I’m standing at the top of a huge hill on the grounds of a stately home, overlooking Bath’s stunning skyline.

It’s Good Friday 2025, the sun is poking through the clouds, and my husband Simon and I are both breathing hard after having pushed the double buggy containing our two children up the steep slope from the lake below.

We are fortunate enough to call this city our home; the view is idyllic and, at 37, my life looks better than I could have imagined even just a year ago.

But as I look from my two small children, aged three and nine months, to my husband, I find myself saying: ‘I just don’t think I can go on like this.’

I break down in floods of tears before telling him I think he and our children would be better off without me.

I am filled with a well of shame so deep I struggle to even put on a brave face for my children. My limbs are leaden, I have no energy and all I want to do is go home and sleep for ever.

Simon cries, too, as he leads me back to the car, before holding me tight and telling me how much I am loved, not just by him and the children, but by many others. He implores me to hear how much the children need me, how much he needs me.

It’s hard to understand how I got here, nine months after the birth of my second child. The first six months of his life were some of the happiest I have lived through.

Rose Stokes said she has struggled with my body image all her life. The perception of her weight as bad and wrong has been constant and relentless since the age of seven

Rose said after her first son was born, her mental health crashed and she was diagnosed with postnatal depression and anxiety

Just three months previously we had all shared a pretty magical first Christmas as a family of four, Simon and I catching each other’s gaze while looking at the two people we had created and saying to each other on repeat ‘we are so lucky’, and ‘life doesn’t get much better than this’.

These were not words that either of us took lightly.

After our first son was born, my mental health crashed and I was diagnosed with postnatal depression and anxiety. I have never felt lower or more worthless in my entire life.

As anyone who has experienced postnatal mental health issues will tell you, the shame of feeling anything other than gratitude after meeting your child can quickly make you feel like the worst person in the world.

This was especially the case for me. I had spent much of my early 30s single and desperately hoping to become a mother, while fearing it might never happen.

When I met my husband, now 38 and working in tech, it was in the middle of the pandemic. We met on a dating app and the love was instant – unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

The fact we had been able to navigate the depths of my depression during our first year as parents was testament to our strength as a couple – but it also made us both afraid of trying for another baby.

We did everything we could to prepare sensibly and made sure we both had a good support network in place should I relapse.

And, initially at least, bolstered by all the therapy and work I had done plus our increased confidence as second-time parents, things felt much easier after the birth of my second son. Much less complicated.

All of the feelings of deep contentment that had been eclipsed first time round by extreme terror and fear were easier to experience this time round.

It is not an exaggeration to say I woke up every single day of those first six months feeling so relieved not to be depressed, even while totally exhausted by the task of caring for a two-year-old and a newborn at once.

So why did I sink so low and why so suddenly nine months later?

Well, around the six-month mark, a few days before New Year’s Eve 2024, two big things changed. The first is that I finished breastfeeding and the second is that like hundreds of thousands of other Brits around that time, I started taking tirzepatide, a GLP-1 agonist medication known by the brand name of Mounjaro.

The drugs arrived a few days after all the excesses of Christmas and, bang, within hours my appetite was utterly gone. I could hardly believe it.

Rose, aged about 28 here, said she had spent much of her early 30s single and desperately hoping to become a mother, while fearing it might never happen

I was seemingly very sensitive to the drugs. I’ve since learned that not everyone reacts so drastically, but the pounds just fell off.

I was euphoric for three weeks after I started taking them, then things began to go horribly wrong.

One minute I was fine – a happy, tired mum catching up with friends in my kitchen – the next, I’d feel my thoughts cloud over and everything turn dark.

I was at a coffee morning with my friends when I first noticed something wasn’t quite right. I became completely disconnected from my surroundings. As it got worse, I began to feel terrified. My heart rate went through the roof and sweat dripped from every pore.

I called Simon, who was at work, to come home immediately because I was sure something was seriously wrong.

Worried, I contacted the pharmacy that had prescribed the GLP-1 and it suggested I swap to Wegovy instead. Which I duly did. But rather than getting any better, I began to deteriorate even more.

I started reading around the side-effects of weight-loss drugs and discovered that some patients taking Wegovy had reported ‘suicidal ideation’ as a reaction to taking the medication. Could this be happening to me? The problem was, no one really knew.

It was so new to the market back in the first half of 2025, it felt like I was part of a mass human drug trial. No one – from the pharmacist to my GP – could give me answers beyond ‘just stop taking it’. Which is exactly what I did.

I told myself that Simon and my babies needed me to be well and I couldn’t take a risk on anything that might risk my mental health – even for the sake of losing the 15kg (2st 5lb) that I’d put on after the birth of my second son, a weight gain that was also making me miserable.

The fact is I have struggled with my body image all my life. The perception of my weight as bad and wrong has been constant and relentless since the age of seven. Those feelings of shame are difficult to shake.

It wasn’t just me who had a problem with my weight, it was other people. It didn’t matter if they loved me, their words hurt – and many would be mortified to find out how much.

There was the family member who told me that my legs shouldn’t rub together when I walked while wearing a pair of much-loved CK Jeans shorts. I was ten and I never wore them again.

The GP who advised my parents they should take me to Slimming World meetings aged 15 (where, incidentally, a well-meaning woman told me they’d get me ‘skinny in no time’ – I was a size 12).

Rose said she went to the gym five times a week and both her and Simon started eating a much better diet

The best friend I made at university who told me – in a way that sounded like she thought it was a compliment – her friends visiting from home thought that I had ‘such a pretty face’, I’d be a ten-out-of-ten if I lost weight.

The drunken boss who told my colleagues at a Christmas party I had the ‘best t**s in the office’ and what a shame I didn’t have the body to match.

The boyfriend who told me he loved my curves before threatening to leave me if I didn’t lose weight.

The friends and family members who repeatedly told me when I did lose weight at the age of 28 – at which point I had an incipient eating disorder – that the boyfriend had ‘done me a favour’ with his threats because I looked the best I ever had.

And more. So many more.

In isolation each of these moments stung a lot, but I was able to move past them. Taken together, they added up to a concerted attack on my self-esteem, my sense of identity and my confidence in the world.

So when I thought I’d finally found the answer in GLP-1s to years of anguish about my weight, it was a considerable blow to have to come off them.

Soon after the drug left my system, however, my thoughts calmed considerably. Coupled with a month of therapy, the dark clouds lifted. I began to feel well again.

With the energy I needed to be the mother I always wanted to be, I swore that I would never, ever go back on the jabs…

So why, one year later, am I back on them again? How unwise would you have to be to take something you strongly suspect gives your mental health such a kicking?

Only a fool, and a hypocrite, would prioritise weightloss over the stability of their life and family, surely?

Once the post-birth rollercoaster settled and my hormones calmed down, I went back to work as a freelance journalist. I felt stronger. But I couldn’t lose the weight.

I went to the gym five times a week and both Simon and I started eating a much better diet. But although I was trying really hard, the baby weight stubbornly refused to shift.

So in May this year, going against the guidance from the online pharmacist and taking just half of the starting dose – a tiny measure that on most people would have little effect – I started on the jabs again.

I pledged that if I was going to take the risk on Mounjaro I would take measures to protect myself.

Simon was wary but supportive. He knew how important it was to me.

I also enlisted the help of my friend, the head nutritionist at the health company Zoe, Dr Federica Amati, whose book The Appetite Reset explains how to plan for life before, on and after GLP-1 medication.

This time around I have alarms set on my phone to remind me to eat protein and fibre, such as scrambled eggs and smoothies packed with vegetables.

I keep track of everything I eat to make sure I’m hitting my goals and consuming the right nutrients.

All of which means that this time, my experience has been totally different. I don’t feel like I’ve been run over by a freight train and my appetite, though much diminished, hasn’t turned to ashes and nausea.

It’s true that my progress is slower, but I don’t have the fear I felt the first time.

I won’t lie and say I don’t have anxious moments. I always find my heart rate increases for a day or so after I inject, which tends to make me feel jumpy – like I’ve had too many coffees. But now I know this is normal and I’m no longer afraid of it.

I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost because I haven’t been weighing myself. I know how easy it is to become obsessed. But my clothes fit better. I’m a size 18-20 now and I certainly feel healthier.

I’ve kept up my strength training and the body scan they do at the gym has told me I’ve lost fat rather than muscle.

I have so much more energy because my mental health is better and I’m not consumed by shame about my body.

Even though for some people my current size would be a nightmare, for me it’s great.

I know I never want to go back to the darkness and fear I felt when I first took the jabs. And some might say I’m crazy to tempt fate. But, for now at least, I am proud of myself for finding a way through that has worked.

Rose’s new podcast, A Matter of Fat, co-hosted with obesity expert, Professor Giles Yeo MBE is out now