Death By Overdose

Weathering the Intense Emotions of Grief

Grief often comes with powerful, unpredictable emotional shifts that can be painful to experience. While it’s important to find ways to sit with these feelings, to acknowledge the pain of grief and accept loss, it’s also necessary to find ways to ease and manage the pain. There are several simple activities that you can explore to help.

Christian – Grieving spaces

Christian talks grieving spaces and people coming together when grieving

Krista – “It’s ok to be uncomfortable”

Krista discusses ways to move forward.

Krista – “Crying”

Krista talks about how crying helps her. Krista continues to grieve the death of her son from opioid overdose.

Sarah K – Grieving in isolation

Sarah discusses isolation, being in grief during the pandemic and the importance of keeping connected

Krista – “They are not trying to kill themselves”

Krista explains they are not trying to kill themselves. Krista continues to grieve the death of her son from opioid overdose.

Kristal – Poetry, Comedy, & Art for Grieving

Kristal discusses using poetry and other forms of creative expression as a distraction from her grief and to disassociate in a safe and productive way. She discusses grief being love with nowhere to go, so she puts it into art.

Collective Grief

When the death of a person affects many members in a community, city, country, or across the world, people will experience collective grief.

These are some things that can help people through the experience of collective grief across a community.

Krista – “Things you can do that help”

Krista shares some of the things that help her through the grieving process.

Sarah K – Complicated feelings

Sarah discusses the complicated emotions after her husband’s death like feeling sad, distraught, overwhelmed , relieved and guilty

Christian – “Overdose Death”

Christian talks about an overdose death not defining who that person was.

Kristal – Lack of Memorials During Pandemic

Kristal talks about how memorials can offer closure to people who are grieving, find a community, and share stories. With the absence of this during the pandemic, many people turned inward to grieve or isolated, which can create safety issues and have an impact on mental health. She speaks to how this leads to depression, physical pain, and it compounds upon itself.