On World Mental Health Day yesterday, Ira Khan posted a video on her Instagram that featured her with her father as the two spread awareness and break the taboo around the subject.

In the video, Aamir Khan said, “Zindagi mai aise bahut se kaam hai jo hum khud nahi kar pate, jismai hume kisi aur vyakti ki madad lagti hai jo woh kaam janta hai. Aur aise faisle hum badi asani se le lete hai baigair kisi sharam ke, baigair kisi jhijak ke.”

Ira Khan added, “Jab humay mansik ya jasbati madad ki zaroorat padti hai, toh hume aise vyakti ke paas jana chahiye, isi asani se bina jhijak, jo humari madad kar sakta hai. Trained hai, professional hai.”

Aamir Khan revealed that he and Ira, have been taking up therapy. “Aur dosto meri beti, Ira, aur mai pechle kayi salon se therapy ka laabh utha rahe hai. Aur agar aapko lagta hai ki aap bhi mansik ya jazbati taklefo se guzar rahe hai, koi tension hai, koi stress hai, koi takleef hai toh aap bhi ek aise vyakti ko dhund sakte hai jo professional hai, trained hai, jo aapki madad kar sakta hai, ismai koi sharam nahi hai,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ira, who under her Agatsu Foundation has been conducting activities for the betterment of mental wellbeing for people, had earlier opened up about her mental health in detail. Calling her depression partly genetic, she had told us, “Every 10 months, I have a very big (emotional and mental) crash. It happened in July 2022 last. On one hand, I have been championing other people’s mental health (through her organization), but I have supreme amounts of stigma for my own mental health.”

Ira shared that having a strong support system is very important in such cases. “Self-awareness, communication, resilience and if everything else fails where you can’t take therapy, you can’t take medicine then human connections work,” she says, thanking her friends circle and parents who understand her and is glad to have an amazing fiancé, who’s also her gym trainer.

She says, “I go to both my parents for help. I also turn to Kiran (Rao) Aunty. In fact, I have made a group with all three of them (on WhatsApp). And when it comes to Popeye (her partner Nupur Shikhare), he has the emotional bandwidth to spend time on me. He hasn’t randomly said yes to things he is not interested in doing. Being there for someone takes time and energy. It takes a certain level of commitment. Because during this (mental crisis) I am not going to properly be able to articulate what I am feeling for a while until I figure it out for myself. So, I feel very lucky to have him by my side who wanted to invest in trying to understand what I was going through.”