When Jenna Murray thinks of her ancestral Eastern Shoshone homeland, she smells sage and thinks of her family.
“Lots of love and laughter and adventure,” she said. “I think about the mountain range, which is like nothing else. Very different from the city life.”
These days, Murray is a second-year student in the joint MD-PhD program at the University of Utah. But she grew up in Las Vegas and spent summers on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. As she got older though, she didn’t feel like she fit into either place.
“Being a mixed person, I was told I wasn't Native, like I wasn't really Native or I wasn't Native enough,” she said. “And so I just kind of stopped talking about [that part of me] to certain people in Vegas.”
That affected her health, and she slipped into alcohol addiction.
“Something really common that a lot of people who have struggles with addiction or substance use disorders — is feeling like you don't fit in anywhere.”
Murray knew she needed help but for more than a year she felt like she was “in too deep.” She had gotten kicked out of grad school, lost friendships and couldn’t hold down a job.
“I think I finally just got to the point where my life was so bad, I was so miserable, that I really didn’t have anything to lose,” she recalled. “So I was ready to give up all control. Completely change my life and do whatever to get sober.”
A Native American therapist encouraged her to reconnect with her ancestral homeland, and a short film documentary about her healing journey, “dêtetsi vo'i oninjakan Winding Path,” is premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
This is the fourth film in the University of Utah Health’s “New Narratives in Health” series.
Murray hopes that as her story reaches such a wide audience, it can help someone else.
“I always go back to thinking about myself when I was in active addiction, and I just didn't hear stories that were similar to mine,” she remembered. “A lot of the stories I heard weren't young females. It wasn't young Indigenous females, that's for sure.”
Murray wonders if something would have clicked earlier if she had seen a film like this.
“It brings me a lot of joy to think that this film could be that for even just one person.”
It was “really, really important” for Murray that she saw a Native therapist. He encouraged her to go back to “traditions and customs and things that our ancestors have been doing for centuries” — such as prayer, meditation and Native medicines like sweetgrass and cedar.
She went home to the Wind River Indian Reservation, where she had a lot of bad memories from when she would drink and use there. Going back was “reclaiming those memories and creating new ones. Really positive ones, connecting with family.”
Murray said she wouldn’t change her “winding path” because “it has led me to exactly where I need to be right now.”
She’s training to be a physician and conducting substance use research — things she’s not sure she would have done if not for what she went through.
“I really firmly believe that it's going to make me a better physician, no matter what specialty I go into,” Murray said. “People have addiction and substance use disorders, and there's just something to be said for someone who's been through it and just really understands you.”
In the film, Murray says she feels like her grandpa might not have died from a heart attack if there had been better medical care on the reservation. She has hopes to fill in health care gaps for Native Americans because access and “getting people in the doors of the hospital” aren’t options “in certain parts of America.”
“I think it starts with primary care and preventative care, and just really making sure that’s accessible to everyone,” Murray said. “And not just on reservations — there are places throughout Utah that are rural and underserved. There are urban underserved areas here in Salt Lake.”
“dêtetsi vo'i oninjakan Winding Path” premieres on Jan. 20.
