My hands shook as I gripped a lethal dose of pain pills, so many that they spilled out of my fists and onto the floor.
"I'm a fat, useless mum," I thought. "I can't play with my daughter in the park, and now I can't even keep hold of these tiny pills."
Tears blurred my vision as I tried to focus on my then three-year-old daughter, Naomi, who was sleeping peacefully between pink sheets on the bed next to me.
"She's better off without me," I thought as tears drenched my burning cheeks on that near-fatal night of January 20, 2016.
But before I could cram the tablets in my mouth, Naomi turned and giggled in her sleep, and that little movement snapped me out of my darkness.
"How could I do that to her? How could I leave her without a mummy?" I thought as I sat and cried on her bed. And that night, I knew things had to change.
I had been bullied about my weight all my life.
From the time I was in primary school, people said I was fat. In high school, they'd kick me as I walked past and tell me my legs were too big. They'd throw things at me and stand up in class to say how fat I was.
People didn't want to be my friend because they thought they'd be bullied too if they were seen with me.
As I got older and bigger, strangers would point and laugh at me on the street.
"Look how fat she is!" I'd hear them say. Every time I left the house I'd get some comment about my weight.
Even when I got all dressed up and did my hair and make-up for a night out with friends, people would laugh and call me a beached whale.
So I stopped going out because I was scared of what people would say.
At home I was safe and no one would laugh at me or taunt.
It used to make me so sad that people couldn't accept me for who I was. I was brought up to think that everyone's equal and deserves to be treated nicely. But people treated me differently just because I was bigger than others.
I found comfort in eating.
I got stuck in this vicious cycle, where I'd eat when I was depressed, I wouldn't exercise because I was too scared to leave the house, and I kept getting heavier.
I was addicted to food. I'd have at least four or five takeaways a week like pizzas, burgers, kebabs. I also ate pot noodles and pies.
Every year I swore I'd change. I'd turn my life around, stop eating junk and I'd exercise. I'd prove all those people who had been horrible to me that they were wrong. That I wasn't fat.
But each year kept slipping by and on January 20, 2016, after my husband kissed me and left for his job as a taxi driver, I couldn't face feeling like such a failure anymore.
I was so angry at myself. Why could I not stick to my resolutions.? I felt useless. I was failing my daughter, my husband and myself. I was no good for anybody.
I gathered lots of pills that night in January 2016, and I intended to swallow them all and that would be it.
I knew Billy would be home from work soon so Naomi would not be on her own for long.
Even though I was in a dark place and I wasn't thinking straight, I was still aware of her and wanted to keep her safe.
But when she moved in her sleep she startled me out of that place. She was laughing in her sleep and she looked so sweet.
I suddenly thought, "What am I doing? How could I leave her to wake up without a mummy anymore?"
I sat there for a few hours until my husband got home from work at about 2am.
When he walked in and saw the pills he asked me, "what's going on?"
I broke down and told him how I felt and what I almost did.
He said: "How could you think we'd be better off without you?! We love you. And we need you."
His face was just devastated. We talked for hours until we fell asleep.
The next morning my whole mindset was different.
Jennifer Malik stopped eating junk food and focused on preparing healthy meals at home. She has since lost weight and coupled with workouts and a surgery to remove her belly fat, she got to her desired weight.
