A sister’s role in getting brother off opioids

Originally released on July 18th, 2022

Today's episode is an unexpected revisit dedicated to the memory of one of our past guests. Maryrose Fealey was a TikTok star who gained fame after she shared her relationship with her brother, Ian, who suffers from substance use disorder. Her journey was also shown in an eye-opening documentary that followed Ian and Maryrose for almost a month while he suffered from withdrawals and cravings.

Tragically, Grieving Out Loud host Angela Kennecke got a call from a reporter to comment on Maryrose's horrific death. The 27-year-old was found fatally stabbed outside near her home in New Jersey. 

Today, we're resharing Maryrose's story, and we hope her words sink in and inspire you to love unconditionally, take it slow on the anger, and strive to leave this world a little kinder than you found it.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Angela Kennecke: I am Angela Kennecke, and this is Grieving Out Loud. I come to you today with really a broken heart. Today's episode is an unexpected revisit dedicated to the memory of one of our past guests, Mary Rose Feely. She was a TikTok star who gained fame after she shared her relationship with her brother Ian, who suffers from substance use disorder.

Her journey was also shown in an eye-opening documentary that followed Ian and Mary Rose for almost a month while he suffered through withdrawals and cravings. 

[00:00:41] Maryrose Fealey: And my brother, like I love, as you could tell from the documentary, like I, I, I love my brother. I love him so much and to, to do that and just to have that feeling the entire way through of the person you love the most, that you can't help and no one gets it.

And I wanted people who have a similar story as me to be able to be like, oh, I can relate to her. 

[00:01:05] Angela Kennecke: Tragically. Just a few days ago I got a call from a reporter to comment on Mary Rose's Horrific death. The twenty-seven-year-Old was found dead outside a residential complex in New Jersey. Authorities say she suffered multiple stab wounds and are asking the public for more information.

[00:01:26] Maryrose Fealey: You know, at the end of the day, we're all just souls and like we're just things in this world. Today, 

[00:01:31] Angela Kennecke: we hope her words sink in and inspire you. To love unconditionally. Take it slow on the anger and strive to lead this world a little kinder than you found it

in her memory. Let's take a listen to Mary Rose's words

[00:01:57] Maryrose Fealey: all 

[00:01:57] Angela Kennecke: Mary Rose. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Greaving Out Loud. I am so fascinated by your story and your efforts to really save your brother's life. I wanna just welcome you to the 

[00:02:11] Maryrose Fealey: podcast. Hi. Yeah, thank you so much for saying that. 'cause I, I honestly feel like that's exactly what I did too.

Uh, it's, it, the opioid crisis is really affecting so many lives, as you know. And I, every step along the way, I really just reminded myself like Mary, like. You're lucky, like, you know, you're blessed. And I think that was something that really helped me get, put a lot of emotion behind and really focused on the core with helping him 

[00:02:41] Angela Kennecke: after having lost someone to fentanyl poisoning.

You know, I always think as long as someone who is suffering from substance use disorder is still alive, there is, you know, there's hope. And no matter how bad it seems, there is hope. But once you lose them, of course. There isn't. And, and so I think really in part, especially because of you, your brother is alive today, Ian.

And how old is Ian 

[00:03:06] Maryrose Fealey: now? Ian is 28 years old now. And he is a 

[00:03:10] Angela Kennecke: couple years older than 

[00:03:11] Maryrose Fealey: you? Yeah, he's um, I'm 26 years old. 

[00:03:16] Angela Kennecke: Tell me about growing up in your home. Were you guys close when you were kids or what was that like? 

[00:03:23] Maryrose Fealey: Me and him. We were close when we were kids and growing up. Honestly, a lot of it, a lot of it I don't really remember.

We, we actually grew up in like a very toxic household and I don't, I don't remember much of our child, but Ian did get in a longboarding accident when he was in middle school, and that just completely changed the trajectory of our relationship. So 

[00:03:44] Angela Kennecke: middle school, so he got into a accident. I 

[00:03:46] Maryrose Fealey: was I eighth grade going into freshman year, and so he would've been in high school.

Yeah. Yeah. And was Ian prescribed 

[00:03:55] Angela Kennecke: opioids at that time? 

[00:03:56] Maryrose Fealey: So he was in the hospital for about, he was forced into a coma. So he had traumatic brain injury right here. And I like remember walking into the hospital room and he just had tubes shoved down his throat and he was just lying on the hospital bed, choking up the lye then.

Not, not waking up, not being responsive. And the doctors told us like, Hey, your brother, he's not gonna be able to walk. He's not gonna be able to talk. He's not gonna know who you are. And so that was something going on in the midst of our parents were going through a divorce and we lost their house. So while Ian was, yeah, so while Ian was going through all of that, there was a lot going on behind the scenes when he was in the hospital for those six months.

When he was the trauma. So much trauma. Yeah. When he, so I guess the opioid started when, um, he had the IV in his arm, you know what I mean? Because he did have traumatic brain injury. Like, I'm not gonna soften that. Like he, he was in a lot of, he was in a lot of pain, but once he got out, it just, it just spiraled out of control.

And so he 

[00:05:00] Angela Kennecke: would've been And how old when he got outta the hospital, do you know? 16. He was 16. Oh wow. So young. Yeah. Yeah, very young. And so you're a couple years behind him and then he's, he kind of goes down a spiral and I suppose you didn't really understand it at that age. 

[00:05:17] Maryrose Fealey: How did that affect you? Yeah, all all.

At that age, I didn't under, he would wake up. I remember when we did like for a little bit, we did live together. We did get separated. While we did live together, like I remember looking at him and him just like being really different. Like he was not the same. He didn't, he had a similar personality, but it wasn't the same personality.

He didn't remember things as well. And honestly, he started hanging around me a lot more, a little bit, but I didn't really understand that. Like he would wake up like in the middle of the night screaming in pain. Or like every morning he would be screaming in pain and like not wanting to go to school.

And I didn't understand that part of it, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't get it at that age. Looking back now, you know, like I understand like he had traumatic brain injury. He was in a lot of pain, but at that age, I, I really didn't get it and I didn't I get why he was taking all these pills. One time he walked into my bedroom and like he was just, just packed out against the wall and yeah, when I was 14, he was 16.

I just, I didn't really get it. He was also at that time, you know, that's when like they start drinking and that's when that also gets introduced. So he was dealing with the brain injury, the drugs, and growing into a different human 

[00:06:32] Angela Kennecke: sounds to me like he didn't really stand a chance when it came to addiction.

[00:06:37] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah, yeah. He definitely got set up. And so 

[00:06:41] Angela Kennecke: you don't suffer from substance use disorder, do you? 

[00:06:46] Maryrose Fealey: I was, I was prescribed Vyvanse and Adderall, so I was taking that for about eight years. Yeah. So I went up to Vermont to get completely sober off of that. Like I was just fed up with taking it and I didn't wanna be prescribed to it anymore.

And he knew I was going up to Vermont to do that. He knew like I wanted to get off this medication and like, I just wanted to cold Turkey it during. So I got prescribed to the Vyvanse and Adderall because during that time, like around 1415. When I turned 16, I got a severe eating disorder. I was bulimic, so during my bulimia they prescribed me Vyvan for ADHD and binge eating disorder.

So that's how I kind of got on that bandwagon and I never got off of it. So throughout all college, everything like that, they just kept up like my dose. So you just, it got to the point where like, I, I just kept every single pill bottle and like, I invited Ian over a little bit during Covid and while he was visiting.

We just talked about it and like, you know, I had a whole drawer filled of troll piles. I was like, I don't know. I don't know what to, I don't know what to do anymore. Like I was just like, I'm trapped in this job. I'm trapped in this lifestyle, you know, I'm living on my own. I'm not talking to anybody. And he was just, he was still using a little bit at the time, not heavy, but I remember talking to him on the phone once and he was, yo Mary, how do you expect me to stop doing heroin if you can't stop taking Adderall and Vyvanse?

And then right when he said that I planned my escape out of New Jersey, I was like, it took me about three months to pack up all my things. I gave away all my clothes, but I lived in like a fully furnished house. I gave up my bedroom, my bedroom furniture, the kitchen furniture, the living room stuff. And I just, I'm going to go up to Vermont and just focus on me.

And that's what I did. And then I was up there alone for about three months, four months. And the only, I got a new phone too. I didn't talk to anybody, and the only person I, I talked to, I talked to my brother twice while I was up there. And during both times, he really walked me through some really dark things that I was dealing with.

You know, like I didn't really think about how much a withdrawal from Biovance or Adderall would be, and there's no studies really done on it. So I was just kind of doing it alone. It was a lot. It was a lot to deal with. I felt like my whole body changed, my whole mindset changed. And I was working full time at the time too, and he was the only person I talked to.

And then given four months, he called me and was Mary like, I need you to come and get me. He's like, I need you to come and get me. I'm not gonna make it this time. Like I don't know what I'm doing. And his friend just passed away, so that's why he called me. And then the next few days, I just drove down and picked him up.

[00:09:31] Angela Kennecke: At this time you had stopped the Adderall and the ADHD medications. You go to get your brother and he's been using both meth and heroin. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. And how bad was it? 

[00:09:45] Maryrose Fealey: I was para, it was terrible. It was, he was. Oh my God, you, I really, well. I was up there. I 100% give so much credit to who I became when I was up there, because I meditated a lot.

I journaled a lot. I only ate vegan. So when he came up there, I was really able to not be emotional towards him. Like I was really able to separate all emotions from him and look at him as just somebody going through addiction and not knowing how to get out because he was mean. He was aggressive, he was angry, he was shaking.

I'm pretty, he brought needles up there with him, like he, he brought other, like, he was very difficult to deal with. Like, I don't know if they showed him the documentary, but there was this one time when we went to the food store and he stole a bunch. He got a bunch of hand sanitizer and when we got back to the, the cabin, he put the hand sanitizer and orange juice to drink it because I wouldn't buy him alcohol.

So that's how he made alcohol because I wouldn't buy him any. Wow. And so he was 

[00:10:47] Angela Kennecke: rough. What made you document it all? How did you 

[00:10:51] Maryrose Fealey: decide to do that? So I understood pretty quickly that I wasn't really gonna be able to help Ian the way he deserves to be held. I really got that. I wasn't, I wouldn't be able to help Ian the way he deserved to be helped and like, I wouldn't have been able to.

Relate to him, you know what I mean? Like he, he was somebody who's been an eleven-year heroine out on the streets, like in Kensington, pa. 15 of his friends died this year. Like he's been in and outta psych ward in and outta rehab for like the last 11 years of his life. He was fully an institutionalized human being.

And like I'm his younger sister, you know what I mean? Like he's gonna look at me as his younger sister. Or he's gonna look at me as, but I wanted him to look at me as an equal. Like, I'm not your younger sister, I'm just somebody here next to you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care what you need to do to, you know, I, I let him drink the hand sanitizer, you know what I mean?

I didn't comment on it. I was like, I'm gonna let you do what you need to do. I'm not gonna engage or pay for any of it, but I will help you along the way. Like, you know, like, I'll be here to make sure that we're okay. So 

[00:11:59] Angela Kennecke: the documentation of it was a result 

[00:12:01] Maryrose Fealey: of that, uh, the doc? Yeah. Yeah. I wanted, so TikTok algorithm is really good with making people connect with one another.

So I figured if I could document his process, I could find him some friends online so he wouldn't feel like so lonely with me. Yeah. I 

[00:12:16] Angela Kennecke: see. And so how did the documentary come about? How did they happen to, to film a, you know, using some of your video and their video, how did they do 

[00:12:24] Maryrose Fealey: that? They reached. So Brute media reached out to me while I was in Vermont and was like, I see that you're documenting your brother's sobriety.

Yeah. They were like, um, can we come out and record you for a week? And during that time, um, Ian was, I'm, I'm really grateful that they came. So during that time, like I just got some chats for us too. But Ian was like kind of up and down with everything. Like he, he started going back into his old habits and walking back into town and not doing like Q&A.

You could tell, you know what I mean? Like you could just tell, and they came a few days after that and I feel like it kind of got him back on track of having a purpose. 

[00:13:04] Angela Kennecke: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really happy. And maybe some, maybe some accountability 

[00:13:07] Maryrose Fealey: too. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I also gave like a new person in the scene too.

It wasn't just me and him and like the male of the woods. It was me, him, and like a friendly person. Where did it, was there 

[00:13:18] Angela Kennecke: ever a time where it got really scary for you? You, you're watching him withdraw. He's trying to stay off of at least heroin and meth. Right. And was there ever a time where it got 

[00:13:28] Maryrose Fealey: really frightening?

Um, yeah, there was a few times it got really frightening. Uh, one time during, during this process, when of and times it got frightening was he came back really like angry and in bad mood one day. And that was. At the end of the day, it's like if he ever came back and wanted to shoot up heroin, there was nothing I could do to stop that.

You know what I mean? Or there would be nothing I could do if he wanted to go into the woods and shoot up heroin, like, there, there's only so much you could do. So it, it was really just those two times. But, um, a few months later, Ian relapsed, so give it a few months. I, we went back up to Vermont for him to do for, and he wanted to come with me to detox.

And while we were up there, he was teetering all night. For like two nights in a row. He was just absolutely seetering. And then Vermont, New, York's Hospital is like forty-five minutes an hour away. And it was, I don't even, it was scary. It was like, I don't know what to do. Like you're seetering, like you're repetitive.

Like I didn't even sleep. And so is Ian in recovery today? Yeah. Ian's, um, he went to jail and now he's in drug court, so he's completely clean. How long 

[00:14:37] Angela Kennecke: has he, how many days of sobriety or months or weeks, or how 

[00:14:41] Maryrose Fealey: long has he been? His clean date is December 14th, 2021. Awesome. 

[00:14:47] Angela Kennecke: That's fantastic. And do you think that he'll be able, from everything you've been through with him, I mean you've been such a support to him, do you think he'll be able to maintain that sobriety?

Will drug court help him with that, do you think? Or, or, I mean, he's been through so many things. It's. It's hard to know. 

[00:15:04] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah. I do think he's going to be able to maintain his sobriety. I think he is beginning to learn more about himself and really love himself and see a lot of, a lot of new opportunities opening up for him.

You were 

[00:15:18] Angela Kennecke: there by his side through so much of this, you, you sort of came back into his life, right? Because you talked about how he'd been in and out of institutions and been using for so long. I mean, there had been a gap when you hadn't been there. 

[00:15:31] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah, there, there has been a few gaps of when I haven't been there, but I was the one who brought most of his clothes to the institutions or like, you know, visit him at them or talk to him on the phone at them, things like that.

Yeah. But those institutions are really disgusting. What has happened to him inside of those facilities. It's absolutely repulsive. It's not my, it's not my story to share, but that's something that his story to share and it's just disgusting the way human being feel treated. 

[00:16:03] Angela Kennecke: So I know that you received some criticism along the way that you were enabling your brother.

[00:16:10] Maryrose Fealey: What, what do you say to that? I think that, um, there team a thin line between enabling and showing unconditional love and understanding. And it, it was a thin line that had to get crossed to bring light into somebody's life. You know what I mean? Like at the end of the day, it's, I'm gonna choose my brother's side over about anybody's opinion online, and I'll delete the comments.

They don't really affect me. 

[00:16:38] Angela Kennecke: I think the way that what, when I've observed from your like TikTok videos and from the documentary, you are so non-judgmental towards your brother. Like you didn't get angry with him. Like, so sometimes I think loved ones were so vested in this person, right? And we just want them to see our way or to do things our way, and that leads to frustration.

And I watched you and I was like, wow, she's so calm and cool. Even I, there was one scene where you want him to come with you. Because you couldn't find him and you found him and he comes up to the car and he won't get in the car, he won't go with you. And I just thought the way you handled that, like you didn't start yelling at 

[00:17:15] Maryrose Fealey: him.

Yeah. I, like I said, I do like a lot of meditating. I do a lot of, like I do, I have done a lot of self-work and like self-knowledge where I was really, especially during those moments, like I understood them. Like it was very important for me not to look at him in any other way. It's just been that. One thing did happen.

So one time we were driving, we were driving around one day in Vermont and I think we might have been coming back from an AA meeting. And on our way back we stopped into town and we were just sitting in the car laughing and I was drinking some apple juice and I started choking on the apple juice. And while I was choking on this apple juice, I passed out my head hit the steering wheel and my foot slammed on the gas.

I was in park, but like I. Passed, passed out and I, I woke up like, and Ian patting my chest being like, you're good, you're good, you're good. And I remember looking over at him and I had no idea who this person was. Like I was looking and like all I saw was just like this per, he had like a blue light almost around him.

Like I just saw this person looking at me, telling me I'm good and me shaking like. Crazy. I thought I was at like a music festival in a parking lot and I thought I did too many like drugs and I thought I passed out in a car and that was a stranger walking by. Like that's where my mind brought me and I did not know who it was, but then I was just like, I felt really safe.

That was a a mile, that was a milestone in. Our relationship there where like, I was like, like, because I didn't look at him and see my brother. I looked at him and saw somebody I didn't know or, and I've never met before. And I really only interpreted the way they made me feel. And I think that happened on like day five of us together.

And after that happened, I was like, okay, that was crazy, but, and there's no. I, it just made it a lot easier to look at him like that instead of like everything we've gone through. Yeah. You, 

[00:19:20] Angela Kennecke: you saw him in a different light in that moment. Yeah. Literally. And potentially. Um, and so I, I often hear that the solution to addiction is connection.

And I think it is a beautiful connection that you have with your brother, actually that probably helped save his lives. 

[00:19:41] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. 

[00:19:43] Angela Kennecke: And do you feel that connection with him in that way? 

[00:19:48] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah, I do. 

[00:19:50] Angela Kennecke: And so what do you hope to get out of putting it out there on TikTok of doing the documentary and these things?

You mentioned, I think before we started talking, you told me that the documentary had like a half a million views in France. 

[00:20:03] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah, yeah. Half a million views in France. It's been very well there. What 

[00:20:07] Angela Kennecke: kind of response have you 

[00:20:08] Maryrose Fealey: received? Um, a lot of people reaching out saying that I'm, I've done amazing.

Like, uh, it's all in French with like trade plan. 

[00:20:20] Angela Kennecke: I has to be French, but I take, I know that's good. 

[00:20:22] Maryrose Fealey: So shit. Yeah. Yeah. And a I has to do with like unconditional love and people, people coming out about their stories with addiction or about America with the opioid crisis and things like that. My, my goal of getting this out there is as somebody who, my whole high school life and my whole college life and my young adult life, my brother was a heroin addict, an IV user, needle in the neck type of heroin addict.

And I never knew anybody else who had the same story as me. You know, it wasn't something that was really talked about. It was like a few of my friends knew, but they like, you know, no one really ever understood that like, no, like I have got this. You walk in and you see this, this is, this is a different site that you have to come in and see every day.

You know, you have to walk in on your brother passing out every day after school, or you have to walk in on your brother being missing for weeks at a time while during your finals or during your midterm, or you have to walk in and getting phone calls in the middle of the night, say like, from your brother who's nowhere.

Like blurring, not talking, right? Like saying, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. And you know, with that going on. For years. That's just not like a one-time thing. That's something that happened my whole freshman year, my whole junior year, my whole sophomore year, my whole senior year, and my brother, like, I love, as you could tell from the documentary, like I, I, I loved my brother, I loved him so much, and to, to do that and just to have that feeling the entire way through of the person you love the most, that you can't help and no one gets it.

I wanted people who have a similar story as me to be able to be like, oh, I can relate to her. This does suck and it's not fair, but it's okay to come out and talk about it. And it's okay to have emotions about it. And that was like, and it's okay to heal from it, which was hard to do, you know, because there, there was, I'm not an angry person, but there was definitely past feelings I had towards my brother.

Like I could have laughed out or I could have been aggressive, or I could have yelled easily. To, to release all of that baggage and to look at it from a biological perspective and to understand the economy and the financial means behind it, and to put some more education in yourself to understand like, oh, they used my brother as a Guinea pig and they're making millions off of its addiction, you know, on this level they're making millions and then again on this level, and then, you know, they're just feeding into that in all different types of ways.

Then being able to understand that and then healing a relationship was, that's why I shared that, because I don't, I don't know. I don't know anybody else. It's embarrassing in a way. Nobody else would talk about it. There's so much 

[00:23:07] Angela Kennecke: stigma, you know, surrounding addiction, and even though we now know it's hereditary, 30 to 60% of the time, we know prescribed opioids are highly addictive.

I mean, we understand it's a disease of the brain, but yet that stigma remains. And I feel so bad for everything that your brother has been through. Actually, if you think about him with a traumatic brain injury at such a young age, and then his life going down this path, and he's twenty-eight years old now, and that's really all he's known since 16.

Yeah. I mean, it's awful, but it's incredible that he has you to stand by him and to be there for him unconditionally. And I think oftentimes siblings are embarrassed. I mean, I know you mentioned some of your own struggles, but they, they're, that's different and you probably hid some of that, I would think.

And so at the same time about it, yeah. At the same time, while you're doing that, you know, you're excelling, you're going to school, you are getting a job, and here's your brother over here doing none of those things. Yeah, it sucks. And I just think that a lot of siblings struggle when they have someone in the family who, who does have substance use disorder and they don't know what to do.

And a lot of times there's not much they can do if their sibling isn't willing to let them. Yeah. So what's next for you and your brother 

[00:24:27] Maryrose Fealey: on this journey? Well, so August twenty-first is Set-and-Awe Awareness Day. So here in Summerville, New Jersey, there is gonna be an event going on downtown where we're gonna put up the pictures of loved ones who, and family members are gonna come, and we're all gonna gather together.

Have some live music, have some Narcair classes and interact with everybody. And there's gonna be a few speeches. So we're working with not an easy fix, which is, um, his best friend and him found it when they were a bit younger and his best friend passed away. So you're getting together that does that.

And 

[00:25:04] Angela Kennecke: yeah. Um, tell me where you came up with the name for your website and your TikTok handle, and why did you call it that? 

[00:25:12] Maryrose Fealey: So I could give full credit to the name from my father who came up with, for the younger me. Uh, we were actually walking down Vermont and I was talking about what I wanted to do with Vermont and we were standing by the stream and he was like, well, what's, what's your goal of being here right now?

And this was when I was in Vermont alone. And I was just like, well, I wanna help the younger, the younger me go through everything she's gone through. Like I. I wanna help the younger generation evolve quicker than I've evolved because being off of medication and being completely sober is such an amazing feeling.

Like it really is understanding your brain and being able to calm down and come from like a, a place of control and understanding and controlling your thoughts too. It takes a lot of time, but once you get it, it's beautiful. And like you could really look at life so differently. I wish. And so that would be, so my whole goal was just helping the younger me while I was there.

And then my brother came along and it was still like the mission was still, what am I doing right now to help the younger generation? Like I would still want to the younger me, I would still want to help my brother overcome the world's biggest demon. Yeah. He was like, well, you should name it for the younger men.

That's a good name. I'm gonna do that. 

[00:26:33] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. You've, you've, you've managed to do that, right? Heal your younger self and heal your brother in many ways. 

[00:26:41] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah. And hopefully, he'll, I've had a lot of people reach out saying that they're helping their siblings right now go through addiction or go through alcoholism and they're mending their relationships and it's giving them all hope.

I've had a lot of DMs about this really. Or people looking at my brother and I and be like, this reminds me of like me and my son, or This reminds me of me and somebody who passed away. And it's like people could really relate to us in different phases of like, and just they relate to us and I think it's healing, especially because so many people passed away this year from heroin and fentanyl.

[00:27:18] Angela Kennecke: Overdoses are at record highs again. Again as we speak. So thank you for sharing your story and your brother's story and for everything that you're doing. 

[00:27:28] Maryrose Fealey: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:27:38] Angela Kennecke: At the time of this podcast release a twenty-seven-year-old New Jersey man has been charged in the killing of Mary Rose. David C. Schreutman was arrested and charged Monday with murder. We will keep you updated on the case on our website. Emilyshope.charity, thank you again for spending your time with us.

Please take care. And until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Muendenberg, king and Anna Phi.