Golfer Christina Kim's tweets, blogs helped conquer her depression

For Christina Kim, life was looking rosy until a back injury in 2010 sent her spiralling into depression and her world collapsed. But she found solace in blogging and tweeting, which helped her emerge from that 'dark place'

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Published: 12:00am, 28 Oct 2012Updated: 3:13am, 28 Oct 2012

There is a school of thought that the name golf was derived from the acronym "Gentleman Only, Ladies Forbidden", but one extrovert in hip-hop hats and pink pigtail plaits has thrown the stereotype out the window.

Shortly after her 18th birthday in 2002, Christina Kim turned professional; in her flamboyant, colourful clothes she trailblazed her way through her first Futures tour. In August that year she won her first event and by 2003 was touring on the LPGA. At 20, she was the youngest player to reach US$1 million in earnings.

But at 27 things started spiralling out of control for the effervescent American daughter of South Korean immigrants. In 2010, her back had been injured after a massage in Malaysia. "For the first time since I was 14, I couldn't hit an eight-iron 145 [yards] on the fly. And the maximum skill set was depleted by 15 to 20 per cent. That's up to one fifth of your strength, it's pretty decimating," says Kim.

From being "on such a high for so many years, since I was 18", Kim found herself in a dark place. "I guess one of the main catalysts for my feelings of worthlessness would be the decline of my golf, although it's hard to say which came first and which affected the other more. It's the chicken and the egg story. I play like crap, I feel bad, I feel like ass, I play like s***. And the vicious cycle goes on."

In Spain in April 2011, Kim came close to suicide, as she revealed in her blog.

In hindsight, Kim feels as though she was in denial about her depression for some time. "The most recent stats from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention say that one in every 10 Americans suffers from depression. I was living in denial," she says. "I can see that now by how long it took for me to talk about it. And I will talk about anything!"

She is quick to point out that the depression was not based on anything that happened in her childhood in San Jose with a brother and sister and mother and father who continue to love her unconditionally. "No one has the perfect upbringing. The challenges you encounter as a child define you. I was not raised in a US$20 million home; I was raised in a blue collar family to respect my elders.