Healing out loud with Jocelyn

As I get closer to August 29th, I’ve found myself reflecting on everything this past year has held.

If someone had told me a year ago where I’d be today, I don’t know if I would have believed them.

This year wasn’t just about getting clean and sober. It was about rebuilding an entire life.

I’ve learned that recovery isn’t simply about putting down a substance. It’s about facing everything you’ve spent years trying to numb.

This year, I watched my oldest son fight battles that no parent should ever have to watch their child face. I’ve advocated for all five of my children through diagnoses, appointments, struggles, and victories. They’ve been my greatest reason to keep going, even on the days I wasn’t sure I could.

I went back to university to pursue my dream of becoming an addiction counsellor while working multiple jobs and trying to balance being a wife, a mom, a student, and an employee. There were days I wondered how I would keep all the plates spinning.

I started working with people experiencing homelessness and addiction. I carried Narcan through the streets, counted breaths, checked on people everyone else walked past, dressed wounds, shared meals, and listened to stories. Every person reminded me that addiction doesn’t care who you are and that every life is worth fighting for.

I continued grieving my brother, Derek. Some days I still catch myself looking for him in the faces of strangers. That kind of loss never really leaves you; you just learn how to carry it differently.

Then, just when I thought I could keep pushing through anything, my own body stopped me. After ignoring the warning signs for far too long, I collapsed at work and suffered multiple seizures caused by critically low phosphorus and severe iron deficiency. It was a reminder that even those of us who spend our lives caring for others have limits, and that taking care of ourselves isn’t selfish, it’s necessary.

Recovery has changed more than my sobriety. It has changed the way I live. This past year, I financed my own vehicle. I worked hard to repair my credit instead of avoiding it. I built savings instead of spending every dollar that came in. For the first time in a long time, I don’t rely on anyone else to carry me financially. I’ve shown up to work, kept steady employment, honoured my commitments, and stopped being the person who called in or walked away when life became difficult. Today, I’m working toward something I never thought I’d be able to say out loud, buying my first home.

None of those things happened overnight. They happened one decision at a time. One shift at a time. One payment at a time. One class at a time. One day of sobriety at a time.

On August 29, I’ll celebrate one year clean and sober. A year ago, I never could have imagined writing those words. Recovery hasn’t erased the difficult days or protected me from heartbreak, loss, fear, or unexpected challenges. What it has done is give me the opportunity to face every one of those moments with a clear mind, an open heart, and the strength to keep moving forward instead of running away.

When I look back, I don’t see a year without struggles. I see a year of rebuilding trust, rebuilding my health, rebuilding my finances, rebuilding my future, and most importantly, rebuilding the relationship I have with myself.

To anyone who is where I was a year ago, please don’t believe the lie that you’re too far gone or that your past has already decided your future. A year can’t erase everything, but it can change everything if you keep showing up. One year ago I made the decision to fight for my life, and every day since then I’ve continued making that choice. As August 29th gets closer, my heart is full, not because I’ve reached the finish line, but because I’m finally living a life that I once thought was impossible.

There are moments in life that force you to stop, whether you’re ready to or not.

A little over a week ago, I went to work like it was any other day. I had been pushing myself for months, working multiple jobs, going to school full time, raising five amazing kids, trying to be everything for everyone, all while putting my own health at the bottom of the list.

The signs had been there, and I ignored them.

The exhaustion. The poor nutrition. The stress. The leg cramps in the middle of the night. Looking back now, my body had been trying to get my attention for a long time.

The day before it happened, one of my coworkers looked at me and told me to slow down. I had just come off a 12-hour shift where I’d been running around like I had a battery pack on my ass. We laughed about it, but they saw what I refused to see.

The morning it happened, something felt off. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew I didn’t feel right. I even checked my own blood pressure and blood sugar at work because I had this uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. Everything I could think to check seemed okay, so I kept going.

I still handed out breakfast trays.

I still put everyone else first.

Then my body made the decision for me.

I collapsed at work. I had multiple seizures, bit my tongue, lost control of my bladder, and have absolutely no memory of what happened. My next memory is waking up in the back of an ambulance saying over and over, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave my kids.”

The cause was critically low phosphorus along with severe iron deficiency. My body had simply run out of what it needed to keep going.

As terrifying as it was for me, my heart hurts just as much for the people who witnessed it.

It happened on the very same wing where my coworkers had only recently experienced the devastating loss of one of our own. They were already carrying so much grief, and then they were forced to watch another coworker collapse. I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been, and I’m so sorry that my medical emergency may have brought back emotions they were still trying to process.

To every one of my coworkers who rushed to help me, stayed with me, called for help, and cared for me when I couldn’t care for myself… thank you. There are no words big enough to express my gratitude.

This experience has changed me.

As caregivers, we become experts at taking care of everyone else. We tell people to listen to their bodies, to rest, to eat properly, and to seek medical attention when something doesn’t feel right. Yet so many of us convince ourselves that we can push through one more shift, one more assignment, one more day.

I learned the hard way that our bodies eventually stop asking and start demanding.

Please don’t wait until your body forces you to stop. If something feels off, listen. If you’re exhausted, rest. If you’re struggling, ask for help. No job, no deadline, and no to do list is more important than your life.

I’m incredibly grateful to still be here. Grateful for the paramedics. Grateful for the emergency staff who cared for me. Grateful for every coworker who stood beside me that morning.

Most of all, I’m grateful for another chance…not to work harder, but to live better.

Because at the end of the day, my five kids don’t need a mom who can do everything.

They just need their mom.

People ask me what it’s like doing walk blocks.

The truth is, it’s hard to explain unless you’ve done it.

For twelve hours I walk the same streets over and over. Eventually you learn where people go. You notice the alleyways, the benches, the corners hidden from everyone else. You know the places people disappear to when they don’t want to be found.

I don’t walk looking for trouble. I walk looking for breaths.

Every time I see someone bent over in the fentanyl lean or lying motionless on the ground, my stomach drops. I walk over, crouch down beside them, and count.

One breath.

Then another.

Sometimes I gently nudge their shoulder and ask, “Hey… are you okay?”

Most of the time they open their eyes and mumble, “Yeah… thanks.”

Every now and then someone gets mad that I woke them up.

Honestly, I’ll take being yelled at every single time. If they’re angry with me, they’re breathing. They’re alive.

The other day we had a barbecue at work and a man walked in who looked so much like my brother Derek that for a second my heart stopped. I caught myself staring before I realized it wasn’t him.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop looking for my brother in other people.

Maybe grief doesn’t work that way.

Maybe when you lose someone to addiction, a part of you spends the rest of your life hoping you’ll somehow find them again.

Every person I check on is somebody’s Derek.

Somebody’s child.

Somebody’s parent.

Somebody that someone loves and is praying comes home.

I know I can’t save everyone. That’s one of the hardest lessons this job teaches you.

But if I can stop one overdose…

If I can wake one person up…

If I can buy someone one more chance to choose recovery…

Then every kilometre I walked that day was worth it.

Sometimes I think about how different my life looks now.

There was a time when I was the one who needed saving.

Now I’m the one carrying Narcan, kneeling beside strangers, counting breaths, hoping to hear, “Yeah… I’m okay.”

I don’t take that for granted.

Not for a single second.

There will come a day when my children are old enough to know the truth.

They’ll know their mom is an addict.

Not was.
Is.

Because addiction doesn’t disappear. It becomes something you learn to live with, to respect, and to fight every single day.

I used to think that truth would make them see me differently. That it would somehow erase all the things I tried so hard to be for them.

Now I hope they see something else.

I hope they see that courage isn’t found in never falling. It’s found in getting back up when everything inside you tells you not to.

I hope they understand why I chose the work I do. Why I carry Narcan. Why I kneel beside strangers on sidewalks. Why I spend my days with people the world has stopped looking at. It’s because I know what it feels like to believe you’re beyond saving. And because someone believed I wasn’t.

One day they’ll learn that recovery isn’t a finish line. It’s a decision you make over and over again. Some days quietly. Some days with everything you’ve got.

They’ll know there were nights I cried after they went to bed. Days I questioned whether I was enough. Moments I hated the person I saw in the mirror. They may even learn about the shame I carried for years.

But I hope that’s not what stays with them.

I hope they remember a mom who kept showing up.

A mom who chose honesty over pretending.

A mom who fought for herself because she loved them too much not to.

If my children inherit anything from me, I don’t want it to be my addiction.

I want it to be this:

That no matter how broken you feel…
No matter how many mistakes you’ve made…
No matter how many times you’ve fallen…

You are never beyond redemption if you’re willing to keep getting back up.

That is the legacy I’m trying to leave them.

Facebook has a way of reminding us of moments we’d rather forget.

For the last few days, my wedding photos and videos have been popping up. Smiling faces. A beautiful dress. A husband looking at me with nothing but love.

Everyone sees a wedding.

I see addiction.

The hardest part is that I don’t remember it.

Not the vows.

Not the first dance.

Not the conversations.

Not the feeling of marrying the man who chose me.

I was so lost in addiction that I stole one of the most important days of my own life from myself.

People talk about what addiction takes, but they usually think about jobs, money, homes, or relationships.

They don’t talk enough about the memories it steals.

The moments you can never get back because you weren’t really there.

Looking at those photos hurts because I know what should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, it became another reminder of how sick I was.

I grieve that woman.

Not because I miss who she was, but because I wish she had known she was worthy of getting help sooner.

I wish she could have stood at that altar completely present.

I wish she could remember the look on her husband’s face when he promised to spend forever with her.

But I also know this.

Those pictures don’t tell the whole story.

They captured a woman in the middle of a battle no one could fully see.

Today, I’m still married to that same man. Only now, I’m present for the ordinary moments that addiction once stole from me. The conversations. The laughter. The quiet evenings. The memories I’m actually able to keep.

One day I’ll write about my wedding in my book.

Not because it’s a story about a perfect marriage.

But because it’s a story about what addiction can steal… and what recovery can still give back.

I can’t change the fact that I don’t remember the day I said “I do.”

But every sober day since then has been another chance to mean it.

It’s amazing what a little time and perspective can teach you.

Sometimes we replay a difficult conversation over and over, convinced it was only about that moment. Then later, you remember a date, an anniversary, a loss, or a burden someone may have been carrying that you couldn’t see at the time.

It doesn’t erase the hurt, and it doesn’t mean every word spoken was okay. But it reminds me that people often respond from places we know nothing about.

Grief doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like impatience. Sometimes it’s silence. Sometimes it’s a shorter fuse than usual. We all carry things that have the power to change how we show up, especially around the moments that quietly reopen old wounds.

One of the greatest gifts recovery has given me is the ability to pause before deciding someone else’s intentions. To leave room for the possibility that there was pain behind the reaction, even if I couldn’t see it then.

I’ve learned that protecting my own peace and extending grace to others don’t have to compete. Sometimes they can exist together.

We rarely know the full story another person is carrying. A little compassion, for others and for ourselves, can go a long way.

One thing recovery has taught me is that not every disagreement needs to be won, and not every misunderstanding needs to be resolved immediately.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is step back.

Not because you’ve stopped loving someone. Not because you’re giving up. But because continuing to argue only creates more hurt for everyone involved.

I’ve spent a lot of my life believing that if I could just explain myself better, people would finally understand my intentions. Recovery has shown me that peace doesn’t always come from being understood. Sometimes it comes from accepting that two people can experience the same moment completely differently.

Boundaries aren’t about punishment. They’re about protecting relationships from becoming even more damaged. Sometimes a little space gives everyone the chance to calm down, reflect, and come back with softer hearts.

I’m still learning that I don’t have to keep proving my point. I don’t have to keep defending myself. I can choose peace, even when someone disagrees with my version of events.

And maybe that’s what healing looks like…not winning the argument, but refusing to lose yourself in it.

Before this job, I read the comments like everyone else.

“They’re a problem.”
“They don’t want help.”
“They’re choosing this.”

After only a couple of shifts at the shelter , I don’t see “the homeless” anymore. I see people.

I’ve spent entire shifts walking the streets with Narcan in my pocket, stopping to check whether someone slumped over on the sidewalk is asleep, high, or dying. I’ve found myself asking complete strangers, “Are you okay?” while watching for the rise and fall of their chest, hoping they take another breath.

I’ve watched people smoke fentanyl in broad daylight because withdrawal is more terrifying to them than the risk of death. I’ve cleaned wounds that desperately need emergency care, knowing many will refuse to go because finding the next high has become more urgent than saving the body they’re living in.

I’ve seen people line up for a hot meal, a shower, a safe place to sit for a little while. I’ve watched people collect objects most of us would call garbage because, to them, those items have value, can be traded, sold, or simply provide a sense of ownership in a life where almost everything has been lost.

I’ve also seen frustration, anger, and behaviours that are difficult to understand from the outside. Trauma, addiction, mental illness, and survival don’t always look the way we expect them to.

It’s easy to drive past someone sleeping on the sidewalk and think they’re the problem.

The truth is, homelessness isn’t the problem. It’s often the visible symptom of so many others: untreated mental illness, addiction, trauma, poverty, abuse, disability, and systems that people have fallen through time and time again.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t responsible for their choices. But it does mean many of those choices are being made from a place most of us have never had to survive.

These aren’t statistics. They aren’t headlines. They aren’t simply “the homeless.”

They’re someone’s son.
Someone’s daughter.
Someone’s parent.
Someone who, at one point, had dreams, plans, and a life that probably looked a lot more like ours than we realize.

The last couple of days have reminded me that compassion doesn’t mean ignoring accountability. It means remembering someone’s humanity even when they’re at the lowest point of their life.

I don’t have all the answers.

But I know this: it’s impossible to truly understand homelessness by looking through a car window or reading a comment section. You have to walk beside it, breathe it in, and witness it.

Only then do you realize it’s so much bigger than people without a place to sleep.

No one told me this job would follow me home.

Not in the smell of smoke that lingers on my clothes.

Not in the images of bodies folded over on sidewalks.

Not in the sound of my own voice asking strangers, “Hey… can you hear me?”

No one told me I’d start noticing every rise and fall of a chest. That I’d instinctively look for breathing before I looked at a face.

Or that carrying Narcan would stop feeling like something I was required to do and start feeling like something I could never leave home without.

Because this isn’t becoming what I do.

It’s becoming who I am.

People talk about homelessness like it’s an inconvenience. A nuisance. A problem to clean up.

Spend one day walking beside it.

Watch someone dig through a dumpster because that’s how they’ll eat today. Dress a wound that should have been treated weeks ago, knowing addiction has convinced them the emergency room can wait, but withdrawal can’t. Sit with someone whose entire world fits into a shopping cart.

Then tell me they’re just “the homeless.”

They’re not.

They’re people whose names I know now.

And that’s the dangerous part.

Because once you know someone’s name, they’re no longer anonymous.

You notice when you don’t see them for a few days.

You wonder if they finally found housing.

Or if they’re in jail.

Or if they’re in the hospital.

Or if they’ve become another overdose that people scroll past without reading.

I think that’s what scares me the most.

One day, I’ll probably kneel beside someone I know.

Not a stranger.

Someone whose story I’ve heard.

Someone I’ve laughed with.

Someone I’ve checked on a hundred times before.

I’ll tear open the Narcan, pray my hands don’t shake, call their name, and beg them to come back.

And one day… one of them won’t.

Not because I didn’t try.

Not because they weren’t worth saving.

Just because addiction is a cruel disease that doesn’t care how badly someone is loved.

I already know that day will break something inside me.

But it won’t stop me.

It can’t.

Because somewhere between my first shift and today, these people stopped being “clients.”

They became people whose lives matter to me.

So I’ll keep carrying Narcan.

I’ll keep asking, “Are you breathing?”

I’ll keep kneeling on dirty sidewalks.

I’ll keep believing every single life is worth one more chance, one more breath, one more tomorrow.

Not because someone pays me to.

Because this work has quietly reshaped my heart.

And once your heart learns to recognize someone’s humanity, there’s no going back.

The Woman in the Mirror

I can feel it creeping in again.

That tight feeling in my chest.

That lump in my throat that will not go away no matter how many times I try to swallow it down.

It is not the kind of sadness that just sits quietly. It builds. It presses. It spills over.

I do not really know when I stopped recognizing myself.

It was not one big moment.

It was a bunch of small ones that added up.

Reaching for another oversized shirt because it hid more than it showed.

Throwing my hair into the same messy bun and thinking, what is the point anyway?

Walking past my makeup drawer until everything in it slowly expired, untouched.

Putting back an outfit I actually liked because that voice in my head said, maybe when you lose weight.

Going into stores and looking everywhere except the racks that caught my eye.

Sometimes not even going in at all.

Why get attached to something I would not let myself wear anyway?

Somewhere along the way, I stopped dressing the woman I was.

I started dressing the woman who did not want to be seen.

And right now, that feeling is louder than it has been in a long time.

Like I am fading right in front of myself.

Like I am watching it happen and I do not know how to stop it.

I told myself it was because I was busy.

Because I have five kids.

Because I work.

Because I am in school.

Because moms do not have time.

Because I do not go anywhere anyway.

Because no one really cares.

I have said those things so many times they started to feel true.

But right now, they do not.

Right now, they feel like something I have been hiding behind.

And I am just tired.

The truth is, I miss her so much it hurts.

I miss the version of me who liked getting ready. The one who straightened her hair because it made her feel good.

The one who wore lipstick just because she wanted to.

The one who bought clothes because she loved them, not because they hid her body.

I do not just miss her.

It feels like I am grieving her.

Like she is gone and I do not know how to get back.

Sometimes I will catch my reflection in a window and for a second I do not even recognize it is me.

Other times I avoid mirrors completely.

Because I already know what is coming if I look.

That drop in my stomach.

That wave of disappointment.

That voice that starts tearing me apart before I even have a chance to breathe.

Days turn into weeks.

Weeks turn into months.

Avoiding it feels easier.

Until it does not.

Until it all hits at once like this.

And I can feel the tears building and I cannot stop them.

And I do not even know exactly what I am crying for.

My body.

My mind.

The way I talk to myself.

The way this has taken over.

The way I do not feel like me anymore.

And then something shifts.

Or maybe it does not shift, it spirals.

I will stand in front of the mirror way too long, picking apart every inch of myself. Every flaw. Every place I wish looked different. Every reason I tell myself I will start over on Monday.

It is never just looking.

It is obsessing.

It is bargaining.

It is punishing.

It is trying to fix something that feels impossible in the moment.

Food is not just food in my head.

It is constant.

Should I eat this?

Did I already eat too much?

I will do better tomorrow.

Maybe I will skip lunch.

You already messed up today.

You might as well keep going.

And right now, it is louder.

Everything is louder.

It is exhausting having that conversation in your head all the time when no one else can hear it.

The hardest part is knowing my kids are watching me grow through this.

Not because I want them to, but because kids notice everything.

They notice when I say I am not hungry.

They notice when I criticize myself in the mirror.

They notice when I avoid pictures.

They notice when I say I will buy something one day.

And that thought breaks something in me.

Because I do not want this for them.

I do not want them to feel like this.

I do not want them to look at themselves the way I look at myself right now.

I want something different for them.

I want them to know their worth is not tied to a number or a size.

That food is not something to be afraid of.

That mirrors are not something to avoid.

That getting dressed can actually feel good instead of feeling like hiding.

But right now, it is hard to believe I deserve that too.

Right now, I feel stuck.

In this moment.

In this sadness.

In this spiral.

Maybe finding myself again is not something that happens all at once.

Maybe it will not happen today.

Maybe right now is not about fixing everything.

Maybe it is just about getting through this wave.

Letting myself cry.

Letting myself feel it instead of pretending I am okay.

Because underneath all of it, the oversized clothes, the excuses, the fear, the constant noise in my head,
I know she is still there.

Even if I cannot fully reach her right now.

Even if all I can do is feel how much I miss her.

I think she is still waiting for me.

And maybe today, that is enough.