Grief Diaries Surviving Loss by Overdose

By Lynda Cheldelin Fell, Shannie Jenkins and Whitney O'Brien

Statisticians keep count. Politicians pass laws. Police are overwhelmed. Preachers condemn. Doctors medicate. Business looks at the bottom line.

And academia is stymied. Yet the flood of heartache and sorrow continues.

Drugs are rampant in today’s world, yet nobody has answers. We only have stories. Our stories. The stories of

• Language: English
• Publisher: AlyBlue Media
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950712083

Lynda Cheldelin Fell

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL is an educator, speaker, author of over 30 books including the award-winning Grief Diaries, and founder of the International Grief Institute. Visit www.LyndaFell.com.

Book preview

Grief Diaries

SURVIVING LOSS BY OVERDOSE

True stories about surviving loss

of a loved one from an overdose

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

with

SHANNIE JENKINS

WHITNEY O’BRIEN

FOREWORD BY

ELAINE FAULKNER, SUDP

INTRODUCTION BY

REV. ROLAND JOHNSON, III

Grief Diaries

Surviving Loss by Overdose – 1st ed.

Lynda Cheldelin Fell/Shannie Jenkins /Whitney O’Brien

Grief Diaries www.GriefDiaries.com

Cover Design by AlyBlue Media, LLC

Interior Design by AlyBlue Media LLC

Published by AlyBlue Media, LLC

Copyright © 2019 by AlyBlue Media All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-950712-07-6

AlyBlue Media, LLC

Ferndale, WA 98248

www.AlyBlueMedia.com

This book is designed to provide informative narrations to readers. It is sold with the understanding that the writers, authors or publisher is not engaged to render any type of psychological, legal, or any other kind of professional advice. The content is the sole expression and opinion of the authors and writers. No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by the choice to include any of the content in this book. Neither the publisher nor the author or writers shall be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Our views and rights are the same: You are responsible for your own choices, actions and results.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

GRIEF DIARIES

Testimonials

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT . . . I want to say to Lynda that what you are doing is so critically important. –DR. BERNICE A. KING, Daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King

STUNNING . . . Grief Diaries treats the reader to a rare combination of candor and fragility through the eyes of the bereaved. A stunning read full of comfort and hope. —DR. GLORIA HORSLEY, President, Open to Hope Foundation

HOPE . . . These stories reflect the authentic voices of individuals at the unexpected moment their lives were shattered and altered forever. Moments of strength in the midst of indescribable pain, resilience in the midst of rage; hope while mired in despair. —SHERIFF SADIE DARNELL, Chair, Florida Cold Case Advisory Commission

INSPIRATIONAL . . . Grief Diaries is the result of heartfelt testimonials from a dedicated and loving group of people. By sharing their stories, the reader will find inspiration and a renewed sense of comfort as they move through their own journey. -CANDACE LIGHTNER, Founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving

DEEPLY INTIMATE . . . Grief Diaries is a deeply intimate, authentic collection of narratives that speak to the powerful, often ambiguous, and wide spectrum of emotions that arise from loss. I so appreciate the vulnerability and truth embedded in these stories. —DR. ERICA GOLDBLATT HYATT, Chair of Psychology, Bryn Athyn College

BRAVE . . . The brave individuals who share their truths in these books do it for the benefit of all. —CAROLYN COSTIN, Founder of Monte Nido Treatment Centers

HOPE AND HEALING . . . You are a pioneer in this field and you are breaking the trail for others to find hope and healing. —KRISTI SMITH, Bestselling Author & International Speaker

A FORCE . . .The writers of the Grief Diaries anthology series are a force to be reckoned with. I’m betting we will be agents of great change.

—MARY LEE ROBINSON, Author and Founder of Set an Extra Plate initiative

MOVING . . . In Grief Diaries, the stories are not only moving but often provide a rich background for any mourner to find a gem of insight that can be used in coping with loss. —DR. LOUIS LAGRAND, Author of Healing Grief, Finding Peace

HEALING . . . Grief Diaries can heal hearts and begin to build community and acceptance to speak the unspeakable. —DIANNA VAGIANOS ARMENTROUT, Poetry Therapist & Author of Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart: A Journey of Pregnancy, Grief and Infant Death

INCREDIBLE . . .Thank you so much for doing this project, it’s absolutely incredible! —JULIE MJELVE, Founder, Grieving Together

WONDERFUL . . .Grief Diaries is a wonderful computation of stories written by the best of experts, the bereaved themselves. Thank you for building awareness about a topic so near and dear to my heart. —DR. HEIDI HORSLEY, Adjunct Professor, School of Social Work, Columbia University, Author, Co-Founder of Open to Hope Organization

Dedication

In loving memory

of all our loved ones

who died too soon

Contents

Testimonials

Dedication

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

The Beginning of our Journeys

When did the drugs start?

The first red flags

Discovering the evidence

Role of friends

A downward spiral

Tight grip of addiction

The point of reckoning

Impact on family

Searching for help

Close calls of prior overdoses

Handling societal judgment

The day they died

Grappling with guilt

Shadow of anger

Fighting the darkness

How do we stop the epidemic?

Finding hope in the aftermath

Surviving the Journey

Meet the Writers

Kimberly Calais

Susan Carlyon

Marybeth Cichocki

Kim DeLong

Elaine Faulkner

Shannie Jenkins

Lori Latimer

Amanda Marie

Diana Mitchell

Whitney O’Brien

Alice Rich

Carol Wall

Thank You

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

BY ELAINE FAULKNER, CDP

Foreword

You are not alone! Help has arrived. We understand how much you tried to help your loved one. I tried to help my loved one, as well. We cajoled, threatened, suggested, made plans, educated ourselves, spent money, and stayed awake countless nights. In the end, it was enough. You cared enough, loved enough, and cried enough. The disease of addiction is stronger than you or me.

The brain changes that caused our loved one’s demise over-powered their logic, willpower, and survival instincts. The complex brain changes due to substance use changes our loved ones and their behavior in ways we could not have imagined. Vulnerabilities from genetic predisposition, societal messages, overprescribing doctors, peers, and other influences, were beyond our power to control.

Traumatic experiences may have increased their risk, but it was also their perception of the trauma and their life experiences that created their need to hide out in an alternate chemical reality.

At times, we are still angry at them, sometimes at ourselves. Now that they have passed, we can own those feelings, but we can also hold them in our hearts with compassion and love. They did the best they could. We did the best we could. They tried. We tried. We did not fail.

I am proof that knowledge is not the key to knowing what to do about our addicted loved ones. I had firsthand experience counseling thousands of people in active substance abuse, drug dependence, and their families. My son Jacob had the benefit of hearing many lessons and the latest research on drugs and drinking. Some of those lessons hit home. Some didn’t, and he would say Don’t counsel me, Mom!

I know from working as a chemical dependency professional that there is no stigma, there is no shame. Our loved ones were ill. We don’t need to hide ourselves or our feelings. Speak proudly of your loved one and the gifts they shared with the world.

Focusing on Jacob’s life instead of his death has been valuable to my healing. My hope is that you, too, will feel the same about your loved one.

My husband Jack had an insightful comment two days after Jacob died. He said to our small family, We have to do this together. We will never be able to do this alone.

This is my charge to us all: let’s share our stories. Sharing will bring us together; we will not be alone!

Blessings,

ELAINE FAULKNER, SUDP

Jacob’s Mom

BY LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

Preface

Overdose. Addiction. Drugs. It’s anywhere and everywhere. An ugly villain disguised as pills, capsules, liquids, and powders. Tiny yet powerful, its only aim is to destroy everyone in its path.

Drugs are rampant in today’s world, yet nobody has answers. We only have stories. Our stories. The stories of our intelligent, kind and promising loved ones who fell victim to a villain.

By sharing our stories, we help each other feel less alone. We give each other the compassion that’s often denied in a stigmatized death. These stories also serve to educate society. They open the dialogue, raise awareness and understanding, and invite humanity to see the journey through our eyes—the first step toward removing the stigma.

Further, our stories hold the power to advocate. With research dollars often granted to the noisiest advocacy groups, it is through these stories that we advocate for past, present, and future loved ones. These narrations can be used by researchers and professionals to study the villain and work with us toward better support.

If someone you love has died by overdose, the following stories are written by people who share your path and know exactly how you feel. Although no two journeys are identical, we hope you’ll find comfort in these stories and the understanding that you aren’t truly alone, for we walk ahead, behind, and right beside you.

Wishing you healing and hope from the Grief Diaries village.

Warm regards,

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

Creator, Grief Diaries

INTERNATIONAL GRIEF INSTITUTE

www.InternationalGriefInstitute.com | www.LyndaFell.com

BY REV. ROLAND JOHNSON

Introduction

The true victims of overdose death are not the deceased but the living. The parents, children, siblings, spouses, lovers, partners, close relatives and friends who remain behind to wonder and to grieve. The survivors face terrible loss that’s often complicated and shrouded in social stigma. Support networks are thin and inadequate. Specialized training is severely lacking and only others experiencing the same type of loss seem to have the ability to sympathize. Moving forward in life holds more questions than answers, and society blames the survivors for the inadequate whatever that led to the drugs in the first place.

Drug overdose is killing people. Many people. Today, it seems as though everyone has lost someone to overdose.

During the last few years of my teaching career in academia, death by overdose was reducing my student rosters at an increasing rate. As an ordained minister, I held the bereaved and mourned their loss with them. As a police chaplain in a busy urban department, I saw and served death on the frontline. As a crime victims’ liaison for the state, I comforted and counseled while seeking justice for the bereaved.

I watched as our nation drowned in overdose deaths.

In 2017, an eleven-year-old girl waited for her dad to pick her up. He was running late for their visit, and her mom was getting upset. Angry and griping, the mother called his cell again and again but no answer. Exasperated, she decided to drive her daughter to her dad’s, even though she didn’t like his roommates. As she pulled up to his house, she was greeted first by police and then by a chaplain. There would be no visit tonight, nor ever again. Dad is dead. Syringe, heroin, spoon, lighter and tie tell the story of his evening.

In the U.S., her dad was just one of the 70,237 drug overdose deaths to opioid derivatives, analogs and synthetics compounds alone (National Center for Health Statistics, 2018).

In 2018, a twenty-one-year-old woman died from methamphetamine toxicity, the technical term for overdose. A popular high school cheerleader, homecoming queen and gymnast, she weighed just eighty-two pounds when she died.

A couple days later, a young mother gave birth in her home and then disappeared. She was found behind a shed four blocks away, dead from an overdose of ice, a pure, extremely potent methamphetamine that had arrived in town. More deaths would follow.

Come spring 2019, someone I spent years moving from addiction to success overdosed and died. His story is personal. Like an adopted son, Mark and I walked through all the misery and pain of his life to see a new day. Though a little older than many, he went to college, settled into a career, and began to support his daughter and become a dad. He repaired his relationship with his ex-wife enough to share genuine warmth. He graduated with honors and entered his new life.

Five years clean and accepted into the medical profession, he was hired by one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. He was to begin in one week.

So excited, Mark planned to reward himself with a celebration and tropical vacation. While celebrating, he ran into old friends who whipped out some heroin just for old times’ sake. Mark did a small amount and was dead within minutes.

Mark’s ex-wife asked me to write a letter to his daughter for when she’s older, explaining who her dad was, how he had a good heart and soul, and how much he loved her. I still haven’t found the right words.

Come fall 2019, a college freshman went to a crowded party. A stellar student and star athlete, the popular young man was having fun when someone pulled out powder cocaine. Come on, time to party like a college kid!

It was his first—and last—time. Life ended shortly after. A coffin instead of a college dorm is now his resting place. Nothing will console his mom, dad, and little sister.

Opioid and opioid derivatives have their own category of recorded death by the Center for Disease Control. Codeine, morphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone are natural and semisynthetic opioids. Fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and tramadol are synthetic opioids.

Cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and other toxic recreational drugs drive the parties of our society, and produce a death count not easily calculated and not uniformly recorded.

Death from any drug overdose deprives us all of so much talent and promise. Drugs harvest lives before they reach fruition. And the stories of loss and grief grow exponentially.

Statisticians keep count. Politicians pass laws. Police are over-whelmed. Preachers condemn. Doctors medicate. Businesses look at the bottom line. And, academia is stymied. The war on drugs is an abysmal failure.

All the excuses and explanations do nothing to slow the flood of heartache and sorrow. As a sociologist, I call for greater academic study and involvement. As a pastor, I call for compassion and better instruction and training for all who touch the grieving.

Social scientists collect all the demographics, analyze all the data, and publish the statistics on drug overdose. But statistics are not people, and it is people who grieve. To study the grief, to find the similarities and the differences in post-loss trauma, is an academic endeavor that is mostly avoided.

Causation for the grief is known: death of a loved one by drug overdose. But the effects are not easily predictable and do not lead to clear results. Too many variables influence the personal loss to drugs. Sadly, the data on grief from death by drug overdose can only be gathered from those who grieve.

This book is the beginning. It explores grief and loss to overdose from the narratives written by the survivors, those living the loss. These are the personal stories of individuals, of real people in real time with real loss.

This book challenges many social ideas on the loss that comes from drug overdose. It lays bare a reality of the death of indignity many feel at the hands of the professionals, from the first responders to the final funeral participants, from the clergy to counselors. Very few really know what to say or do.

Current instruction is inadequate to accommodate the needs of this growing community of profound grief. Today’s culture is not trained to understand grief, loss, or the pain of surviving loss by overdose. A starting point is necessary if we, as a collective society, are going to address an issue that frightens and repels most everybody.

This book is a starting point for exploration, research, and most importantly, academic expansion of training for bereavement and grief specialists.

This book is a goldmine for students pursuing careers in the social science and counseling professions, and serves as an excellent resource for practicing medical and grief professionals. With proper education, learning and training, light can begin to permeate a very dark place. With education and learning, wisdom is possible. With competent training of career professionals, educators, counselors, clergy, and so many others, survival, coping and eventual thriving of the living is obtainable.

Whether you are grieving a loss to drug overdose or trying to console or counsel someone who is, this book provides a catalog of issues faced by the grieving. May these real life accounts assist and challenge you to explore and develop effective strategies for the living as we struggle as a nation to cope with our loss.

REV. ROLAND JOHNSON, III

Sociologist & police chaplain

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning of our Journeys

A lifetime is not enough to know someone else.

~ SIMON MCBURNEY

Every journey starts at the beginning, and so do our stories. In this chapter, writers share what life was like before that pivotal moment when life as they knew it ended and a new one began, forever defining their calendar to before and after.

*

KIMBERLY CALAIS

Kim’s 23-year-old daughter Emily died from a multiple drug

overdose including heroin and methamphetamine in 2016

January 5, 2016 at 3:16 a.m. This was the exact moment my life changed forever. The official beginning of the worst days of my life. This was the moment I received that call . . . the one you hear people elude to never wanting to receive. The call that I fearfully dreaded receiving for the past four years. And a call that I absolutely did not expect, as I believed the worst was over. Rock bottom had been reached. A corner had been turned. A new page awaited. I was wrong. That one call turned my entire world upside down, throwing me into the darkest part of the depths of hell imaginable.

It was the call where I was told that my daughter, Emily, was gone. Gone? Gone. A scream left my body that came from a place inside me I did not know existed. It was primal. I have since decided that place was a part of my soul, the place that holds every memory, every sensation of knowing, raising and loving my daughter. The place that held the hope for every moment of her life since I discovered I was pregnant with her, and all the moments yet to be. It’s where I held the dreams of her life. All the hope. All the yet to be’s. Gone. Her voice. Her smile. The silkiness of her hair. The sound of her laughter. The touch of her skin. The softness of her kisses. The warmth of her hugs. Gone.

Gone.

It was also the moment that marked a new beginning. One I did not sign up for nor wanted to take. It was—is—the journey of horrific, unrelenting grief.

Of understanding the incomprehensible. Of performing an autopsy of my daughter’s life to try to comprehend how this could have happened. Of learning so much more about drugs, addiction, mental health, and the ever-present stigma placed by society which makes the most horrific pain of learning of your child’s death even more debilitating as it seems no one understands…or cares. The death of a child is already a difficult topic for others to address. Death by drugs somehow makes it dirty or deserved in the opinion of others. That is not acceptable to me. Those who died from an overdose are someone to many.

This moment marked the beginning of my journey of getting to know my daughter—who I believed I knew better than any other person on this earth—in reverse.

That call came by way of a text message from Emily’s dad in California. I had gotten up early and thought about going downstairs to the gym. I picked up my phone from its charging base and saw a text from my former husband asking me to call him as soon as I received his message on either his home or cell, and that it is was important. All at once I felt my stomach drop.

I had last spoken to Emily the morning of January 1, 2016, New Year’s Day. She was on her way to work but asked if I could send her twenty dollars for an Uber as she wanted to take more time getting ready for work that day. Her boss was in and she was going to ask for a raise. She said that if that didn’t work, she was going to look at getting a second job, as it was expensive living in the Bay area.

She sounded upbeat, happy and motivated. I sent her the money. Since I usually received text notifications from the bank when the transfer was accepted, I was not happy to read that she didn’t accept it until late that night when she was already off work. I was not pleased at her apparent lie, and contemplated writing her an email about it, but decided to wait until we could speak.

The next morning, she sent me a text message, writing A friend of mine died.

I responded immediately. Who? How?

Given our three-hour time difference, my message was sent a couple hours after her message. No response. That wasn’t unusual so I assumed she was busy.

I was wrong.

I didn’t want to call her dad back. I felt sick. If I didn’t call, I reasoned, the reality of whatever potentially awful news he had wouldn’t be real if I didn’t hear it. I pondered this for about a minute, took a deep breath and dialed his number. He answered quickly. Without even a hello, I asked, What’s wrong? which was something I often said when getting urgent messages in the night from Emily.

Then he said the words that are forever burned in my soul. Emily’s gone.

Emotions were like knives, attacking and cutting me, killing me. Disbelief. Shock. Denial. Fear. Anger. And all simultaneously. I immediately felt my blood run cold and I could swear my heart stopped beating. I listened to him speak, but I couldn’t hear his words.

And then came that scream.

I spoke with the coroner a few hours later. She told me Emily was found in the locked bedroom of a house she shared with three other friends/coworkers. An initial blood analysis determined that there were drugs in her system, and she was found with paraphernalia around her that was consistent with an overdose death. I asked if this was intentional. She said that she would know more after the autopsy was performed.

An autopsy? On my little girl? Why are people saying these things to me?

I needed to know as much as I could about what happened. Since I paid for her cellphone, I went to my bill and looked at her activity. I saw that she was actively texting up and until the morning of January 2. She received my text and exchanged texts with another number a half hour later. The bill also reflected her receiving many more messages for the next two days. But there were no more outgoing messages from her. I couldn’t catch my breath and I felt dizzy as I processed—and visualized—what this meant. Her door was locked and although she shared a house with three other people, she often stayed in her room. I was convinced that she would not have been dormant in communicating via her phone. She was constantly on her social media as she was a prolific selfie taker. I was always asking her to watch her data use and her phone bill was always very high.

The coroner asked me about her state of mind and any history she had with drugs. My sigh and momentary silence represented the flood of memories from the past years.

In September 2014, Emily called me and told me she needed help. I’m addicted to heroin, Mom. I need help.

I put aside my initial reaction of absolute horror and asked what she meant. She told me she had been doing heroin for about four months and was addicted. I asked her if she took this intravenously. She said yes.

She went on to tell me she was having sex with strangers to get drugs. She was going to dangerous neighborhoods in Oakland to buy drugs in the middle of the night. She told me she had shared needles with some girl and now had an open hole in her arm. I calmly told her that I would get her help and that everything would be okay.

Since I live in Canada and she lived in California, I told her I would contact her dad. He lived in the Bay area and carried her health insurance coverage. She told me she would be seeing him the next day and was afraid of his reaction. I told her I would talk to her dad and we would figure things out. I told her I loved her, how proud I was of her for telling me about this as I knew this took a lot of courage, and that everything would be okay. We hung up. I dropped my phone in my lap and started to cry uncontrollably.

My relationship with Emily’s dad at the time was strained and I decided to send him a text message to start the conversation, so our past issues didn’t get in the way of dealing with this devastating news.

What followed was the beginning of our journey to help Emily get the help she said she wanted for herself, help that she wanted on her terms as she believed she was smarter and stronger than all those other people.

She was wrong.

The coroner’s report was received sometime later and indicated that she had passed away from multiple drug toxicity. She had heroin and methamphetamine in her system at potentially toxic levels. There was also cocaine, morphine, benzodiazepines, codeine and the chemical compound for marijuana in her system.

I remember thinking Jesus, Emily...what were you thinking?! Once again, I wondered if this was intentional. Did she want to end her life this way?

A few weeks earlier while I was out in California during the holidays, we were driving back to my hotel, arguing, and she said, If you drop me off at my house, I’m going to go out and buy a bunch of heroin.

She had been clean for some time, so I considered this comment another attempt at manipulation. She was very skilled at manipulating people, especially me. Usually the goal was to get money in some way or another, and she almost always got her way eventually.

Every conversation we had was now under a microscopic review in my mind. I became obsessed in my investigation of everything that had transpired after we had spoken for what would be the very last time.

I started with the numbers on her phone bill. I called and left a message for the person she was texting. A recording indicated that the number was not in service at that time. This bothered me.

I spoke to her employer who told me he had seen her at work on New Year’s Day, but she hadn’t asked him for a raise. This confused and disturbed me greatly.

I spoke to her coworker who told she was having a very bad day at work, was visibly upset and told him that her friend had died. He told me he offered to take her home after they finished their day on January 1, and she asked him to drop her off at a friend’s house in a not too nice part of San Francisco. This frightened me to my core.

I spoke to her roommate who told me that she had last seen and spoken to Emily after midnight on January 1. She said Emily told her about a friend who had just died, and she seemed, in her words, out of it. She asked her to stay up with them, but Emily said she was tired and went into her room. This cut me deeply.

I spoke to her other roommate who tried calling her numerous times and grew concerned when