around. “It put my work and life on hold. For me, this was a big jhatka, I really felt lucky to have survived,” Shaikh shares, adding that while she has had big episodes in the past, this one was the most difficult to handle as she was alone. “Now I need someone to travel with me at all times,” she says.

After this episode, the actor decided to talk about her neurological condition of epilepsy for the first time on social media, which also coincided with the ongoing National Epilepsy Awareness Month (NEAM). Talking about her condition for the first time in detail, Shaikh tells us, “I’ve not hidden it, but kabhi mauka nahi mila. I took some time to understand what it was. There’s so much stigma attached to it. You think log sochenge that you have an ailment. I didn’t want people to think I’m weak. I was scared of not getting work if I revealed I had epilepsy. I, also, didn’t want to accept that I have a neurological condition.”

Shaikh’s last episode led to her producers cancelling two days of shoot of Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur, which stars the 30-year-old. “I feel it’s my responsibility to tell my producers about my condition. I have had seizures on set before and people have taken care of it. I give them a certain protocol to follow,” she states.

The Dangal actor says that she decided to speak about it as she realised it was important to spread awareness and debunk myths. “People in rural areas think drugs kar liya, devi chadh gayi. Logon ki shaadiyan nahi hoti because people don’t know about epilepsy. They don’t get work because they become a liability,” she adds.

And while the actor admits that it is difficult to know what it feels like to go through such conditions unless you experience it firsthand, there needs to be a support system for people suffering from neurological conditions like epilepsy.