'The stroke had turned me gay'
Following a stroke, Chris Birch's personality and sexuality altered dramatically. Now he is trying to rediscover who he is and why these changes may have happened.
"It's like looking at somebody else, but with my face only younger, and in all fairness, if I met myself I'd probably carry on walking."
Looking at past pictures of himself, 27-year-old Chris Birch struggles to remember or identify with his old self. He used to be a 19-stone, beer-swilling, party-loving rugby fan from the Welsh valleys, the life and soul of a party. He worked in a bank and loved sport and motorbikes.
After a freak accident in 2011, he says he underwent a big change to his personality. He believes that he has gone from being straight to gay.
"I was doing a forward roll down a grass bank one day and cut off the blood supply to my brain which caused a stroke to happen. It was from there, while I was recovering, that I realised I'd changed," says Birch, from Caerphilly.
"The Chris I knew had gone and a new Chris sort of came along. I came to the realisation that the stroke had turned me gay."
A stroke occurs when the blood, and therefore, oxygen supply to the brain is disrupted. Without oxygen, any part of the brain can be destroyed as brain cells die, leaving the brain to make new connections, which can affect how a person thinks, moves or feels.
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I'm calling bullshit on this. He already had all the credentials and looks to begin with. The Welsh Valleys says it all.
