I’m In A Therapeutic Relationship With Ghosts, And It’s Complicated.
{Photo credit: Corey Grier}
“What keeps you up at night?” the question on the dating website asked.
I thought for a second, and began typing “ghosts…” This is about a relationship with ghosts. One was Army Special Forces. One was a semi-pro golfer. One was a brilliant musician and songwriter.
One was a husband, father, union carpenter. One was a college student and finance intern. One was a 19-year-old girl found on a beach. One had a black belt in mixed martial arts. One had a brogue and loved to read.
One had an MBA and loved college basketball. One was a bus driver. You get the picture.
All of these ghosts died the same way, at the insidious hands of the heroin epidemic that is, and has been, ravaging our country from Detroit to white suburbia in Maine.
It’s taken all that my colleagues and I have, clinically and emotionally, to attend to this madness. We see and hear of fatal overdoses and cry and curse in our offices and in our cars out of sight from clients.
We hide our emotions, and wipe our mascara, and walk right back in to counsel the next person with an opiate use disorder. We lie awake at night, wondering if we missed any signs and what we could have done differently.
We consolingly tell each other we’re not responsible for other people’s choices. After attending the funeral of another dead client, I wonder why I didn’t go to law school. I’m haunted at times, and maybe a little traumatized and paranoid.
I recently went up to someone’s car in a parking lot and knocked on the window because I thought that the person had overdosed when in reality, the person had his head down because he was texting.
If I said I wasn’t emotionally drained I would be lying. When I want to give up, I’m reminded that the mission is bigger than me, and that I need to put one foot in front of the other.
When I think that I can’t pray anymore or stomach another fatal overdose, I’m reminded that I need to stay on fire because we won’t win if we’re silent.
When I swear off counseling addicts (again), I’m reminded that this is war, and that now is not the time to quit, that now is the time to dig a trench.
To our beloved ghosts: thank you. Thank you for teaching us, and for sharing your experiences. Thank you for sharing your lives, for baring your souls. Thank you for making us swing until there’s a solution.
To those is the trenches: thank you. This work is incredibly hard. It’s thankless and messy and a lot times it is life and death. Thank you for working for a paycheck that barely covers the bills to keep the lights on and cover the student loan interest. What you are doing is missionary work.
To those in the throes of addiction: keep fighting. People recover. One blessing of this work is to be surrounded by colleagues in long-term recovery. People do get better.
To opponents of addiction treatment: can we please hold a moratorium on judgment? Stigma silences, shuns, and shuts people down. Stigma kills. We’re not here to judge, and neither should you. Addiction is a medical disease, not a moral issue. I hope your loved ones never become ghosts.
And as for law school? Nah. I can only describe this work as a calling… exactly where I’m supposed to be, and I’ve received far more than I could ever give.
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Amy Blanaru is a left-leaning Celtic Gypsy based in Boston. She works in addiction treatment and likes her pasta al dente. You can find her on Facebook.
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