“Mothers Who Lost Children to Overdose Find Hope”: Tessie Castillo

at The Fix:

BJ Sanders of Lumberton, North Carolina, also felt the sting of judgment after her 19-year-old daughter, Shelly, overdosed in her college dorm room in 2005. BJ recalls visiting a grief group for parents and hearing, “Well, my child didn’t deserve to die—she didn’t do drugs.” The experience was so humiliating for BJ that for a long time she would not openly speak of her daughter’s death.

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