I was working downtown eastside directly with women who struggle with substance misuse, mental health, homelessness, and physical and emotional pain for over 12 years. In the beginning, it was hard for me to believe that I was working there only a year after migrating from Taiwan, a country which treats drug issues as criminal offense. In my country, we used to treat substance users like criminals, only really troubled people would associate with them , let alone working with them regularly. Thus, I asked myself many times, why I enjoyed my work there.

After getting to know them, I realized that they are really not much different from me. Usually, they have had a harsh life that is so unbearable for anybody and no wonder they use substances to help them cope and reduce emotional pain. I remember there was a girl who was only a year older than my son. While I was conducting an intake with her, I asked how she had ended up in downtown eastside. She was so youthful, pretty, and fresh! She was beautiful! She told me that she grew up there and that was the only place she knew! I felt so sad and hopeless. She was only a year older than my son and I could not believe that she already had a child; she was a baby for me! I kept asking myself what more I could do for her, but really I had no answers.

Understandably, I don’t really share very much about my work in downtown eastside with my friends, either in Taiwan or here in Canada. I don’t want to hear their judgments about my clients. I know most people can’t understand them, but they criticize them and expect them to do more as a person. There will never be a satisfactory answer to this question and I prefer actually doing and being there for them, rather than stigmatizing them.

Sometimes though, I like to share the reality of those individuals’ lives with other people, like my son. He told me a story about an experience he had in high school. One day, when he was in a social class, the class was discussing drug issues and people in downtown eastside. He told me the whole class was putting down those people, and he was the only who told them the other side of the story. He was proud of himself that he knew he was not better than them; he was simply lucky!

Remembering the last few times driving on E. Hastings between Abbott Street and Dunlevy Avenue, I told myself that I would definitely miss this area when not working there. The people in downtown eastside teach me about life, between reality and illusion, beauty and ugliness, luck and misfortune, wealth and poverty, wellness and sickness, functioning and chaos, and normality and craziness. To be true, we all have these elements in ourselves to a greater or lesser degree. The issue is how we manage to find a balance between these polarities. I am grateful that I did not suffer the kind of conditions that tormented some of these people. I did not have an uncle or caregiver who repeatedly raped me for years in my childhood and I had a nurturing relationship that buffered me to be strong and resilient.

I miss my work and relationships with those individuals who I encountered in the last 12 years; they will be in my prayers.

Further Reading:

Mate, G. (2008). In the realm of hungry ghosts: close encounters with addiction. Toronto, Canada, Vintage Canada.