“An epidemic within a pandemic:” Drug overdose deaths soared during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Native Americans have died at a higher rate than anyone else. “He just gave up,” said a mom whose son overdosed after struggling with isolation and joblessness.
with staggering speed. The death rate last year was highest among Native Americans, for whom COVID-19 piled yet more despair on communities already confronting generations of trauma, poverty, unemployment and underfunded health systems.
Taylor had lived in more than 50 places before she turned 18 — foster homes, battered women’s shelters, on the streets — and faced sexual, physical and mental abuse. This story of an evil spirit in Ojibwe folklore can only be spoken with snow on the ground as a layer of protection from the monster. The Windigo is a cannibal that sings a song, and anyone who hears it must cover their ears and run away, he said. Otherwise, they develop an insatiable hunger.
Rachel Taylor’s son once wrote her a letter because he thought his addiction was killing him: “I can’t control it. I hope you can forgive me. I’m sorry, I love you, I wanted to spend more time with you.” On top of that, the healing traditions many turn to in troubled times, like sweat lodges and talking circles, were suspended. Theirs is a communal culture, and people were suddenly isolated.“I’m sick of telling people that their kids are dead,” Kleszyk said.
Oppegard used to wake up each morning and run through the names of her eight children from oldest to youngest, imagining where they were and what they were doing. She forced herself to stop, because when she got to Hill, if felt too much to bear. Smith introduced a bill this summer that would usher $200 million in grants to Indian organizations to bolster their mental health and addiction treatment. The bill, still stalled in Congress, would empower Native organizations to address addiction their own way.
She grew up on the White Earth reservation near Beth Hill. She can rattle off names of other neighbors they’ve lost to addiction. She couldn’t see when Garbow-Warren visited her. The doctors said she could hear them. They played her favorite song by Sir Mix-A-Lot and she wiggled like she was trying to dance. She died a couple days later.
She doesn’t know about her older children. Her son turned 18 this year, the others are 17 and 10. She sometimes imagines tracking them down, but then wonders if they’re better off without her.In January, Rachel Taylor’s heart began aching, like someone had reached into her chest and was squeezing it.
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