The first time I was ever exposed to the fitness industry, must’ve been when my brother put in a video tape of Ronnie Coleman taking the stage and his journey to bodybuilding. I really was intrigued but not as intrigued as my brother. I mean, seeing a huge, well a giant of a man taking the stage, standing in his underwear and doing poses was not exactly appealing to a girl still in primary school.

The next time I was exposed to body building was watching my brother train with the little weights he had in our backyard and slowly build himself up to take the stage at Nabba. The immense joy of seeing him placing second in a Junior category and Novice category was just so overwhelming for my family and especially my parents. This was merely the beginning for him, he went on to winning so many shows that we eventually lost count of them and not forgetting entering Nationals as well, his ultimate dream was to get his IFBB pro card but unfortunately he passed away before he could achieve that dream.

We were extremely close, so you can imagine the mental toll it took on me. Physically, emotionally I was just completely drained, not to mention 3 months pregnant when this happened. Being a grieving, soon to be mum is never an easy task, emotions all over the place and trying to juggle work, life, being a new wife was just too much for a 25 year old to handle. This ultimately lead to my journey with Depression.

I tried my best to be sane, to be normal but throughout my pregnancy I battled severe depression and the sad part of it was that I didn’t even know that I was depressed. I would sit in meetings and try my best to focus but no matter how hard I tried, I just could not remember a thing that was said. This meant that I was starting to lose my memory, I lost interest in things that used to excite me, I Slowly began losing myself and the fun person that I was. I became extremely clumsy too and I just didnt know why. I remember googling some of my symptoms so many times and most of the time, google would tell me that I have a brain tumor or that I was dying….. And my husband would reassure me that I definitely was NOT.

I never really took much care of myself while pregnant, it kind off feels like those 9 months were a complete blur. I also gained a whopping 28kgs, now I am not a small girl.. I am built taller and I hide my weight quite well. So even though I gained all of this weight, I still felt the same and my husband never complained about it. I think to him, he still found me beautiful and there was no difference but MY oh My was there a huge difference.

So here I was again……. Battling weight gain, depression, being a new mum, breastfeeding, waking up every 2 hours, being a wife and so many other roles that was now being bestowed on me. Completely and Utterly OVERWHELMING.

There were many instances where nobody understood, if you have not gone through depression or walked the journey with someone who has experienced depression, it will be extremely hard for one to understand it and nobody is to blame for this.