'Ask for help if you need it': Mother of missing woman speaks out about recovering from trauma

This story is part of CBC North's ongoing MMIWG coverage. On Nov. 28, starting at 4 p.m. MT, CBC North will hold a forum in Yellowknife and over Facebook Live, where Indigenous women will speak to their own experiences and what still needs to be done.

After nine years without her daughter Angela, Kathy Meyer has learned to stop asking, "What if?"

No more thoughts like, If I hadn't let her outside by herself to have a cigarette on Nov. 27, 2010, she wouldn't have gone missing. 

"I don't know that," she reminds herself. "I just have to think, I gave her a cigarette and I told her she can't smoke in the house."

After Angela Meyer disappeared at the age of 22, her mother became one of thousands of family members who are left to pick up the pieces and reassemble a life after Indigenous women and girls go missing or are murdered.

For Kathy Meyer, the greatest barrier to getting help was her own grief.

For years, she had trouble thinking straight. She turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. Sometimes, she spent the entire day in bed.

Five years after her daughter went missing, Meyer did try counselling provided by her workplace wellness program, but found they didn't have the tools to help her with the specific trauma she was going through.

She kept waiting for Angela to come home. 

PTSD common among survivors

Thomas Pearcey, a counsellor with the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre in Yellowknife, says it's common for people who experience violent losses — which includes the loss of someone who goes missing — to have severe emotional distress and feelings of guilt, as well as PTSD and addictions.

Many may feel the urge to isolate themselves from others, and keep their emotions to themselves, he said.

"There tends to be a kind of denial or a kind of unreality. It seems unreal," he said. "They don't think that they should feel that way that they feel."

At the same time, Pearcey said, the long period of grief can often go on longer without support. In other words, when people in trauma isolate themselves, that can lead to more pain — a vicious cycle.

In February of this year, that cycle started to break for Meyer when she went to talk to someone at Tree of Peace. Asking for help filled her with anxiety.

"All kinds of questions go through your head. You feel like you're going to get labelled.… How do I ask for it? Am I going to get the words out? It's quite difficult," she said.

Meyer said she was told she needed therapy to face her loss.

"I said, you hit the nail on the head."

'We have to look after ourselves'

In late June, Meyer completed a three-month stay at an Ontario treatment centre called Homewood Health, which specializes in drug and alcohol addiction while also tackling the underlying issues behind substance use.

"Trauma brings out these coping mechanisms," she said. "To understand why you use is quite helpful."

Meyer still has difficult days, but she said therapy has given her the tools to readjust her thinking so she can keep living her life.

"I'm a grandmother, a mother, a wife. I need to function," she said.

Meyer's house is a lot calmer now, she says, now that her family sees she's doing better. It's also easier for them to talk about Angela.

Now, Meyer is sharing her story to tell others who are grieving missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls that they're not alone.

"Ask for help if you need it," she said. "It is not easy, I know. But … we have to look after ourselves."