8 years ago I started Fight Tales to try and combat the struggle I was having with my mental health. I thought I was living my best pretentious hipster dream in Berlin, going to the best clubs in the world every weekend and working in TV. I didn’t realise at the time I was having a mental breakdown, I couldn’t see how ill I was. The last thing I remember was having a row with my friend and telling her to leave my flat, I woke up 9 months later from a coma.
I lost everything. My career, My Berlin home. My friends. My sight and the use of my legs. I was told I would never walk, talk or work again. I would be a cabbage as they said. But here I am! A walking, talking miracle. Its not been easy and there were definitely no real life miracles involved, it was just pure luck and hard work. After my friend watched me die for 5 hours I flat lined in an ambulance and the paramedics worked on me for 29 minutes, an unheard of length of time for them to keep trying to bring me back. Was it luck or fate? I have a feeling it was meant to be, it was my fate to come back.
When I first woke up they told me my sight could come back at any point, it isn’t my eyes that are damaged just the connection in my brain. So a search began for Doctors to help me regain my sight. I found STEM CELLS! And now I can see colours and shapes, like a rave 24/7 of beautiful colours and lights but I can’t see people or anything going on outside of me, thank fuck, at least that’s something. I felt extreme grief though and I still struggle with that 8 years on.
I now tick a lot of the disabled boxes but I still have my dry sense of humour. I wouldn’t have been able to cope with the judgement and discrimination without that sense of humour but I and many other people are still faced with constant exclusion. Being a suicide survivor is met with pity and fear but if I had died everyone would be sad and feel sorry for me. I don’t want or need any of that. I am still me, Christy!
I am now a slave to routine. Going to the gym 3 times a week, eating organic, taking all the green superfood powders and have a strict bed time and rise time. I lost control of so much in my life that having control over my physical and mental health is now very important to me. Theres still some rock and roll left in me though!
I thought about starting up Fight Tales a few years ago but I wasn’t ready, I was still traumatised and in the middle of filming a documentary about my story which was dredging everything up for me. I found it really difficult to talk about what had happened to me in the run up to my breakdown, I was raped and sexually assaulted which was a catalyst for the deep depression but I started to write it all down in an attempt to write a book and realised that it was a healing process for me and knew after that that Fight Tales would be back and that I would love to invite others to contribute their stories to it as well.
This is our safe space for everyone to share their stories and experiences, supporting each other in a good positive environment
Join the conversation! Join the movement and send us your stories at christy@fighttales.co.uk
Love Christy
x
