Poppy

April 2023, I am sitting with Poppy in the group room of one of Phoenix’s London supported housing services. Poppy is currently living here after being discharged from a lengthy hospital admission. She underwent surgery on her leg and as a result is still walking with crutches, you can see she is in pain from her facial expression and the way she protects her leg as she shifts in her chair finding a more comfortable position.

Poppy and I met through the Anti-Stigma Network; I was visiting services, and talking to people with lived and living experience of addiction and dependency about the network to gather insight, feedback, and a better understanding of people’s experiences of stigma.

Stigma is familiar to Poppy, as we were talking, she offered to share some of her own recent experiences with me in the hope that we can learn from them and start to develop a deeper understanding of the impact of stigma and its real-world consequences. Her experiences are still raw, but she speaks with dignity and composure and although she seems resigned to being discriminated against, she still has the courage and the determination to call it out.  

The story Poppy tells me began over 20 years ago when she began using heroin intravenously, although, she explains, she had a whole life before her addiction took hold. She is a Mum and has a daughter and a son. She describes how hard she finds it to connect to her life before addiction at the moment as it’s too early on in her recovery, but she knows that she has a lot to keep trying and fighting for.

The conversation moves on to her leg and her most recent hospital stay. She was “in a really bad way” she explains, she had an infection in her leg which meant that she had to have emergency surgery and was told that there was a high chance that she could lose her leg and that it could be life-threatening if the infection spread.

I asked her why she didn’t seek help before it got to such a critical stage. She explained that when she sought medical help in the past, she had been made to feel dismissed and ashamed because of her drug use so it put her off going back. “When the ambulance arrived to take me to hospital, I was in so much pain, I could barely stand she recalled. ‘Three paramedics were there and not one of them would touch me to help me inside the ambulance, the place where they were picking me up from was not very nice, I understand that, but they wouldn’t come anywhere near me”.

She went on to describe how she felt the surgeon who operated on her was genuinely pleased to see her recovering

“What a joy to see you he told me on the ward round, you could tell he cared, and had worked hard to save my leg, I think he went above and beyond and that made me feel like I mattered. He saw that I was worth something and worth saving. I don’t have marks and scars all over my body from using, I wonder if he would have tried so hard to save me if I had.”

Poppy spoke about the care that she received in the hospital, for the most part, she was looked after well, and the nurses were kind. Sometimes she found it difficult as she was on a vascular ward, and she felt like the nurses weren’t used to caring for people who use drugs so had little understanding of her addiction. “I felt like there was a lack of education especially around pain medication. I need a higher dose than most people to manage pain because of my tolerance but I felt like some of the nurses didn’t understand that or believe me when voiced it.”

“There were lots of older people on the ward and I enjoyed talking to them, we just chatted about normal stuff. I was there for 7 weeks, time to get to know people. Everyone was nice and treated me well apart from one nurse who I felt singled me out. She would announce my medication loudly so that everyone on the ward knew that I was on Methadone, I knew she was trying to shame me.

She was standoffish and I felt like she couldn’t wait to shove me out of the door, the way she treated me made me feel like I wasn’t even human. It’s a shame because all the good work and kindness from the other nurses could have been undone by her.”

Poppy is aware of her rights, she knows that she should be treated fairly, with respect and not discriminated against because of her addiction which she defines as a health condition. She went on to tell me about her discharge from the hospital and that it was to unsuitable accommodation due to her mobility needs, she was discharged in the middle of the night and told she would have to “wee in a bucket if she couldn’t climb the stairs to access the toilet”, this too, she puts down to stigma.

“I just feel like sometimes some people don’t understand that I am a person, they just see me as a drug user”.

Although Poppy can advocate for herself, she also has the support of her daughter which helps in calling out stigma and discrimination when she sees it, she wanted to share her experience the positives and the negatives so that we can learn from it and start to act, especially for the people who are not able to challenge it themselves.  

Poppy was happy to share her experiences, but had concerns about revealing her identity, we have changed her name to protect her anonymity