A fresh start after 60: catatonic depression left me unable to walk or talk. Now I teach cooking - laughing

Many of us would agree that laughter and good food make life worth living, and Zeenat Fayyaz combines the two. She runs a five-week cooking class at a community cafe near her home in south London and each lesson starts with five minutes of laughter yoga. She demonstrates an exercise - exaggerated movements where she pretends to do and then drink a milkshake which ends with a loud "Ha ha ha". "The underlying concept is that your brain can't tell the difference between a real laugh and a fake laugh, so you get the same health benefits," she says. Plus, it's so silly that real laughs ensue. “It connects people; it's an icebreaker."

Fayyaz, 62, said she wanted to "do something for me, something I can call mine. I have cooked all my life so I have turned my life experience into something that I can support myself financially. It looks like "a miracle".

In 2011, Fayyaz suffered from depression. “For three years, I had a catatonic depression, where everything stopped. I couldn't talk, laugh, walk – nothing. People in a state of catatonia are insensitive; in some cases, it may include not moving, talking, or eating. Her four adult children were shocked - despite difficult circumstances throughout her life, she had always been a happy and positive person. “They didn't know what was going on. They had no knowledge of depression, and they just wondered, "What happened to mom?"

Depression, according to Fayyaz, was the result of cumulative stress and trauma. She was born in Kenya to Indian parents, then moved to India for three years as a child and has lived in the UK since she was 11. She met her husband and got married at 19. Because he was a Muslim and his family was Sikh, she was disowned. Fayyaz converted to Islam and changed her name, but says she felt as a convert that she had never been properly accepted by her husband's family. She felt isolated.

She endured trauma: one of her babies was stillborn. Then there were financial difficulties - the family became homeless at one point - and her marriage finally broke up. She had to raise four children on her own. She tailored jobs around childcare (working in a nursery at a gym, then in recruitment), but, she says, "I always felt it wasn't me, like if I wanted a little more from life. I hadn't finished my studies, my childhood wasn't great, but I always had a smile on my face and I always dreamed of a better life.

In In his early 50s, when his children were young adults and the two youngest were still studying, his sanity plummeted. "I said to myself: 'I will never recover from it'", she says. "I was suicidal." She had tried medication and counseling, and was offered electroconvulsive therapy. “I was just, like, I'll try anything. I felt like I wasn't there anyway. In 2012, Fayyaz had three sessions, under general anesthesia, and for her it worked. "I started going out. I started feeling like I woke up."

His kids were very supportive, though it affected them all. "I'm really grateful to all of my kids, and without them I feel like I wouldn't be where I am today," she says. One of his sons noticed a local project, Loughborough Farm, which brings the community together to grow produce on abandoned land. He offered to take her. It became, she says, “part of my recovery. I've started volunteering with grow stuff and it's therapeutic. I have this determination to improve myself. She had a lot of help but it took courage to seek it, “and it's really hard when you're like that. But I think if people can have the courage to go there, it really helps.

In 2017, Fayyaz took a laughter yoga course and started teaching classes at Loughborough Farm. Two years ago, she started her own community benefit business. With funding from the National Lottery, she now runs cooking classes, focusing on Punjabi recipes and using local food surpluses. "People are learning spices and how to cook from scratch. We live in a fairly deprived neighborhood and my goal is to teach people how to cook at home. She still has what she calls 'low days'. "But I can recognize it, then I take a break."

The classes, says Fayyaz, "gave me the self-esteem and confidence that I can make my dreams come true. “She plans to go to India and learn more about her different cooking styles. She also started learning to swim and ride a bike, “things I didn't do when I was younger. People will always say things like, "At your age, what's the point?", but I think I just turned 21."

Tell us : Did your life take a new direction after the age of 60?

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