Drug Poisoning and the Pandemic

Kate – COVID and grieving with my parents

Kate shares about how COVID was stress on top of dealing with the loss of her brother

Laura- Loss to Covid & Disconnection

Kristal – Drug Poisoning During Pandemic Stigma

Kristal discusses how the pandemic has created additional stigma surrounding those who use drugs. She dissuses how it seems like some losses are treated as more deserving of being mourned than others. Many people have had to grieve privately instead of publically within a community. She touches on the state of the public health system during the pandemic.

Kristal – Professional Experience and Work

Kristal discusses being a peer support woker, working on a one on one level with community members to help them with their goals related to substance abuse. She supports those in the community dealing with loss and grief. She speaks to everyone’s experience with loss and grief being very individual.

Kate – Trust and listening

Kate – explains how having someone you trust is super important so that you can have a space space to go to

Beauty found at the edges: a portrait of community support

I’d sent a text saying “Hello friends, I’m putting out a call for flowers. I went to public school with Kory, the young man who died in downtown Cobourg this week, and though I hadn’t seen him in recent years, I feel the loss of him on a community level, as I imagine you do, too. Some of Kory’s people are gathering tonight in vigil at the bank where he died, and I’m gathering flowers from those of us who have gardens to share with this grieving community. Do you have some blooms in your garden that you’d be willing to share?”

Kate – Triggers

Kate discusses how she deals with her emotions when something triggers her grief

Nicole – Stigma Surrounding Drug Use

Nicole discusses how the stigma around drug use has an impact on how people feel able to grieve when those in their community are lost.

Kristal – Grieving the Whole Person

Kristal discusses the importance of recognizing and grieving the entire person who was lost – not just who they were before they had been using drugs.

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.

Kate – Time to process

Kate shares about time and processing her grief especially during COVID