Maje Ayida, a fitness entrepreneur and ex-husband of Nollywood actress, Toke Makinwa, has opened up about falling into depression after their much-publicised divorce.
He stated that he was subjected to public criticism and he withdrew from society due to shame.
The gym expert disclosed this while testifying at a UK church recently -a clip of which has now gone viral on social media.
He explained that he overcame the depression which lasted for a year and made him stop going to work and lose business opportunities, after learning to take accountability.
He said, “I will be honest about the fact that I want through a divorce which resulted in me being depressed. It was a very publicised divorce.
“And that left me feeling very alone. I withdrew from society, I was really ashamed of my situation. Not just for myself, of course, my self-esteem was affected, but legacy is very important to me. I was ashamed of what I felt I had done to my family’s name. As a result, I went into hiding.
“I didn’t want to interact with anyone. I wanted to be alone, stay at home. I stopped going to work. I found it very difficult to work. It was very hard.
“I not only lose focus but also motivation. I lose the essence of to even get up in the morning. What am I getting up for? Everyone already feels a certain way about me. So, I started to lose work as a result of it. That was when it really started to get to me.
“As a man, your work is your identity, and I started to lose work, business deals so it became a real problem for me.
“That was when I made a decision. I had to make a decision for my own survival because I was living in hopelessness. It went on for weeks.
“I was out of the look for a whole year. I checked out of life for a year to recoup. I realised that I was in a very dark space. I was in a hole but I needed to get out of it… I was on the floor. What’s sleep? I didn’t even know what that was. I had insomnia.
“I was paranoid as well so the few chances that I do get to go out, I have created a scenario in my own mind that everybody is talking about me, people are looking at me. And that would just send me back into my own home.
“That feeling of hopelessness and the noise that was going on around me even though I was in silence was insane. I made a choice. I decided that I didn’t want to stay in this space.
“I did research on how to deal with it. The top of the list of the research that I did was accountability. I took the blame on myself. It made me feel worse at first until I began to take practical steps.”
Maje Ayida and Toke Makinwa got married in 2014 but their marriage hit the rocks in 2016.
In 2017, Ayida sued Makinwa for N100 million for defamation of character after she wrote a memoir entitled, ‘On Becoming,’ documenting her failed marriage to the gym expert. Ayida’s lawyers had earlier written to Makinwa, asking her to remove parts of the book that were defamatory to their client’s (Ayida’s) character which she had ignored.
In November 2020, a Lagos state high court sitting at Tafawa Balewa Square ruled in favour of the fitness trainer in the defamation lawsuit he instituted against Makinwa.
The court granted damages of the sum of N500,000 each to be paid by the 1st and 2nd defendants to any charity organisation of the claimant’s choice.
It also granted an injunction preventing the defendants from producing copies of the book with the defamatory words in the said pages.
