Drug Poisoning and the Pandemic

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

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.

Kristal – The Value of all Those Lost

Kristal emphasizes that the lives of those lost to drug poisoning had value, they were an opportunity that was lost, and that the community is missing so much in their absence.

Christian – Grieving those who died of drug poisoning

Christian talks about grieving, stigma and dying from drug poisoning

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.

Joyce -The pandemics impact on drug poisonings

Joyce talks about drug poisonings during 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

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.

Nicole – Pandemic Leads to Increase in Drug Poisoning

Nicole discusses the increase in drug poisonings during the pandemic due to a number of factors.

Nicole – Using Art and Creativity to Express Grief

Nicole discusses the work she does to allow access to creative outlets such as art hives and gardening.

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.