When Grief Roars: Elle Fisher’s Journey Through Loss, Survival, and Healing

A Conversation Unlike Any Other

When Rick Thomas sat down with author and advocate Elle Fisher, he knew this conversation would not be like any other episode of Yachting USA. In fact, it may ultimately stand outside the series altogether.

What began as a reflection on her book Alchemy quickly deepened into one of the most raw, necessary discussions—about death, suicide, grief, and the human capacity to endure.

“This wasn’t grief. Not the kind you light candles for. This was suicide grief. It wasn’t soft, it didn’t whisper, it roared. It was a fury. It was betrayal. It was a godless scream against the ceiling fan—an earthquake that split the spine of everything I thought I believed.”

The First Blow: Loss at Sixteen

At just sixteen, Elle lost her mother to meningitis after months in a coma. Weeks later, her aunt—also her godmother—died by suicide.

There was no therapy, no safe space to talk, no tools for healing. She was handed Valium and left to silence her grief for over a decade.

“I wasn’t taken to therapy. No one sat me down. I was handed a prescription for Valium—and I was on it for the next decade.”

The silence around suicide—and the stigma—meant her pain was buried. Work, alcohol, and drugs became her way of surviving.

From Rock & Roll to Yachting

Elle’s twenties were spent in the chaos of London’s music PR scene—sex, drugs, and rock and roll masking her pain. But life took a sharp turn when a holiday led to an unexpected invitation aboard a yacht.

What was supposed to be a one-year “gap year” to reset turned into nearly a decade in luxury yachting. She thrived professionally, climbing quickly from stewardess to interior manager, but the grief she had never processed remained beneath the surface.

A Death Too Close: Jess

In 2017, Elle’s closest friend Jess, a chef on a yacht, was drugged on a night out in Ibiza and died days later.

That loss shattered her. Elle spiraled into alcohol, grief consuming her in blackout apartments and bottles of vodka. Her book Alchemy chronicles not just Jess’s story but her own descent into despair.

“That was the death that broke me. I drank myself into a coma until one day I just woke up and said: I’ve got to stop this. I’ve got to leave.”

Seeking Healing—And More Loss

Elle fled to Bali, searching for shamans, ceremonies, and spiritual healing. For a time, she embraced sobriety and hope.

Then came another blow: her cousin Dakota, just 24, died by suicide after years of bullying.

Anger, confusion, and betrayal resurfaced. She abandoned spirituality, numbed herself, and drifted again.

Love and the Cruelest Twist

In Bali, Elle met Christian, a recovering alcoholic. For the first time, sobriety felt natural, love felt possible, and life seemed to regain meaning. He proposed within six weeks.

But three months later, he relapsed. Days later, in rehab, Christian died by suicide.

“No suicide grief is the same. It comes with every what-if, every should-have, could-have. You replay every message, every moment, every detail.”

The experience nearly destroyed her. She lost not only a fiancé, but also the life they were building together, their home, and even her animals.

Choosing Herself

Elle returned briefly to yachting, burying herself in work during the height of the COVID-19 charter boom. But the trauma eventually caught up. She collapsed in St. Barts with a full nervous breakdown.

Her captain dismissed her condition as “maybe your age.”

That moment was the breaking point. She chose herself instead of the paycheck—and left yachting for good.

On February 14, 2021—Valentine’s Day—Elle landed in Mexico, where she still lives today.

“People say depressed. But I wasn’t depressed. I was grieving. Depression is just deep rest. And for the first time, I gave myself that rest.”

Writing, Advocacy, and a New Life

In Mexico, Elle began writing. She gathered her journals, notes, and voice memos, and turned her grief into words.

Her first book Alchemy tells Jess’s story. The second, The Rooms That Killed Him, will tell Christian’s. The third will capture her journey of healing in Mexico.

Through her writing and her advocacy, Elle gives voice to the silenced, challenges stigma, and shows that survival—even after the unthinkable—is possible.

Final Reflections

Elle Fisher’s story is not one of neat resolutions or easy healing. It is a story of survival, resilience, and choosing to live when life has offered every reason not to.

Her conversation with Rick Thomas is more than an interview. It is an act of bearing witness.

And for anyone who has ever walked through the fire of suicide grief, her voice is both a mirror and a reminder: you are not alone.