Is Healing Hearts For you?
What is Healing Hearts?
Healing Hearts Bereavement support is offered by Moms Stop the Harm (MSTH), a network of Canadian families impacted by substance-use related harms and deaths. MSTH advocates to change failed drug policies and provide peer support to grieving families and those with loved ones who use or have used substances.
Healing Hearts is a free bereavement support group specific to those grieving the loss of a loved one due to overdose or substance-use related harms.
Healing Hearts support groups offer an open-format peer-facilitated model of support. Healing Hearts does not offer therapeutic counselling. The group facilitators have lived experience and have personally lost a loved one to substance related harms.
All members are 18 or older.
Why DO we exist?
The death of someone we love and care about can be one of the most difficult experiences of life to move through. Losing a loved one to substance use related harms often brings with it complex layers of grief. Many individuals feel isolated in their grief journey due to the stigma associated with the nature of the passing. The loss can be more challenging than we expect and it is often difficult for those supporting us to understand. After the loss of our loved one, we experience a wide variety of feelings and emotions. Healing Hearts offers a support group which is a safe, non judgemental place for people to share their grief journey.
Our history
In 2016 three Moms, Leslie McBain, Lorna Thomas and Petra Schulz came together after the tragic loss of their sons. With a commitment to change drug policies and advocate for effective health supports for those who struggle, they started an organization called Moms Stop The Harm. Healing Hearts support groups fall under the umbrella of Moms Stop The Harm (MSTH) which is a network of Canadian families impacted by harms and deaths due to substance use. MSTH began with a need to speak out about the ongoing drug poisoning crisis. However, MSTH quickly understood that grieving families needed a safe place to mourn their loved ones due to the traumatic nature of the passing and the stigma often attached to this type of loss. In 2017, Healing Hearts Bereavement support groups were developed. Our groups continue to grow throughout Canada. Learn more at MomsStopTheHarm.com.
Moms Stop The Harm - Kelowna 2019 Photographer: Nicole Richard (Wax Pencil Photography)
Poem
At First…
nothing makes sense…
…You think you won’t survive
Somewhere deep down you know the reality,
but on the surface it is unbelievable, unbelievable.
You may sense a small relief as now the worst imaginable has happened. There will be no more unrelenting, debilitating worry,
but then there’s guilt at the sense of relief.
You sleep away the days or you can’t sleep,
you question your god, your own intelligence, your memory,
you may lose your appetite or the will to even drink water,
you feel exhausted all the time
you feel out of control, ungrounded,
or you may wish for total control over your environment
All these things, and sometimes all at once.
Then
You want everything back to the way it was - house clean and orderly, work, bills, laundry but you find you have a new job now: obituary, funeral plans, condolence cards, visitors, the loved one’s possessions, official business with the hospital, the coroner, the police. Grief may hide behind the door for a moment or an hour,
but it never walks away.”
Moms Stop The Harm, Co-Founder, Leslie McBain