Here to Listen, Here to Help:
An Evolving Story

I spent over two decades working within the public system and as my classroom experiences built, my heart for my chosen career fell. I watched the struggles of my students, my peers, and families feeling unable to help them in logical, timely ways. I adored teaching but was powerless and ineffective within a policy-driven system and work contracts that silenced the critics. I spent more time accommodating a costly paperwork than serving others waiting for help.

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After years of violent incidences and inadequate support in my classrooms, I quit. I felt relief. I built up my professional visual arts career that I had already been leaning into the past several years. It felt right.

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As life does, it threw another curveball. My marriage ended unexpectedly after 20+ years. I had invested so much into being a mother, a partner, an educator but suddenly nothing was predictable.

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As I carried on this dual life of old versus new, I took my new life a step further into the unknown, uncertain and uncomfortable. I  pursued art as therapeutics, and it was this venture that would have me happen upon the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the fentanyl crisis.

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It was all so raw. The pain of addiction disorders and homelessness was everywhere, in all ages and color. What I was more blown away by were individual's stories. I made several trips back from the prairies, armed with my sketchbook and loads of snacks to share. People talked, I listened.

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I learned their names. I sat amongst lawyers, financial advisors, a minister, residential school survivors, artists, musicians, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandchildren. I drew bodies in turmoil and tears. We had laughs and cries. I helped push carts loaded with a man's life as we went together to get help at the hospital. I sat sharing the space of a bed in a tent city constantly being deconstructed. People would be lighting or shooting up. Their bodies scarred, twisted and thinning. I hung out sitting on city sidewalks learning everything I could from the lonely, the hurt, the judged as people in nice suits walked past and spit dismay. 

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I decided then I needed to learn more. Their stories were captivating but there were patterns. In every drawing and conversation, I saw shadows of former students: the ones that struggled for various reasons, that carried pain, the ones that couldn't smile or wore a façade. The students that the education system wrapped tight in red tape or simply denied them of more attention. To listen was one thing, but I needed to know more about the pain, mental health and substance use that was dominating the streets.

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I went back to school, this time to earn a degree in Addictions and Mental Health Community Support Work. I was intrigued of the links between nurture and nature, the body and the mind, the spirit versus science. I continue to seek information from people living on the frontlines, collecting firsthand experiences of living with multiple barriers in Manitoba, British Columbia (DTES) and abroad. As a continuation to my education I have been traveling to Portugal to research their controversial yet intriguing approaches to these issues. My conversations range with those in the methadone program for 17 years, to politicians, multi-generation observations and perspectives, to healthcare providers and The Red Cross. 

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What I have come to learn is that for every individual that has a story, their path forward looks different from everyone else. For every struggle there is an answer, but each answer is different. What works for one person does not work for everyone else. How one person's body processes pain is not to be compared with how someone else would. Most importantly, recognizing that these issues and their situations are not because of a person's morals. 

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What people have in common when they find themselves in a downward spiral is PAIN. Pain is part of the life experience, not to be judged or compared. It could be physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, or spiritual pain. If left ignored, untreated or overcompensated, it can lead to crisis. It is said that any one of us is only 3 crisis' away from what I sat amongst on the streets. After listening to their stories, they would all confirm that.