After a stroke at the age of just 31 Farah Ayyub set off on the long and sometimes painful process of becoming independent again.

"I felt a failure. I couldn’t do anything for myself," says Farah.

"I was suicidal and I actually thought about ways to hang myself."

As she tells of her difficulties immediately after having a stroke over a decade ago, Farah is in floods of tears.

"I was in such a dark place that it's still hard to talk about it all because it takes me back there."

Yet despite the distressing effect that a stroke had on her physical and mental state when she was just 31, the mum-of-one from Whalley Range is proof that having the determination to pull through can work wonders.

Having gone from a fit young woman who was at the gym five times a week to being unable to move properly without help, she is now getting her life back on track.

Farah, 41, is taking part in Walk4Life this weekend to show the benefits that walking regularly can have on our health and emotional well-being.

At the time of her stroke, she had temporarily split from her boyfriend – now husband – Nadeem, but they were on good terms and she was enjoying her life.

"I was so healthy before. I used to do 10-mile runs for charity, I loved my job, and I was out and about with my friends. No-one else in my family has ever had a stroke, and you don’t expect it to happen when you’re 31. It was such a shock."

But on Christmas Eve, 2000, Farah woke up with her left side paralysed.

She rang her sister who called an ambulance but after two days in hospital she seemed a little better, so was discharged on Boxing Day to her parents’ house in Chorlton.

The following day, in anticipation of family celebrations in the Muslim calendar, Farah needed help to take a shower, and recalls that it took three people to help her as she couldn’t walk.

She was re-admitted to hospital and then three weeks later was sent to a disabled person’s rehabilitation centre in Withington in a wheelchair.

"It was frustrating and scary," she says. "I couldn’t understand why it had happened to me. I couldn’t even sit properly because the muscles in my left side didn’t work.

"My speech was slurred for a bit and I was incontinent. It was so demeaning."

After a week, Farah returned to her parents’ house. They brought a bed down to the ground floor for her to sleep in as she couldn’t get up stairs, had a ramp installed to manoeuvre the wheelchair in and out of the house, and bought a commode.

She continued to attend the centre as an outpatient for physiotherapy and to use its shower facilities.

"There’s so much you take for granted – being able to walk and speak, and just going about your daily life.

"It was so degrading, and in a way it’s quite surreal when all that is taken away from you.

"My mum and dad were brilliant but I realised that I couldn’t be reliant on them all the time. I knew I had to do something more."

Farah moved back to her own home and carried on visiting the disabled centre for two years, but says she didn’t seem to be getting much better.

A chance meeting with an acquaintance put her in touch with a private physiotherapist, who still treats her.

"My physiotherapist gives me all sorts of exercises to do that challenge my balance and stability. Some of it’s outside, and some indoors as I now have a treadmill. It’s all about discipline and re-learning how to live and do the things I could do automatically before."

During the initial stages of her recovery Farah and Nadeem got married, and later had their daughter Layla, who turns four in November. She was born a month early by caesarean section.

"It was so hard trying to deal with a baby, but I was determined that I wanted to do it all myself.

"I still couldn’t move my left arm and leg properly so I had to learn how to shuffle round, changing nappies and bathing her.

"In a way, though, it helped me begin to walk better because I could hold on to her pram.

"She’s such a lovely, funny, beautiful girl, and she’s given me a purpose again."

Having regained her confidence, Farah joined the South Manchester Ramblers group, going out on short walks. She can now manage distances of up to three miles.

She walks Layla to nursery school every day, and the family take trips to the Lake District for gentle walks.

Farah, a former personnel executive for Withington-based technology and engineering company Siemens, now hopes to do an online course to train as a nutritionist.

"I feel so much better about myself thanks to getting out and moving in the fresh air. I’d encourage anyone with difficulties to give it a go."