The stories often end with the same euphemism in the obituary.
“The died suddenly syndrome,” Jodee Prouse calls it, the words she and many families use in obituaries when someone takes their own lives.
In so many ways, her brother Brett Tisdale’s death was anything but sudden.
“It was slow and painful and excruciating,” she said of the 11 years he spiralled down into alcoholism and finally suicide.
Prouse watched it all. Cleaning up his blood and vomit and urine and bottles, seeing the bruise after he fell down the stairs and stumbled to a shed to drink turpentine, her son cleaning up after his uncle cut his wrists, unplugging the phone each day so she could lie to her husband and say no bad phone calls came in.
“Time stands still. Every time the phone rings you are sure he’s dead,” she told about 400 people Friday at London’s annual Addiction Recovery Breakfast.
She now regrets using those words for her brother’s death in 2012 because it is a lie. She wants to tell the truth.
But a manuscript she’s written about her and her brother keeps coming back from agents with the same line of rejection: “Not the topic for me.”
That’s just another sign of how important it is to tell and listen to the stories each year at the annual Addiction Recovery Breakfast, Linda Sibley, executive director of Addiction Services Thames Valley, said.
“Clearly we have to continue to tell the stories. It changes the story we then share.”
Recovery Speaker Betty-Lou Kristy detailed all the medical reasons her son Pete died at 25 in 2011 in a hospital after overdosing on smuggled-in opioids and prescribed medication.
But there’s more to the story, she said. “He died from a loss of hope and a pervasive feeling the world did not care about him,” Kristy said.
Stigma and the lack of help and information for parents of addicts blocked her attempts to get him help.
But near the end of telling her story, Kristy smiled. “So now that I’ve depressed the hell out of you . . Never underestimate the power of hope.”
Since her son’s death she has made it a mission to tell their story so others can learn, so agencies and hospitals can improve what they do and to make sure everyone knows the truth of her son’s life. “Pete was worth saving.”
Look also here:- http://goo.gl/7RuuWH
“The died suddenly syndrome,” Jodee Prouse calls it, the words she and many families use in obituaries when someone takes their own lives.
In so many ways, her brother Brett Tisdale’s death was anything but sudden.
“It was slow and painful and excruciating,” she said of the 11 years he spiralled down into alcoholism and finally suicide.
Prouse watched it all. Cleaning up his blood and vomit and urine and bottles, seeing the bruise after he fell down the stairs and stumbled to a shed to drink turpentine, her son cleaning up after his uncle cut his wrists, unplugging the phone each day so she could lie to her husband and say no bad phone calls came in.
“Time stands still. Every time the phone rings you are sure he’s dead,” she told about 400 people Friday at London’s annual Addiction Recovery Breakfast.
She now regrets using those words for her brother’s death in 2012 because it is a lie. She wants to tell the truth.
But a manuscript she’s written about her and her brother keeps coming back from agents with the same line of rejection: “Not the topic for me.”
That’s just another sign of how important it is to tell and listen to the stories each year at the annual Addiction Recovery Breakfast, Linda Sibley, executive director of Addiction Services Thames Valley, said.
“Clearly we have to continue to tell the stories. It changes the story we then share.”
Recovery Speaker Betty-Lou Kristy detailed all the medical reasons her son Pete died at 25 in 2011 in a hospital after overdosing on smuggled-in opioids and prescribed medication.
But there’s more to the story, she said. “He died from a loss of hope and a pervasive feeling the world did not care about him,” Kristy said.
Stigma and the lack of help and information for parents of addicts blocked her attempts to get him help.
But near the end of telling her story, Kristy smiled. “So now that I’ve depressed the hell out of you . . Never underestimate the power of hope.”
Since her son’s death she has made it a mission to tell their story so others can learn, so agencies and hospitals can improve what they do and to make sure everyone knows the truth of her son’s life. “Pete was worth saving.”
Look also here:- http://goo.gl/7RuuWH
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