Overdose Sadness Camp is full of children who lost their parents to opioids
Between 2011 and 2021, more than 321,000 children in the US lost their parents to drug overdose. There are places they can come to talk about it.
“The Secret Life of a Mormon Wife” star Maisi Neely faced a great loss at a young age. The reality TV personality discusses it all on Tuesday in her debut memoir, “Tell You So So.”
At Brigham Young University’s college, she met her boyfriend Arik and became pregnant. She later found out that Arik was cheating on her and then confronted him about it. Shortly afterwards, he died in a car accident. He was texting her. Guilt swallowed her whole thing.
“It’s still difficult after years, but I don’t think the sadness will go away,” she says. “It becomes easier over time.”
Grief affects people every day, but not in the way we always consider it. We can dream, health, past versions of ourselves saddened. Neely, one grieves all kinds of relationships in her memoir. Sadness is not linear. It’s not a stage that is a common misconception. It is unique to the individual.
It’s a “lifelong process,” and Jessica McNair, a licensed professional counselor, previously told USA Today. “It’s not normative, it’s not five stages. You go through these and then you get to the end. It’s ongoing. It appears in different eras. And in fact, it’s probably one of the main reasons why people come back to treatment.”
“You need to feel that.”
Sorrow manifests itself in a different way than one might imagine over time.
“When it comes, there will be sadness,” says Gina Moffa, a licensed clinical social worker and author of “Not to let go on the move.” “And that may mean you have sadness, two years later, it will feel like you’ve never been saddened, or some kind of memory will happen. And that’s something you need to grieve again.”
For Neely, it still beats her for over a decade. “When I feel a wave of sadness, I still try to take the time to allow it to happen today,” she adds. “In the past, I try to paralyze it or distract it with something else, but I think there are things I like.
Like Neely’s about “The Mormon Wife,” these stories are seen on screen, and according to sadness experts, we examine our own journeys and have a cathartic experience for the stars and the audience.
Some people feel triggered by watching sadness on television or reading memoirs that touch on it. But that doesn’t mean they should avoid it.
“I urge viewers to feel what they are feeling and cry when they need them that what they are experiencing is a normal response to loss,” Maria Bailey, founder of GriebSpecialists.org, previously told USA Today. “To let your feelings go in that moment help you process your sadness rather than bottle it all up later.”
If you would like to share your thoughts on USA Today and sadness for use in future stories, check it out.
