Content Warning 🤍
This post discusses grief, traumatic loss, post-traumatic stress, addiction, and the death of a loved one. While graphic details are not included, the content may be emotionally difficult for some readers. Please take care of yourself while reading. Support resources are encouraged if this brings up difficult emotions. 💜 Resources are avaliable here on the Resource tab.
“Grief is the price we pay for love” – Queen Elizabeth II
Now that I’ve shared some facts, research, and tried to provide a broader understanding of grief in general, I want to shift into a personal perspective. As mentioned last week, there may be “steps in grief” but they rarely fall in order, there is no timeline, and it looks different for everyone.
The next four parts of this series will be difficult to write. It’s also impossible to explain the way the grief has impacted me fully in a blog post. The ugliest parts will have to wait for the book. But I will explain my personal experience in a nutshell — I will do my best to describe my experience briefly, imperfectly, and honestly. The most traumatic grief I have ever experienced began the morning I found my fiancé, Dustin Gene Gotham, deceased in our bathroom on January 22, 2022—unexpectedly—due to fentanyl poisoning.
I will share the details of that morning later in this series, specifically in Part 4, “Dustin’s Tragedy.” What matters here is not the scene itself, but this entry is about the aftermath that he left behind: the tremendous impact it had on my life, and his family’s, at least from my perspective; the profound trauma of finding him personally, which intensified and prolonged the grief; and the way the system failed all of us—still forcing a search for justice that, while still necessary, has made healing slower and more complicated for everyone involved.
The Myth of “Moving On”
Grief looks different for everyone. There is no playbook, no linear path, and no universal timeline where it becomes acceptable to stop hurting. Early on, I truly felt guilt when I wasn’t feeling miserable. Later, I was publicly criticized purely because of a innocent quick funny TikTok, basically because I wasn’t sad enough. A few may have assumed that meant I had “moved on.”, it didn’t look like I was grieving anymore. That assumption couldn’t have been further from the truth. Your allowed to try to be ok even when something terrible has happened, even when you don’t feel like your okay. You still try to do things to seem as normal as possible.
There is no moving on from something like this. You carry it with you and try to learn how to live again, with a rewired brain, a permanently altered nervous system, and a totally different vision of the future overnight. Smiling was never a sign that I was done grieving—it was an attempt to build a life Dustin would be proud of. Living in misery would have dishonored him far more than choosing to keep going.
I also understand that for some people, it may make them feels better if there is someone to blame, especially when the actual guilty party doesn’t seem to be having any consequences (no statute of limitation). When I became that person, I accepted it without question—not because it didn’t hurt, or I thought I deserved it, but because I knew what I was doing every day and it wasn’t something I was ashamed of. I was living the best way I knew how. So, if making me the scapegoat helped someone feel better, so be it. Ill take it- it didn’t make it hurt worse than it already did.
When Trauma Hits Before Grief
When you are the person who finds your loved one after a sudden death, grief does not come first. Shock does. My brain and body responded before my emotions ever had the chance. I 100% thought he survived that morning until EMTs called it. It wasn’t a thought in my head that he wouldn’t be ok until the absolute second they made the call. And it hit me like a mac truck. And I absolutely lost it. Already living with PTSD meant this loss didn’t simply cause grief—it collided with an existing condition that created a level of psychological and physical distress I had never experienced. The images didn’t stay in the past. They replay constantly to this day. My nervous system stays on high alert, always “ready for impact”. I’ve struggled in great lengths with memory and concentration. What trauma research explains, I lived daily, quite literally.
Sensory memory became part of the trauma. The brain doesn’t just remember what happened—it remembers how it felt to be there…. the sadness, the anger, the shock… my worst nightmare at that time. Those memories surface without warning, with the smallest trigger, and feel just as real as the moment they were formed. Plus, as mentioned, healing and fighting for justice often happen simultaneously, and that reality does carry a heavy emotional cost.
*A lot of these things I share are what I have discovered in therapy over the years.
Survival and Support
The grief and trauma that followed were crippling. I lost my sense of safety, stability, and ability to function in many ways. I experienced extreme memory loss and was later additionally diagnosed with ADHD and CPTSD. After Dustin’s death, I lost four jobs under circumstances that felt suspicious or avoidant, and had never lost a job prior. Mental health still makes many workplaces uncomfortable, and too often, it’s easier to remove the person than address the reality of a situation that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are struggling with everyday.
If I hadn’t had my recovery family during that time, I honestly don’t know where I would be. Support didn’t erase the grief—but it kept it from consuming me entirely. And Justin… he was no short of a godsend. I didn’t expect to meet him, and I really didn’t think he would be interested after learning about all my “baggage”. But he has accepted every beautiful and ugly part of me, happily. He has comforted me in my darkest times. He knows I will always grieve for Dustin. That doesn’t bother him in the least. He has true empathy. He truly loves me and he knows I loved him. He pushes me to do whatever we think will make me happy, and supports me all the way through it. I will forever be grateful he came into my life when he did. I have no idea where I would be with all the support I have had over the years.
What I Watched His Family Endure (Long-Distance)
As I have moved through my own grief, I watched Dustin’s family from afar experience a pain no one should have to carry. I watched his parents try to make sense of something that made no sense—grief reshaping their lives again and again. Losing a child reaches into decades of memories and forward into a future that will never be possible.
Dustin and I always talked about wanting a marriage like his parents. Their love was always visible, steady, and deeply rooted. That’s why it was difficult to see how his loss altered even their relationship. I believe they are still together, but grief like this leaves behind anger with nowhere to go and pain without an outlet. Even the strongest relationships would struggle under weight like this.
I also watched (or heard) how deeply this loss affected his sister and brother. Trauma doesn’t exist in isolation. It shapes choices, relationships, opportunities, and how the world feels long after the initial loss. And it is truly heartbreaking to look at the full picture of how much his loss has impacted so many people already. But I hope it will also impact a lot of others positively in the future.
Why the Truth Matters
I reached out to make sure his mother didn’t care if I discussed some of their hardships. Dustin’s mother wants the hard truth shared—not for attention or sympathy—but because what happened didn’t ruin just one life. It rippled outward to parents, siblings, extended family, and everyone who loved him. And no one that was close to him will ever be the same. That is a fact.
Silence doesn’t protect anyone. It only deepens the damage. And there are countless families today experiencing this kind of loss for the first time. What happened to Dustin didn’t end with his death. It continues to affect everyone who loved him. That is why telling the truth matters—because when the full impact is hidden, the harm doesn’t disappear. It spreads. And we won’t allow it to disappear until justice is served.
Closing
Grief like this doesn’t resolve neatly with time. There are so many aspects that we haven’t even began to touch. Grief is such a complicated and unique experience for every person – it is so hard to understand until you have been though it. Especially when trauma, unanswered questions, and the pursuit of justice are involved, healing is something you return to again and again—not something you complete and leave behind.
I know there are a lot of people experiencing this and not knowing if they are handling it ok. If my opinion matters at all, you are doing amazing, if your still standing and trying. No one expects it to be pretty. No one expects it to be quick. Don’t let expectations of others or what you read on the internet measure how you are doing as a human who went through something horrific. Measure it based on whether your life is improving and whether you are happier than you were yesterday, a week, or a month before. Are things improving or spiraling? If anyone needs to talk about a similar experience, feel free to reach out. I am no professional, by any means, but I am happy to share my story, experience, and what I had to do to be ok — or just to be someone who will listen and understands.
Finally, this part of the story isn’t about closure. It’s about acknowledging the depth of what was lost and the reality that some wounds take far longer to tend than others. Prolonged grief is not a failure to heal! It does not make someone overly “emotional. It does not make them “incompetent”. It is simply a response to the magnitude of what happened, and that looks and feels different to every person, so shame on you if you have made these assumptions about someone going through grief (or any other mental health issue for that matter). It’s no one else’s business how someone grieves — as long as you are doing what you think is best for you — that is all that matters.
There is so much more I want to say on the subject because I don’t feel this entry really does justice to the complexity, severity, and pain of what his loved ones have experienced. It’s hard to even explain it on paper. But it’s by far the hardest thing I have had to figure out how to maneuver and live with.
In the next part of this series, I want to explain who Dustin was as I knew him, beyond the loss, and all the good he brought into this world and left behind. January 17 will be his birthday, so next week I’ll write about “Dustin’s Legacy,” from my perspective and how I knew him.
Thank you for being here. Please do something kind for yourself, and give yourself permission to feel whatever you need to feel, without feeling shame. You never know what moment may be the last, so continue living your life to the fullest, and do it for all the angels we lost that should still be here – we owe them at least that much 💚
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