Why we should tell our stories of losing a child to addiction

Grieving the death of your child is always horrific, but I think there’s an added layer of difficulty when you’ve lost a child to addiction, drug use, or suicide. Stigma can make it hard to share our experiences, but not sharing them magnifies our pain and makes us feel alone. I’ve always been open about my son’s struggle with addiction, and I’ve met with my share of blank faces, rapid changes of subject, and really inappropriate comparisons, comments, and unsolicited advice. For example, “Oh, I know what you mean. I caught my daughter smoking weed a few months ago, and tore a strip off of her! I grounded her for a month and she had nothing to do but homework, so she actually made the honour roll this semester. You just gotta lay down the law with teenagers!” Yeah. Right. You have no idea.  

Our children were troubled and, odds are, so were we. Trauma. Shame. Uncertainty. Fear. Guilt. Desperate, earth-shaking love. But these are our experiences, and our children, and we have both a right and an obligation to remember them fully, the good and bad, heartache and joy. Those of us who have kids who found relief and hope in recovery, prior to their deaths, need to acknowledge their incredible strength and bravery. And those whose kids were out on the street, or in a really dark place, need to acknowledge that there was more to them than their addictions. That they had community and friends, and they loved and were loved, in meaningful ways through it all.

Our kids brought just as much joy and love to our lives as any child. I like to remember and write about the amazing experiences I shared with my son, like travelling to China together. And beautiful simple things, like cooking, family dinners, vacationing with childhood friends. And moments when he was so happy, like his early days in his recovery when he felt he got a second chance at life. Those are our stories to tell, too.

Telling our stories is a way to capture memories of our child, forever rich in detail. The more memories we talk about and write about, the more we remember. Sharing our memories with others who knew our child multiplies the memories and perspectives, and is a way of gaining new memories. Try to capture the smallest details of your favourite memories: what did your child look like on that day? Smell like? Feel like? How did they walk and talk? You’ll be able to revisit those memories whenever you need.

If we take time to really understand our story, we can shape it in a way that’s  more beneficial to ourselves and others. I don’t mean reimagining or changing our story, just realizing what we’ve learned from it and how we’ve grown and the changes we’d like to see in ourselves and the world. Telling our story may help us to see that we did the best we could, with what we had to work with at the time. Placing ourselves in the position of a character on a page requires a degree of objectivity and, from even a sliver of objectivity, we’re more likely to forgive ourselves for any imagined shortcomings or failures. To be kind to ourselves.

While there are many good reasons to capture our stories and share them with others, it’s important to do it in a way that works for you, and only if it works for you. You’re entitled to your privacy, and your silence. You don’t owe anybody your story. It’s yours alone, to share if you want, when you want, with who you want. Remembering, writing, and sharing traumatic stories requires incredible bravery and vulnerability, especially at first, so be gentle with yourself. Find safe and supportive people to help you, if you can; perhaps a therapist, close friend, or grief coach. Or go ahead and roar your heart out at the whole world – it doesn’t matter, as long as it feels good for you.

In the right circumstances, sharing our traumatic stories with others helps us. I love this quote from Fred Rogers: “Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.” Whatever we, or our child, may have done or thought or felt, were human reactions to incredibly difficult circumstances. They are mentionable. They are okay to talk about. And then they become easier to manage.

And when our stories reach others who still feel isolated in their fear and grief, they can be powerful. Especially if you’ve gotten to a place where you’ve found a way to bring joy and happiness into your life, alongside of grief. Everybody needs to feel hope, and we can provide that for others. How did we create a life worth living, after losing our child? That story can shine a light for others to follow.

The world needs more stories that create an emotional, personal connection to the issues of addiction and drug use, because we need a whole lot more people to feel that personal connection if we want to see changes to our systems of care for addiction and recovery support. Or, better yet, to how society views trauma and drug use in the first place. Changing the story is a way of changing the world.

So, let’s share stories about our children, their successes and their struggles. Write about them, talk about them, draw them, paint them, sing them, say their name. Say it with pride. And yours too, while you’re at it.

We’re not alone in this. When you’re ready, I’d love to hear your story.