Zaniyah Pumphrey is a 20-year-old from Fresno California. She is an entertainment content creator, brand ambassador, a daughter, a sister, and a single mother. Her hobbies involve anything with nature or creativity and loves fun and expressive environments.

As a young adult, she experienced many depressive times in life trying to find purpose in the world and experiencing postpartum depression as a new mother. She has tried therapy and many activities to try and bring themselves out of this. People can misunderstand signs of depression as laziness, not caring, being unclean, and more. They may say things to others making it worse unknowingly. Depression is a true mental prison one must free oneself of; it stopped Zaniyah’s life completely at one point making it difficult to do daily activities like cleaning, human interaction, or even self-care. When in this state, thoughts of self-doubt or negative thoughts can begin to creep up on people causing them to be guarded from any outside source of help. It can really cloud their vision.

Zaniyah was able to overcome this by knowing themselves and figuring out how she could begin pushing herself to do the opposite. For instance, if she didn’t feel like cleaning, she had to mentally push herself to do it anyway. She had to allow herself to feel emotions so she could be released through journaling, meditation, speaking up, and even just crying as needed. She learned how to set boundaries with overbearing situations to release unnecessary baggage or anxiety. Additionally, she also began envisioning what a better version of themselves would look like and feel like on the inside out. Once Zaniyah was able to see this, she was able to manifest it into her reality because she was open to the steps it took to create.

For Zaniyah, it felt amazing to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. It made her stronger letting her know that even when it looks like there’s no way of you making it through you always have angels who whisper the guidance you need through all sources around you. It taught her that she could face anything and that she was strong enough to overcome any challenges. Depression and mental illness are nasty demons we all face some time in our lives, but the light inside of you will always overpower you so you may be set free.