MUMBAI: Eijaz Khan recently spoke about his long battle with mental illness. His parents’ separation when he was just four and a lifelong search for love and acceptance, triggered a with mental illness for him. Surprisingly, till six years ago, he was not even aware that he was ailing. “We have been socially conditioned to believe that boys don’t cry, so I didn’t. Instead, I grew up believing that my mom had left me because she didn’t love me and my father couldn’t accept me. I blamed myself for my parents’ fights and the anxiety eventually translated into anger issues,” he confides.

When he discussed this with his then partner, just before they were to tie the knot, she advised Eijaz to see a therapist. He admits that though he went there just to prove a point to her, therapy changed him. “Till then, I was Eijaz Khan, the star, who was always right. But by the fourth meeting, I was talking about my childhood in third person, like it had happened to someone else,” he shares

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he toxicity the actor carried with him till he was almost 40 affected his own relationships as he was superimposing his insecurities on his partners. “I badly wanted them to stay with me, but not in a possessive way. If they tried to do anything independently my passive aggressive side would surface. I was so comfortable being unhappy that I’d do something to create that. I don’t blame my partners for leaving me and moving to a healthier life,” he acknowledges.
Professionally, too, his work suffered as he identified with and surrounded himself with people who were low themselves and stopped meeting real friends or going for meetings. He would lock himself in a room, blacking out the windows, and not step out for three days.

"Today, I understand that therapy makes you realise that things aren’t as bad as one might think. You are not scared to live anymore,” he asserts.

“The lockdown forced me to be with and take care of myself. The biggest paradox is that while the world is tackling hardships, I would say that this has been the best phase of my life. Today, at 45, I am publicly talking about my issues and that makes me a winner. The stigma around mental health has to end, we need to start discussing it,” he signs off.

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Credits: Mumbai Mirror