Lets save others by sharing our own story
hi guys
uh my name is sudhan supande and first
of all i would like to thank
tedx golden bridge to give me this
platform
and this opportunity to speak about
uh something that i’m very very
sensitive about and
something that i’ve personally gone
through something that i’ve experienced
and something that has
altered my life my thinking
uh my conscience forever
and uh today um
whatever i am as a human being as an
actor
as a person or whatever you may call
or perceive me as is is the result is
the final result of
what i went through because of that
experience and um
uh the the the topic that i’m talking
about
is essentially mental health
um and you know today the world
is filled with all sorts of competition
the
competitive nature of people
the cutthroat competition the race to be
number one and to be running all the
time
restlessly without um without realizing
what kind of impact
it’s having on our uh on our mind on our
physical condition
on our families or anybody who loves us
or is around us so
i would like to share one experience
that
i just mentioned and it happened to me
around 2008 and
i’d also like to tell you that you know
this this this whole thing happened when
at the uh at the at the age of
30 or something i think i had bought my
first house in bombay and i was very
fortunate that i i had the strength and
the ability to be able to pull
all the strings together and uh i could
buy a house which was
fairly large size and and and at such a
young age
um for an actor who had come to bombay
with nothing
but a wife and no friends no work
no money at all to be able to uh you
know buy
buy a house buy an apartment and
obviously that happened you know and and
oh
i brought upon a lot of pressure uh on
my head as well because obviously you
can’t buy
uh in one go not many of us can buy
apartments
or houses in one go in a city like
bombay which is very
expensive and
it requires a lot of money to give for
an apartment in one go so
obviously i had picked up a loan and
as a result obviously i was working
throughout and
i was um you know i was trying to make
as much money as possible to be able to
uh give my emis for that house and uh
you know
um also uh you know other expenditures
you know that that we we go through um
or we have to bear on
on a daily basis and um
around 2008 i think i shifted into that
house
uh in 2006 and i think around 2008
one day i was with a friend of mine
um he’s a director and a writer and
uh i was sitting in a in an open cafe
with him i was in fact i still remember
i can never forget that moment because
it uh
it was something that changed me forever
i was standing with him and i suddenly
started feeling that
my uh my body
suddenly uh started to feel like
there is something happening there’s
something wrong with me and i
um my heart started racing suddenly and
i could feel the palpitations up to my
throat here
and um i started sweating and i i said
uh i told my friend i said swell
uh you know i i don’t know what is
happening something is happening to me
take me to the doctor take to the
hospital
and and he also panicked and
he rushed me to my doctor first i said
take me to my my doctor and i went to my
doctor
my family doctor and she she failed to
recognize what happened to me
she uh rushed me to a hospital she said
get your cardiac
status checked and i went and i got an
ecg done the ecg was normal but i was
not normal i was
i was feeling like somebody is uh
something is happening to me and i think
i’m gonna die i think i’m just gonna die
and just suddenly everything around me
was so so dark and so
uh you know so uh dramatically dark and
i was i just thought that everything is
coming down crumbling down
crashing down and it’s uh if it felt
like doom
and uh guys all i can tell you is that
that just felt
terrible to another level and uh
from there my journey started and
although we have very limited time i
would love to go on and on about this
experience but
let me tell you that um you know it’s an
experience
where if you were a very very happy man
or you are a very happy person and
um you you’re standing on top of uh
you know you’re having a you have a good
life and you have a very happy life and
you’re standing on top of a
of a mountain cliff and you’re enjoying
the breeze you’re enjoying the scenery
everything is hunky-dory around you
people are happy
you know your kids are happy your wife
is happy your friends are happy
everything is happy
around you and while you’re standing on
that cliff and suddenly somebody comes
from behind
and kicks you in the back hard and you
start to fall and when you fall
you’re falling and falling and falling
without any hitting the ground
you can’t see the ground you’re just
falling
and trust me that feeling
of being in that state
of a constant fall
and going deeper and deeper and deeper
and darker and darker
uh is something that is incomparable and
uh something that cannot be explained
but only experienced
it’s like being suspended in
into a world that is dark
absolutely darkness absolute darkness
around you
absolute uh you’re suspended you’re
um you’re floating
and you still feel that you know you’re
falling but there is nobody
catching you not hitting the ground
you’re not touching anything there’s
nothing
it’s just constant suspension into that
dark
world it feels like dome it feels like
you’re
dying any minute and every
minute you’re dying and
by god’s grace i would say that you know
i don’t know maybe i’m blessed
with my karma uh that one i had to go
through this
i had to go through this experience uh
which i later came to know
is called a panic attack and this panic
attack
sent me spiraling down
into a very very very dark
world of doom and
it just sent me spiraling down so fast
that within
a matter of few seconds i was
in chronic depression and the reason why
i’m mentioning this word depression is
because
it is true it is real and it can happen
to any one of us
and like i said we are living a life of
constant competition uh for
everything whether it is your career
whether it is your
uh your dressing up your clothes your
friends or competition with your friends
he is doing a better job than i am so i
need to do a better job
or he’s happier than i am so let me also
be happy and
then we get into all sort of pretense
and artificial
um happiness and uh
we really can’t find any true happiness
in all of that and and and then these
kind of things happen to you where
you suddenly uh break down internally
because you’ve taken too much
you’ve endured too much of pressure and
pain and
without realizing one day you hit this
moment
and you’re depressed and then you don’t
know
what to do you’re still trying to figure
your life out you still wonder what has
happened to me
and then you start feeling really weird
and you start to think that
is my life over is everything over is my
career over
is my family over am i dying or
should i die myself should i kill myself
any sort of thought
can come into your head but
this is where i want to correct you
i will share my personal experience
obviously and i’ll tell you how
i dealt with it and trust you me
whenever this happens you must tell
yourself that
actually there is nothing wrong with you
it’s just in your mind it’s your mind
that is telling you that
something is wrong where actually
there’s nothing wrong
it’s a chemical imbalance if i were to
tell you in a scientific language
or a medical language it’s a chemical
imbalance
it just changes your thinking it just
changes the feeling around you and
uh obviously because you are you’ve
endured so much of
pressure on your head and your lifestyle
has been such that you know
physically these things happen and and
suddenly one day
you start to feel very different so uh
let me tell you that
i was lucky that i drew strength from
within and i kept telling myself
i i’ve always been a very strong person
from inside um
as far as me uh anything to do with me
and my family
uh is concerned i i’ve always drew i
always drew strength from within and i
kept telling myself
throughout this feeling that no there is
nothing there is there is this cannot be
real this is not true
this is not me this is not sudhanshu
pandey this cannot happen to me this
cannot this cannot
bring me down this cannot change my life
this is not what i’m here for
i am here for much bigger things and
this cannot put me down
then i kept telling that to myself and
kept drawing strength from that one
thought
that there is nothing wrong with me i
kept drawing strength and i
kept becoming stronger till one day
a friend of mine a childhood classmate
of mine suddenly appeared from somewhere
and he
introduced me to my my almighty
mahakal you know jain uh one of the
jotri one of the twelve jyotirlings and
that is where i went and surrendered
myself
and from there
my spiritual journey started and
i’ll tell you something that during all
this dark period
i felt that all that
all that muck the dirt
of the influence of the worldly things
around me
and being a part of this glamour
industry there’s so much of
muck there is so much of pressure and
all of that
this influences that i had on my
conscience
which uh completely
covered my uh my my soul and my
conscience
those blankets filled with the muck of
this of this worldly influence on me
started to clear up started i started
remove
those blankets one by one because uh
this whole dark phase also
helped me get in touch with my conscious
and i only realized it
much later that i’m in touch with my
conscience and
i need to help myself and the moment i
started removing those blankets and
started clearing
those blankets i became a different
person
and thanks to mahakal i started praying
i started doing shivaratna i started
talking to myself
in a better way i started reasoning
everything that i
i wanted to do and i didn’t want to do i
started reasoning with myself
and trust me slowly gradually
by telling myself that there is nothing
wrong i
found my way out of this dark world
and three and a half years later four
years later
when i did come out of this without any
medication
yes i did not use any medication at all
i came out of this dark depressed state
of mind
without any medication just by telling
myself that
there is nothing wrong with me there’s
nothing wrong with anything around me
everything is fine it is just my mind
that’s playing games with me
and that is all i need to get rid of
and i do strength from the spiritual
streak that i developed from my mahakal
and that is it
four years later when i stood in front
of the camera as an actor
i was there standing as a completely
different human being a completely
different person
and i had a renewed conscience
and today let me tell you that i
am an actor
who gets appreciation and love from all
you people
for all the work that i do from the way
i emote is all thanks to what i have
become as a person from inside
after going through all this so
let me tell you that please do not ever
let yourself be affected by any sort of
state where
you feel depressed or whatever
negativity that you have
you must tell yourself that this is not
it this is not the end of it
you must must must talk to people
you must talk to your family and tell
them that this is how you’re feeling and
i’m sure you will head
have the help you will get the help from
the people from the people who love you
from the friends who love you
and you will be out of it sooner than
you know
and life is very beautiful
let’s value our life let’s value the
gift
that god has given us it is the greatest
gift that he’s given us
let us value it let us live it and let’s
make the most of it
and do some good work and concentrate on
good karma
and faith be positive stay positive
and this is sudan supernatural signing
off thank you once
again tedx golden bridge for giving me
this platform to speak my heart out
i hope uh whatever i’ve shared with you
guys is something that you can take back
home and if you ever feel slightly
negative you can deal with it
with the way i told you and i’ll be very
happy if i
if this can be of any help to you guys
thank you so much once again
jai hind jai mahakal and jay sridham
god bless