What does it mean to save a life? In the most literal sense, the life of Jessica Rogers was saved twice while she was still a teenager when she flat-lined from drug overdoses. But even after her heart started beating again, she was still dead inside and she knew it.
“The physical dependence on heroin and fentanyl and anything I could get my hands on was so strong that I got very sick without it. I got into this vicious cycle of needing it to survive while knowing it was killing me. I was using insane amounts, hoping to die because I had already lost everything and I just didn’t care anymore.”
Her life in Toronto had been so traumatic that by the age of 14, she felt the safest place for her was on the streets. Her first suicide attempt came soon after that, along with a diagnosis of anxiety, major depression and later, posttraumatic stress disorder.
