Two Moms with Two Dead Kids: When Your Child Dies From a Drug Overdose

The title says it all.

In this episode, we discuss the benefits of "giving in." Giving in to how we feel. Giving in to the moment. Letting go of the need to get things done.

Sometimes, after trauma, we go through a process of redefining what's important in our lives. Our goals are reduced. What it means to accomplish something has a different definition. 

We have found that focusing on the present moment is helpful. Everyday tasks can become meditative. We experience the moment. 

Neither of us is a journaler, although DeAnne recently bought a journal with good intentions. What we can attest to, though, is the power of spontaneous writing exercises to help us understand and see ourselves in different ways. 

DeAnne discusses her first experience with a writing prompt, a tool many counselors use to help the ones they work with move forward on their healing journeys. Astrid also has experience with writing prompts, and ended up writing about her experience in a different way. 

Kevin and Astrid continue their conversation while DeAnne is away. Kevin talks about the different ways he deals with grief, which doesn't currently include therapy. Why is that and what does he do in its place? 

We talk about our current relationship and why we chose to not separate or get a divorce. 

DeAnne is out of town, so Astrid invites her husband Kevin, Garrett's dad, to sit in. 

What are some of the differences in how two parents can grieve the same child? Do we see the same events differently? Kevin gives his take on the subject of an overdose death. 

DeAnne and Astrid discuss an interview Astrid watched with a mother whose son committed suicide. It prompted them to touch on whether their own children's deaths were accidental, or not. How do you know if an overdose death was accidental? Does it matter? Does it change the loss?

We discuss how we react now when we see signs of hardship. How we relate to others and how others relate to us, after loss. Astrid recently had an encounter with someone, after which she wanted to say, "Does your mother know where you are?" (Because if she's anything like me, I bet she wants to.) 

Gabor Maté is a Canadian physician and addiction expert. (In our conversation I called him a psychologist - sorry.) In this episode we discuss his book, The Myth of Normal, and what we took away from it. 

One of DeAnne's biggest impressions from the book was the idea that the body often expresses unaddressed trauma in the form of disease. Astrid's biggest takeaway was that we all carry trauma, and we need to address it before we unintentionally pass it down to our children and the society in which we live. 

As parents of children who were addicted to drugs, and then died of overdoses, this book can offer a lot. It can also be a hard pill to swallow. 

Here we visit The List - topics that have come up for us in our grief journeys that we feel would be worth discussion. What's on the list? What are the things we have faced or continue to face in the process of coming to terms with a death by overdose? We take a look. 

In this conversation, we start out discussing the rituals and habits we form to get us through the day. and what happens when these get disrupted. It's interesting to think about how we rebuild ourselves and our days after the deaths of our children. 

One of those rituals for us has been walking dogs, which segues into a conversation about having pets, especially the pets our children loved.

In this episode, we start out by talking about triggers - the things that bring up old feelings of helplessness and anxiety. 

Neither of us ever really felt that our children would die. But they did. And that brings up the old saying - Why Not You? Why shouldn't it have happened to us? It can happen to anyone, so why not us?

We then segue into an acknowledgement of relief about some aspects of death. There is some stigma in acknowledging relief, but it is real and it is okay.