Thank You Heartbreak

Author Elise Schiller joins Chelsea 16 minutes in to talk about what she discovered writing her first memoir, Even if Your Heart Would Listen: Losing My Daughter to Heroin. Through a collection of her daughter’s journal excerpts, planners, letters left behind as well as medical records, handouts from residential treatment, and her own research into today’s opioid crisis, Elise tries to weave together a clearer picture of what her daughter’s pathway toward recovery actually looked like and could have looked like were substance use disorders treated with medication first. What arises both in writing and in conversation is regret, resentment and, the single silver lining, advocacy. In terms of regret, it’s the guilt of a mother who now knowing what she knows believes she could have done more to protect her daughter not from her addiction so much as its archaic treatment method. As for resentment, it’s anger toward the experts and staff at the five residential and several outpatient programs who cut corners and h