I am absolutely devastated. If I weren't already in therapy I would definitely need to go now.
Today I received the news one of the women from the shelter overdosed. I spent many hours with her, annoyed with her, concerned for her, listening to her; I was her residential advocate.
She came to the shelter from the hospital after giving birth to her son. He was going through withdrawal because his mom had been on suboxen during her preganancy. If she had tried to withdraw from Meth during the pregnancy she could've lost the baby.
She came through those doors running from her past, fraught with anxiety and battling the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. I watched her change her life, build a life for her son, and heal some deep wounds. Even though I moved on from the shelter before she did I know she walked out those doors a changed person.
Except she was struggling. She reached out to me, to those around her, but I didn't see it and those who saw her everyday placed everything on a 'spiritual' domain. Bipolar can be prayed over and a person can be healed, they just have to keep walking.
A few weeks ago she told me she was having problems with her bipolar. but that she was ok.
Obviously, she wasn't ok.
June 6th she posted the last things she would to face book. She went back to drugs and overdosed. When she had been found she was laying there with a needle next to her. Next to her was also her son. She had been dead for 26 hours before she was found. She had been dead 26 hours before anyone found Elijah. Elijah was crying for hours and no one in the apartment complex noticed?
I had been there for so long to listen and care but then I wasn't. I'm second guessing everything even though I know I did what was right and I did what I could. We cannot change the way another person is, ultimately, going to act, but it doesn't stop me from thinking 'what if?'
I'm hoping I don't ever get calloused from my career, from listening to the struggles of others, that finding out about the death of a client just flows off my back. Going through this right now, though, leaves me wondering, Is this what I'm in for.
