Sounds of silence. The “special grief” of drug-death bereaved parents: a qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Drug-death bereavement is an understudied topic. We explore what bereaved parents experience after losing their child to drug use. The aim of the paper is to provide knowledge about what drug-death bereaved parents go through and study the kinds of help and support they receive. Method: Reflexive thematic analysis is used to analyze 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Norwegian parents. Results: We generated four main themes: (I) 'constant preparedness' describes the burdensome overload that the parents experienced before death; (II) 'stigmatization' represents public and self-induced stigma; (III) 'emotional overload' refers to the parents' complex and ambivalent emotions, such as anger, guilt and shock after the loss; and (IV) 'complex relations' describes the parents' relations with public services and their personal social networks. Discussion: We discuss how overload, before and after the loss experience, causes a special grief. How this overload, silence from helpers, self-stigma and complicated interactions with social networks contribute to the grief of these parents is also discussed. Potential implications for policy and practice are subsequently outlined.

How Do Drug-Death-Bereaved Parents Adjust to Life Without the Deceased? A Qualitative Study

“…The parents' descriptions of grief following DRD is reported in Sounds of Silence. The Special Grief of Drug-death Bereaved Parents (Titlestad et al, 2020). In that article we discuss how the time before death imposed a considerable emotional and practical burden on these parents, one that causes a special grief.…”

“…This article is one of two articles that explore drug-death bereaved Norwegian parents' grief. In the paper "Sounds of Silence" we reported how parents described a special death and how the silence from helpers, self-stigma and complicated interactions within the social network can contribute to a special grief (Titlestad, Mellingen, Stroebe, & Dyregrov, 2020).…”

Maternal grief: analysis and therapeutic recommendations

“…Regardless of how irrational, mothers usually feel responsible when any negative event has impacted their child. [19][20][21][22][23] Mothers will examine repeated ways they might have anticipated the occurrence and intervened, even if such expectations are completely unrealistic to an outside observer.…”

Drug-Related Death Bereavement: A Commentary by Kelly Thomas on Titlestad, Stroebe, and Dyregrov’s Article: How Do Drug-Death-Bereaved Parents Adjust to Life without the Deceased? A Qualitative Study

“…Kelly Thomas first contacted us briefly—but to us so poignantly—about an earlier publication of ours on Drug-Related Death (DRD) bereavement entitled Sounds of silence. The ‘special grief’ of drug-death bereaved parents ( Titlestad et al., 2020 ). He commented: It is coming up on the 3 years since we lost our daughter at age 21 in a DRD.…”