In a recent social media post, Archana Puran Singh owned up to dealing with anxiety throughout her life. The actor says she only recently learnt that the unexpressed nervousness she felt “before an exam, an event, a date” and had to “soldier on” throughout it being “a constant state of being for long periods of time” — was, in fact, her struggling with a form of anxiety.

Opening up about the post, Singh, who appears on The Great Indian Kapil Show tells us that the realization came with increasing exposure to people talking about “panic attacks and anxiety attacks”. “I realized that we all have dealt with it at some point. It is just that we have given it a definition today. We all have gone through that feeling while growing up, be it before an exam, getting scolded by parents or anticipating a scolding. Nobody informed us that it is called anxiety,” she says.

For her generation, it was the same as feeling another emotion, like happiness or sadness, explains Singh. “It dawned upon me that what I have experienced has also been anxiety, even though it was at a very mild level,” she says, adding that she now deals with the feeling by “focussing on the good part of the day”.

Singh, however, is cautious not to “make light of those dealing with more extreme states of anxiety”. After having “suffered silently” throughout life, and help being largely unavailable, the 61-year-old knows how debilitating it could be for many. She urges people to not use the word casually. “What I call anxiety, is maybe nothing for someone who’s suffering from a crippling form of it. We need to be cautious while dealing with the word.”

In the post, she had stated, “Today they call it anxiety. Nobody asked us how we felt. We ourselves didn’t question the frequent knot in our stomachs!!” I define my life as a very happy one... even through the tough times. You’ll be fine too (sic).”