Fiona (29) has experienced enough misery in her life for ten. Her childhood was marked by her sick sister and mother. And a rape cast a dark cloud over her teenage years. Yet she never let herself be discouraged. She owes this to two things: her music and her service dog Puk.
“It has always been my dream to make a show of everything I’ve experienced. And now I just succeeded! The first time I played my show, my past came up again. Then I thought about all the people who thought I couldn’t do it, I could give them all a big middle finger.”
“I also really want to play the performance in secondary schools. I really think it can work well as a kind of information. As an experience expert I know very well how I can make situations like mine negotiable for everyone. It is of course a very personal story, but it can also provide a handle for someone else. I hope to break through the stigma and create openness about these kinds of situations. That you never have to give up your dreams, because I succeeded too. With everything that I’ve experienced.”
30 attacks per day
“I had my first seizure when I was 15. I fell to the ground during a school day. Everyone thought it was an epileptic seizure. Then I changed from a happy girl to a lump of insecurity. Later I was diagnosed with PPEAs ( Psychogenic Pseudo Epileptic Seizures). I was out of treatment. Doctors and therapists didn’t know what to do with me, I just had to learn to live with it. I couldn’t do anything anymore and I thought: ‘If it has to be like this, I’m done with life In the end it went so downhill that I was hospitalized for four and a half months.”
“I came out of that when I was eighteen and I was allowed to take my final exams. That went well, but then I was raped in the summer after. That was really the last straw. That meant that I sometimes had thirty attacks a day. The doctors again didn’t know what was wrong with me. A pediatrician said to me: ‘be back to normal Fiona, there are other ways to get attention.'”
“There I was, as a 24-year-old in bed. I couldn’t do anything anymore. I was really done with life”
“During the period that I just got my service dog Puk, I was in very bad shape. My relationship ended and I felt very alone. Training a service dog is a very intensive process and I had the feeling that I was not alone. could.”
“But it worked and that ensured that my confidence also started to grow. At first, for example, I did not dare to go into the supermarket and I was afraid of men, but yes, Puk had to get out to pee. And so I had to go there too. Training Puk really boosted my confidence. Eventually puk learned to signal my attacks, and that made me feel very safe. Because the fear of an attack often triggers an attack. But now it went in the right direction again I was even able to start volunteering again and take a course to become a youth coach. That’s how I eventually became an experience expert at the GGZ.”
“The complete training course of a service dog takes about two years, but Puk and I took two and a half years. We eventually took the exam together, and we passed together.”
“I am now doing well again. My last attack was on February 26, 2020, so last February I was attack free for two years. Then I also released my very first singleThat seemed like a good moment to me. I now perform together with my boyfriend, who is a guitarist. And of course Puk is almost always there, she remains my biggest fan.”
In the Warriors program, inspiring people from North Holland tell their story. Each and every one of them tries to make the world a little more beautiful in their own way.
Fighters is broadcast on the NH Nieuws TV channel and via our website. The stories can also be listened to as a podcast. Subscribe to it via your favorite podcast channel. Here you will find an overview of all Warriors.