Maddy’s Voice - Undone

Meet Maddy Schofield

Some stories carry a weight that can’t be seen from the outside, and Maddy’s is definitely one of them. What she’s lived through isn’t fiction, though it may read like something unimaginable. Her journey is marked by deep loss, addiction, survival, and the kind of strength that’s earned one day at a time. In sharing her truth, Maddy offers a powerful testament to what it means to choose healing in the face of heartbreak. This is her story. A story of grief, of resilience, and of finally finding the courage to become who she was always meant to be.

Trigger warning: death, suicide.

Maddy’s Story

My story seems not so hard to share, as it’s taken up most of my identity. The past 2 years of my life have seemed like a story book, something fiction you pick up to read and are left thinking wowwww how could that ever happen to someone? It’s not that I want my story to be my identity but it’s who I am presently, and it’s changing me into a completely different person. From the age of 16 until recently alcohol, and partying seemed to absorb most of my life. Everything I did was surrounding alcohol or partying, or toxic relationships with all the wrong people. But one thing I was good at was hiding it. As a society it’s normal to drink or be a party girl so it was easy to fall through the cracks. Which I did. Well. My parents were preoccupied with new relationships, and their own struggles that nobody seemed to notice how bad things really got for me. All while I was having my struggles, my sister was an addict - but not a “normal addict” emphasis on the quotations. She was doing harder things like interveinese. That became everyone’s focus, my sister, and her struggles. Rightfully so. But my partying and alcohol use turned into more, and I truly lost myself. 

Fast forward to 2020 the year my baby brother got diagnosed with osteosarcoma cancer of the bones. The next 2 years looked like multiple hospital stays, and some of the hardest days I’ve lived. I don’t think I can ever put into words what it feels like to watch the person you love most slowly die. There’s nothing I could do, but to offer joy and laughs, and happy memories for my brother. Which I did. We spent many days watching every movie you could think of, cuddling in bed, and listening to our favourite tunes. I had still been struggling with my addictions during this time, and it got worse when I began to get in a relationship with a drug dealer. I used drugs and alcohol to escape what was happening in my life, and to just feel nothing for a minute or a day or days. But in the end? I just felt more. I knew my brother knew what I was up to, and he never judged me, he always accepted me with wide open arms but that hurt me more. I felt like I was betraying him, and that just made me use more. Before he died I had signed up to take yoga training in Costa Rica- I was excited to get out of this relationship, leave the drugs and alcohol behind me and to start healing. A week into starting my journey in Guatemala my mom called with the news, Luke (my brother) was in palliative care and we didn’t have long. I booked the next flight out and came home. We prepared to send him off, and sang many songs to him on his last days earth side. Some day I’d like to share more of the process, but I don’t think I’m ready yet. I fell back into my same cycle after he died, and left again after 2 months back to Costa Rica. The journey there was hard, most days I didn’t want to even be there. How could everyone just be happy and normal enjoying life? I completed my training and travelled through central and South America. Once I was back I hadn’t really processed much, so there came in the drugs again and the grieving but it wasn’t proper grieving because I was suppressing everything with drugs and booze. Fast forward 11 months later, the day after Christmas we got the phone call that my sister overdosed and had no brain activity. She wasn’t going to make it, so my mom and I packed up again and went to the hospital and said bye to my last sibling and her eldest child. It’s really just been my mom and I, families tend to fall apart when death occurs and on my dads side that’s really what happened. I’m the midst of this all the man I was seeing also died, (he was murdered) and my uncle committed suicide. Death started to feel like my new normal. 

I recently got sober in April 2025, and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I have a long long way to go, and much to learn but I feel good. I feel really good. The grief hits me harder but I can actually feel it through, and continue on. Life still feels unfair, and everything reminds me of my siblings, especially my brother that was my twin. My best friend had a baby and while I’m so happy for her it’s hard. I think about the things I won’t get to see my brother do or watch me do, graduate, have a family, have my own nephews and nieces. But I’m happy for everyone else I really am. I love seeing people happy. It just always sits in a little space of my heart where I’m envious, jealous. My story isn’t over, it’s just starting and I'm not afraid to share it. I’m not afraid to be judged, or looked at differently for my story. I’m proud of it, I’m proud of who I am today and the person I finally chose to become the habits I chose to drop. Although the grief seems to follow me everywhere I go after almost 2 years, it’s beginning to feel a little less heavy and a little less painful. 

I try to remind myself that tears are the dead trying to come through to say hello, to say they are with you. I’ve dedicated my sobriety and healing to my siblings, who didn’t get the chance to heal. My story isn’t wrapped up in a neat bow of grief, healing, but growth rarely is. I know now that survival can be an act of love, and healing can be an act of rebellion. Every step I take toward sobriety, toward peace, I take for the ones who can’t walk beside me anymore.  My brother, my sister, Roman, and all the parts of myself I thought I had lost along the way. I’ve learned that pain doesn’t vanish; it transforms. It teaches. And if we let it, it softens and molds us into something stronger. I don’t know what’s ahead, but I do know I’ll meet it as the woman who chose life messy, imperfect, and real. This is just the beginning, and for the first time in a long time, I’m ready to keep going.

-Maddy