Nisha Rawal on being a single parent to Kavish post-divorce; talks about her clinical anxiety, bipolarity and more

Nisha Rawal has spoken out about being clinically bipolar and opened up about how people have made fun of her. She also discussed being a single parent to Kavish after her divorce and talked about her clinical anxiety and bipolar disorder in Rubina Dilaik’s latest podcast.

When you become a mum, your level of empathy goes to another level. I think it's the biological changes that a woman goes through that humble her. It's got a lot to do with the way we are biologically engineered right and the way our social blueprint has been the way we have seen mothers around us. I took inspiration from my mom because Mamma was a single parent and she also had a broken family. So I've been seeing all that generational trauma that has happened over the years. People think I don’t feel pain or I don’t cry or I don’t feel sad. People think I just wake up, get ready and get out of the house dressed like a heroine. I feel that that requires a lot of courage, everyday courage, yes, just waking up and putting on your makeup and just driving that car Stanly, or talking to a friend who probably needs you, or even posting the right kind of content on social media that will inspire others.

I feel that already at this age stage of life, my experience as a human, you know, has been so diverse, whether it's childhood trauma, whether it's mental health that we speak about your single parenting that we speak about. I've had a miscarriage before Kavish. So there is so much that has already happened that I feel I have become very enriched with experiences because I have taken it in a positive way. Tomorrow, Lord forbid, if something happens to my child or he needs me, I will give him advice with my firsthand experience, and nothing teaches you more than that.

I think I've already been pretty successful in ending it. I like to be aware of what's happening and how we can solve it. The way I have perceived the traumas that we're talking about and the way I have processed them in terms of my negative coping mechanisms, thankfully I didn't slip away. I came back, I realized it, I looked deeper, I read books, you, I spoke to people when I grew up then I met my therapist. And how is it that we can take active steps to break it? So I feel just the fact that you acknowledge that something like that has happened. I'm going to take things under control and I'm not going to let my life just flow in front of me.

There are times when I cry into the pillow. Yes, there are times when I don't feel like coming out of bed. There are times when I don't want to meet anybody and shut my door, but I just feel that it's a gift. It just cannot be possible by trying to write your destiny. You just have to acknowledge it. Your life is just about responding to the pain. I won't say it won't affect him at all, because that is a part of his journey too.

I have clinical anxiety. I'm also clinically bipolar, so you will sometimes experience that I'm talking a lot and I might just go in a circle and then I have to come back, but it's clinical. I have self-regulated it in a way that I figured out my correct coping mechanism. So I'm not on medication, but I've learned the right things. I was at some point, a few years ago. It's a mood disorder, and I talk about it openly because there are people who've thrown stones at me saying, ‘oh, she's bipolar’, and they made fun of it right at a point where you romanticize these terms and then you feel that you can bring somebody else down by saying it as though it's a bad word. One has to take active steps every single day because you have to live with yourself. You have to live with your anxiety, so it's an everyday process. One should only have appreciation for people around us who are going through something like that, and one probably can't really empathize because they are not really going through it because people say ‘anxiety toh sabko hoti hai. But when you're going through something clinical, it's really major.

I always felt a very strong sense of emotion. Every time I saw a little girl and a father. I had a lump in my throat. I'm talking about back in the day when I was a teenager or until I was a teenager. I just couldn't bear the sight of it because I didn't know how to my emotions because I missed my father. I have always missed it so much so that when I was little. I had told myself that when I grew up. I will have this partner. And then we're gonna be living happily ever after, right? And I put so much importance to that thought. Imagine the kind of expectation you have out of your relationships because you have been waiting for decades for that person to come. I have realized that your partner is not your therapist.

It’s my innate responsibility because I've brought that child into the world, especially when you're single parenting the child, you have doubled the responsibility absolutely so you have to be that male figure. He asks me and I tell him that you have two mamas when God doesn't give us one thing. Then you have two mamas, I'm your ma, and I'm your dad. I tell him that, and then he takes it literally when he was younger. Now he's understood he's like no, you're not my dad because he took it literally right. I've kept my doors of communication open for him. I have told him that anytime you wants to see your father's pictures, or ask me questions about him, I'm here for you. We're not going to brush that conversation under the carpet and I tell him stuff only in an age-appropriate way. He asks me questions and I say that certain things I will not be able to explain but all I can tell you is that I'm here for you, for your emotions, whatever you feel and no one gets into trouble for telling the truth.