Local Family Starts Nonprofit After Losing Daughter to Mental Health Issues, Substance Use Disorder

“Siena really had a gift of embracing people and bringing them into her joyful place,” said Sherry Jo Matt, Siena’s mother.

But at age 12, her parents say Siena was assaulted, and that trauma started a cycle that was tough to break.

“She had low self-esteem, low confidence. and she also was diagnosed with bipolar and borderline personality [disorder],” Matt said.

As a teen, Siena began to drink. Then, she moved to pills.

“It’s painful to watch your child spin the drain and you can’t help them,” Matt said.

Dr. Jody Glance is a psychiatrist and clinical chief of addiction medicine services at UPMC Western Behavioral Health. Dr. Glance says it’s common for people to have both substance use disorder and mental health concerns.

“They co-occur at a frequency that could be as high as 80%,” Dr. Glance said.

Matt and her husband Tom Bott say by 21, Siena had gotten clean and moved back home. They were away for the weekend when Siena texted them to say she was feeling anxious. They say Siena took what she thought was a Percocet, not knowing it was laced with fentanyl.

“The next call we got was someone telling us our daughter was dead,” Matt said.

Not long after they buried their daughter, Tom and Sherry Jo founded the nonprofit Stop the Judgment Project to offer other parents information and support.