How a Daughter's Addiction Helped One Mother Heal: A Story of Mother-Daughter Relationships - Ann Batchelder : 125

When Ann's world was turned upside down by her daughter's addiction and mental health struggles, she was thrown into a journey that no guidebook on parenting could prepare her for. Her heart-rending tale of seeking therapy and rehabilitation for her daughter and confronting the heavy cloak of self-blame unfolds in this episode with raw honesty. 

Ann Batchelder served as Editor of FIBERARTS Magazine, was guest curator for the Asheville Art Museum, worked as an account executive at a Manhattan advertising agency, and was Director of Special Events for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ann earned an MSW in psychotherapy. Her book Craving Spring -a mother's quest, a daughter's depression, and the Greek myth that brought them together

Taking a page from the timeless Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, we weave through the intricate dance of holding on and letting go that every parent must learn. Ann's experience opens a window into storytelling's transformative power in healing and self-discovery, challenging the conventional wisdom of 'how-to' parenting in favour of a journey to self-trust. The conversation also serves as a salient reminder that breaking through the silence on mental health can foster a community rich in compassion and support, one story at a time.

As we wrap up the conversation, Anne's insights into navigating the intricacies of mother-daughter communication shine a light on the potential of listening and responding with intention. The wisdom she imparts on guiding children into adulthood, coupled with her journey chronicled in "Craving Spring," offers a touchstone for those grappling with similar tribulations. This episode isn't just a sharing of experiences; it's an invitation to embrace the collective strength of vulnerability and remember that you are not alone in the face of adversity.

Ann is the mother of two adult children and lives with her husband in Asheville, NC. She just published her memoir. 

Let's enjoy her story! 

To connect with Ann - www.annbatchelder.com

Transcript

Daniela SM: 0:04

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast, because everyone has a story, the place to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it. Connect and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome my guest, Ann Batchelder.

Daniela SM: 0:29

Ann is an editor, a director of special events and an author. It was a lovely meeting, anne. Her world was turned upside down by her daughter's addiction and mental health struggles. She was drawn into a journey that no guy book on parenting could prepare her for. After 10 years she wrote her story, her book Craving Spring, mother's Quest, a daughter's depression and the Greek myth that brought them together. Anne shares her experience with us. Inspired by the Greek myth of the meter and first sephone, she talked about the balance between holding on and letting go that every parent faces. Even though I haven't been in her exact situation, hearing her story as a mother of adult children helped me relate and learn a lot. This conversation reminded me that opening up about mental health can build a community full of compassion and support, one story at a time. So let's enjoy her story. Welcome, anne, to the show. Thank you, I am happy that you're here through another guest that we had Kate Evans, I am excited that you are bringing a very interesting story.

Ann Batchelder: 1:49

I'm very happy to be here, thank you.

Daniela SM: 1:52

Ann, why do you want to share your story?

Ann Batchelder: 1:54

I feel that stories heal. I know when I was struggling, I relied on stories to help me feel less alone, inspired and have tools to move forward. So I needed help and guidance rather than turning to self-help books. I found that what I needed through stories about people who had courage and wisdom. That's one of the reasons I wrote my memoirs to help other people feel less alone.

Daniela SM: 2:19

Where do you find those stories, memoirs, a lot of them. Okay, you're a natural reader.

Ann Batchelder: 2:24

Yeah, but stories about people who have had challenges, who have overcome challenges.

Daniela SM: 2:29

So it was mostly reading, but it's not like you seek groups of people.

Ann Batchelder: 2:34

No, no, it was through reading, okay.

Daniela SM: 2:37

And so when does this story start for you?

Ann Batchelder: 2:39

So my story started around 2010. Everything was fine in my family. I thought my husband and I had good jobs, our two children were teenagers, they were doing well in school and their activities. Everything was going well. And then one day my teenage daughter who was about 16, came home, walked into the kitchen and burst into tears and I said what is wrong? What has happened? And she said I wanted to drive my car into a tree. I have all these suicidal thoughts and I'm so scared and I don't know what to do. And I was totally blindsided. I had no idea she was this depressed. I thought maybe she was having some adjustments in high school, working things out to fit in, figure out where she belonged, but I didn't know. She was that depressed. And then she admitted she also had been struggling with an eating disorder for many, many months on a daily basis, which I also didn't know. So my whole world just kind of came to a stop. I realized that she needed help and I tried to get her help, got her therapy and we worked with her to help her get in control of her eating disorder, that kind of thing. And then she seemed happier. Things were going well, she was going off to college and I thought, oh good, this is great, everything's fine. Now She'll go to college and it'll be fine.

Ann Batchelder: 4:00

She went and there was a lot of social anxiety in college and she wanted to fit in and she started hanging out with kids who were doing a lot of drugs to feel more comfortable. She started doing drugs too, and one thing led to another and she got addicted to heroin. I didn't realize this until she said she wanted to transfer home, go to the university home, and I couldn't understand what the problem was. But she came home, she went through a thrall up in her bedroom by herself. I didn't know any of this. She told me she had the flu for three days. One day she invited me to come to a therapy session with her and I thought, oh great, we'll talk through things and we'll figure things out and everything will be better. And that's when she told me that she had been addicted. But she also was in denial. She said but I don't do that anymore, I'm fine, I just do weed and some alcohol and it's okay. I knew this wasn't okay. I knew there was a lot more to recovery than that, but I really didn't know that much about addiction or recovery. So my husband and I were trying to figure out how to help her, what to do, and then I got a call from jail. She had been arrested for shoplifting, spent the night in jail. That's when we had some leverage to say look, you really have a problem, you need some help. And she agreed to go to rehab.

Ann Batchelder: 5:15

The point was really not about her, it was about me. The issue for me was that I was trying to understand what exactly had happened to our family, what was going on with her, what was the root cause of this? And it kept coming back to blaming myself. I kept thinking what did I do wrong? Is a mother? Where did I go wrong? How could I not see this? And I spent so much energy regretting what had happened and trying to figure out how to help, trying to understand that I kind of lost sight of what was really going on with her. I realized later it was really about me trying to feel less pain about what had happened.

Daniela SM: 5:50

It's amazing that she had the trust to come and talk to you when she was 16. And then that she kept informing you, at least right Somehow, so you did have a good relationship with your daughter. The other part is that you said it was about you, but isn't that very normal?

Ann Batchelder: 6:09

It's very normal. It's very normal, of course it is, and that's what I was saying. I went to my therapist and said I'm feeling all this stuff and she said that's just. You're just like Demeter. And I said who? And she said you know the Greek myth about Demeter and Persephone? And I said no, I don't remember that story. Tell me about it.

Ann Batchelder: 6:25

And she said well, demeter was a Greek goddess whose daughter, persephone, was captured and taken to hell, to the underworld, by Hades. And Demeter went crazy. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat, she couldn't do her job, she couldn't be. She was the goddess of the harvest. She couldn't do anything. She just refused to do anything until she could find her daughter and rescue her child. And I said I totally get it, I totally relate to this woman. I felt vindicated in my anxiety and I said so. Then what happened? And my therapist said well, you'll have to read the rest of the story. Oh, okay, so, but I didn't read it for a long time and I just kept thinking that I was justified in how I was feeling, when I was doing. Then later I read the story and this is where I really felt this story healed me. It really helped me because Demeter was anxious and did insist on helping her child and figuring out what was going on, but she also had to learn how to compromise and at one point she had to learn how to let go and finally she had to learn how to return to herself.

Ann Batchelder: 7:24

And so when I realized the arc of that story was following the arc of my story, that's when I decided to write the memoir, and in the memoir I weave both of the stories together, because I really felt like one of the things I tried to do with writing was to unravel where this original originated for me, this need to feel like the perfect mom or the need to feel like somehow I was at fault for everything. And I realized that if I was at fault, I was also powerful enough to fix everything. And I had to let go of that idea and just accept the fact that this was the reality right now, that I was focusing too much on the past and the future and not on the present. And the more I could focus on the present and be there with my child and understand what her needs were, have compassion for what she was going through and where she was in her recovery, I was less likely to want to push my needs onto her about getting better or about doing recovery the way I thought she should be doing it, that type of thing. So in many ways, what I learned from all that was one how to stay in the present moment, but also how to be a good role model for my child. So if I could stay in touch and in charge of my emotions and not just have a knee-jerk reaction to my fear, then I could model for her how she could do that. And those are the things I started to practice. Those are the things I started to understand, and a lot of it came through writing this book.

Ann Batchelder: 8:48

It took me 10 years to write this book, so it wasn't like an overnight thing. I mean, I did a lot of journaling. I journaled to help myself think as how I think I write. So I journaled and then, once the journaling started to getting a little more descriptive that I thought, oh, maybe this could be a chapter and I started taking writing classes and Then, during the pandemic, I decided to write. The book worked on understanding what my role was in this whole situation. So the book is really about me, not about her so much. I didn't want just another sensational story about addiction I wanted to show. I wanted a story for mothers who felt alone in this kind of situation to understand they weren't alone but there were also skills they could learn about staying in the present moment to help them get through the anxiety and through the fear and through the regret and be of service and help seeing their child for who they were and where they were in their lives.

Daniela SM: 9:41

I feel like what you learn is something that, as a parent, we learn a lot of things, although nobody teaches us anything Right right, but example. But this is not just by the heavy story that happened to your daughter, but also any situation that we go across with our kids. That is true. We always put our fears and our feelings because obviously we're humans and that's what I think we naturally do. Apart from the memoirs, did you also write the how-to so anybody can learn?

Ann Batchelder: 10:12

I shy away from how-to, because I think everybody has their own method and I think a lot of times with how-to books, some of them are very helpful, of course, but some of them can make mothers especially feel worse, because when this was going on, it was 2014. There wasn't a lot of understanding about addiction and recovery at the time, or there wasn't a lot written about it. You'd have these books that were like five ways to have successful children, and it was that wasn't working for me. I was in the middle of a crisis.

Ann Batchelder: 10:44

I think more importantly is to trust yourself, and that's what I try to get across in this book is how do you trust yourself? How do you come home to yourself? As opposed to if you do these three or four things, everything will work out. You're not going to be perfect. You're going to make mistakes. The important thing is to be authentic and to understand that you have compassion for yourself and understand that, as long as you are open and honest with your child and role model for them, that you can make mistakes and apologize and to start over and to try to listen more deeply to what they're saying. These are the kind of skills I think that are important. These are the things that the story talks about. It's not a how to. There's no do this and everything will be fine. Yeah, it's about how I learned how to be a role model.

Daniela SM: 11:32

You're right. How to book is impossible because people are different, everybody is different. It is important to not put our fears, not to think about how I feel. Can you give an example of something small that you used to do this and then immediately you change?

Ann Batchelder: 11:50

like this is the better way, the way the fear took over for me, I think, was I would get almost paralyzed. I would go to bed at night and I would start imagining all the worst things that could happen. So I would get almost a panic attack. I'd start visualizing things. I would start worrying about things.

Ann Batchelder: 12:09

If my daughter was not home on time, I would think of all the worst things that could happen, rather than trusting that she was going to be okay. I always thought about the worst. So, rather than looking at the things that were going right, I was constantly looking at all the things that had gone wrong, might go wrong, probably could go wrong, and sometimes they did go wrong. But for me to spend that amount of anxiety wasn't being helpful to her. It wasn't showing her that I could trust the progress she was making. It was just showing her that I wasn't trusting that she hadn't progressed enough for me to feel comfortable. So it was about me feeling comfortable rather than encouraging her to trust and to build her self-confidence in doing things that were more positive.

Daniela SM: 12:53

That was happening in your head, but how were you reflecting that in your daughter when you were actually not sleeping at night?

Ann Batchelder: 13:01

Maybe the next day I would try to question her about what was going on or what had happened or where was she or what was. In other words, even if she came home on time, I think the next day I would question a lot about. I was just anxious and worried about what had happened that night or what was going on or where was she. If I was that anxious, I shouldn't have let her go out. It was sort of a double-edged sword in some way. Yes, you can go out and I'm going to grill you on everything you've done when you come home. So I think it was. There was some level of trust that I didn't have and there was a reason not to trust because she was in trouble. But once she started doing better and started her recovery and started making progress, I stayed in that place of fear. I didn't allow the progress she was making to help her feel better about herself.

Daniela SM: 13:55

Instead, I focused on that that we weren't quite there, yet, and then, with your husband, for example, were you behaving differently?

Ann Batchelder: 14:04

Well, when this happens often, and this is pretty typical. I was like Demeter nothing mattered but helping my child. She was on the top of my priority list. I was somewhere on the bottom. He was way on the bottom. The problem in the marriage is that we weren't paying much attention to each other and we weren't giving each other the support we could have, because I think I was so anxious and he dealt with his anxiety in a different way, so he would withdraw and I would push in. We didn't understand each other's methods, so we didn't respect the fact that both of us were concerned. We were just handling it in different ways. So we needed to do a lot of communication about that, which didn't always happen at first, but later did. Yeah, I think there was a lot of strain on the marriage because of that.

Daniela SM: 14:52

Yes, of course I can imagine we both felt horrible.

Ann Batchelder: 14:56

It was easy to sort of blame each other for little things that went wrong, that type of thing. You didn't do this right, you didn't do that right, you should have done this, blah, blah, blah. Once I started focusing on compassion for myself and for my husband and for my daughter, things got a lot better. I realized everybody's trying here. There's no room for blame and shame. That's not helpful. What's helpful is to stay present in the present moment and respond to what's needed at that moment and not get caught up in who did what, right or wrong.

Daniela SM: 15:32

No, but staying in the present moment, yes, not blaming. That certainly something unhelpful. But the part of trying to be proactive and still reactive, I think that that will still make you think okay, what else can we do? What else can we do Right?

Ann Batchelder: 15:48

Right, but the problem, especially with addiction and that kind of thing, you can't get in front of it, you can't predict it, you cannot control it.

Ann Batchelder: 15:58

And that's what I was trying to do with all that thinking and that preemptive stuff. I mean, I was trying to control an uncontrollable situation and, instead of recognizing that this is really scary and I need to be honest with my child about my concerns, that I also need to trust that she is doing what she needs to do Restay in communication Didn't always work. There was relapses, there were times when I slipped and she slipped, but the most important thing, I think, was again to role model for her my compassion and love and trust and also be a mirror for her that I could see really positive things in her. Even if she couldn't see them in herself, even if her behavior wasn't what I wanted, I could see the beautiful person who is still in there and that's what I trusted. Now, I didn't trust her behavior necessarily. I trusted who she was at her core and that that person was going to triumph. Yes, wow, and give her that hope and show her how far she had come.

Daniela SM: 17:04

And you said these two cute ten years? Yeah, yes, of course it takes a long time.

Ann Batchelder: 17:09

It takes a long time.

Daniela SM: 17:09

It doesn't happen overnight, yeah, it takes a long time, not just because you had different habits, it's just because it's a big lesson.

Ann Batchelder: 17:17

Yeah, and she had to grow up. I had to grow up. We had a lot of things to learn. One of the things I learned was that we're all on the spectrum of addiction. We all have attachments to outcomes. Once I realized that it wasn't us and them, it's not her and me. We're in this together. She's on one extreme end of it, but we all have that experience on some level. I was able to be there with her as opposed to try to control the situation for her Very wise to say that you have to be there instead of controlling.

Ann Batchelder: 17:49

Yeah, and it's hard, especially when you see, well, I'm here with you, but I really don't agree with the behavior Right you have to set limits, you have to have expectations, you have to have all those things, but you also have to see that that person is not an extension of you and that she may do things differently. She may have different ideas about what she wanted. For example, once I realized she was struggling with addiction and depression and an eating disorder. All the things that I thought were important as a mom, like getting good grades and getting beyond a sports team and being successful None of that mattered anymore. What mattered was that my daughter survived Right.

Ann Batchelder: 18:28

So it put everything in perspective very quickly, made me look at why I was trying to be the perfect mom, why I expected her to be the perfect daughter, why we were trying to be the perfect family instead of really accepting okay, we have an issue here and we're going to deal with this together and we're going to figure it out together, and it may not end up being exactly what we wanted initially, but we're going to learn that we're going to grow from this as a family, and that was more important than how it looked on the outside. Yeah, there's a lot of shame and blame with people who are going through mental health issues, and this is one another reason I wanted to write the book was to reduce the stigma around mental health and to encourage the people who are going through this that there is hope and there is opportunity for growth even when things seem dark.

Daniela SM: 19:19

Yes, there's, I think there's a lot of still lack of knowledge with people and also it's difficult to understand it because it's not very tangible.

Ann Batchelder: 19:30

Right and there's fear. I mean, I remember, before all this happened, my husband and I went to a wedding. We were standing in line and there was a couple behind us and I turned around and we were chit-chatting how do you know the bride and groom, all these kind of things? And at one point I said, well, where are your children now? And the man said well, my daughter and her boyfriend are living in our basement. They're recovering heroin addicts. And I was like, oh, I didn't know how to respond. I just turned around and made change of subject and that night and I said to my husband can you imagine what that must be like, how horrible it would be? And this man just went ahead and told us this, like it was nothing, or that he was proud of her or whatever. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a child who was addicted to heroin.

Ann Batchelder: 20:19

Well, three years later we go to another wedding. It's the same family, different daughter. We see the same couple there and I go up to this man and I said to him I had no idea what you were going through and I'm so sorry. I said my daughter is now in recovery. And he didn't say a word. He just gave me a big hug and I thought that's what I want this book to do. This is my hug. This is my attempt to say there should not be stigma and shame and blame when it comes to mental health issues. This is something that is really difficult to struggle with, and the surgeon general even came out and said with the crisis the mental health crisis that's going on with young people the biggest obstacle is stigma, because with stigma, people aren't getting the help. They're afraid to get the help that they need. So the more we can reduce that, the better all of us are going to be, better our culture is going to be.

Daniela SM: 21:12

And Anne. What would you have responded to that person? Would you know that and imagine that this hasn't happened to you, but you have the knowledge? What would you respond to the couple to the first wedding?

Ann Batchelder: 21:25

I might say something like wow, that must be really difficult. I'm so sorry that she has to struggle through that and I'm so happy that she's getting help.

Daniela SM: 21:34

People sometimes tell things to people and that you will think, well, that's very personal and I don't know what to do with that.

Ann Batchelder: 21:43

Right, or you're so afraid that it's not like COVID, you're not going to catch it, you don't have to run away from it.

Ann Batchelder: 21:52

And when you see another mother in the school line that you know their family is struggling with some kind of mental health issue, you can smile, you can offer them a hello, you can say something to. You don't have to ignore them. And I think there's just a lot of fear, the fear that, oh, I don't want to get close to that family because you know I don't want my kid going through that. So I think more compassion is the key. You don't have to say the right thing, you don't have to know exactly what to say, you just have to feel it in your heart. You just have to feel that compassion that everybody goes through struggles at some point in their lives, and you may too at some point. And it may not be addiction, it may be the loss of a husband or there are lots of things that can happen in someone's life and you don't know what it feels like until you go through it. But you can have compassion.

Daniela SM: 22:43

Yes. Still, I feel like it's always a lack of knowledge because, growing up with my own family knowing different things, that happens is always, you know, when you present something like you know, my husband suffers from depression. If I said these to my family, they don't understand it, even to his own mom. Right, why, what will he be sad? She says yeah, like okay.

Ann Batchelder: 23:09

Well, that was, yeah, exactly, and that was my mother too. My mother. She grew up in the depression and World War II and it was, and by the time she had her family in the 50s, the attitude was you don't put your dirty laundry out to air, you keep everything under control, and it's the mother's responsibility for the children to be happy. And that's why I felt so much blame and shame, because I thought, oh my gosh, what have I done wrong here? Because something's happened and it must be my fault, and that perfectionism is dangerous. That's where I get caught in making that about my needs to feel better as opposed to what is her need to recover.

Daniela SM: 23:50

Yeah, it is true. So I don't know where I learned that it was my responsibility to, because I don't remember my mom saying it. But I know, for example, that something silly like if my husband is now looking good, they're going to say that's a reflection of me. I don't know where I learned that. That's just funny If people said, oh, you look so young. If I said, oh, it's because my husband treats me well, I'm like no.

Ann Batchelder: 24:19

Yeah, exactly, I think it's our families, it's our culture, it's the idea that women and mothers are supposed to be perfect and they're supposed to be. It's all on their shoulders to take care of the family.

Daniela SM: 24:33

Well, it is a big job to be a mother.

Ann Batchelder: 24:35

Yeah, it's a big job, but it's also this notion of having to be perfect. Put so much stress on women, I think that they lose sight of themselves. They've worked so hard to be the perfect mother, they sacrifice so much of themselves to make sure that everybody's fine and looks fine and is fine in the world and is happy. Well, it's impossible to be happy all the time. It's impossible for everything to work out all the time. But it's not a mother's fault. There are things you can learn. There are skills you can learn to be more effective as a mother.

Daniela SM: 25:12

But it's not your fault that when a child struggles with mental health issues, it's not your fault and it's interesting because I wouldn't blame my mom and, I think, our kids either, but I find it interesting it's the society who will put that on us. Yeah, you don't know what happened to everybody's head. You really don't know what happened to your daughter. What happened, that is not necessarily you.

Ann Batchelder: 25:33

Something happened to her well, there's a family history of mental illness and you know, there's. She had a sort of the card stacked against her a little bit. It's that notion. I mean, even I felt like we're a good family. How can this happen? I mean we've done everything right. I mean how? You know there's such nice people, you know it's like nothing to do would be nice or good or Successful or any of those things and what about your friends?

Daniela SM: 25:59

I mean, do you have to get new ones?

Ann Batchelder: 26:01

No, no, my friends are very supportive, but also not. A lot of them had gone through this and I don't think they knew exactly how to respond or what to say. So it was helpful for me. I did go to Al-Anon for a while and that was helpful to be with other parents who had gone through something similar. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be Al-Anon. It is good to be with people who have gone through the same thing.

Ann Batchelder: 26:23

I know, for example, a friend of mine's husband just died. I can be compassionate, but I don't know that feeling and I think it's helpful for her to sometimes talk with other people who've had this similar experience, because you don't have to Explain what that feels like and it's hard to explain what that feels like. So my friends were supportive, but I it didn't help me. I still felt alone because I was isolating myself. I was convinced that nobody can understand how horrible I felt or how afraid I felt. I just was so anxious all the time and I was afraid people would get bored with hearing me talk about it all the time. So I isolated, you know, I kept myself apart because I felt a burden in some ways.

Daniela SM: 27:07

And you went to groups for help.

Ann Batchelder: 27:09

I did go to therapy, not all the time. I was in a mindfulness study group that I did for many years, and I also went to Al-Anon. I was processing. That way, I was finding the support I needed, but it wasn't always from friends. Okay sometimes you have to go outside of your friend group to find that kind of help.

Ann Batchelder: 27:26

Yes, and you have other kids I have an older son was four years older than my daughter and he was. He was already in college when all this started happening. Okay, so he was away most of the time. He was busy every summer he was busy in college. He was not home.

Daniela SM: 27:42

Did. He had a different reaction because, well, he was his sister but he was apart, but because he's a different generation not a different generation, but he was an athlete and so he went to bed early.

Ann Batchelder: 27:56

He never drank alcohol. He'd. You know he was much more of the Boy Scout kind of straight-laced person. He didn't understand what was going on. He didn't have the education about what was going on with his sister and he. First he was judgmental about it. What's wrong with her? Why does she get it together? Why is she doing this? It wasn't until later that we went to some family sessions at rehab place and we listened to podcasts and we educated ourselves as a family about what addiction and recovery was like. That it wasn't a straight line that we there was gonna be ups and downs, that early parts of recovery were very difficult and needed a whole lot of support. These are all things we had to learn, all things we had to educate ourselves.

Daniela SM: 28:37

So it wasn't a straight line of learning or growing. It was just ups and downs, major downs mostly.

Ann Batchelder: 28:44

Yeah, it was really again. That was where it was helpful for me to try to stay present in the moment as opposed to worried about when's the next Slip gonna happen, when is the next relapse going to happen, and to really focus on the progress that was being made as opposed to what wasn't happening. Trying to understand what was what was needed in that moment was helpful, because otherwise I would have just gotten so depressed and discouraged. Realizing that this is a normal progression of going up and down, that's normal. We do it ourselves. I mean, we say, oh, I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna be fit and I'm gonna go every day, and then you don't go for a while and then you feel bad about yourself and then you go back and you know it's sort of like.

Ann Batchelder: 29:23

I mean, it's human nature. We can't be perfect and that's the point. We're not perfect. We're going to slide backwards once in a while and then go forward. But to go forward you have to have a lot of support, you have to have a lot of encouragement and you have to have a role model and you have to have someone who believes in you. And it's hard to do that when you're stuck in fear, or when you're stuck in thinking that somehow this is all a reflection of you as a bad mom.

Daniela SM: 29:46

Yes.

Ann Batchelder: 29:47

You got to let go of that. I I didn't understand what letting go. People kept saying, oh, you have to let go, and I kept thinking, oh, letting go of my child is just abandoning them. I can't possibly do that. But what I had to let go of was my fear. It wasn't letting go of my child. I could still be there for her, I could still step back and let her take responsibilities, but I had to let go of my fear. That was more important.

Daniela SM: 30:13

That's very insightful. Thank you, you explained that very well. It is true, letting go your fears, yeah, which is hard. Hard because I think that perhaps we don't know that is fear. We just think, no, that's the way we have to do things and, right, you know, we forget about these feelings that are around that.

Ann Batchelder: 30:33

Right, exactly, a lot of mothers. I think it stuck with the stage of motherhood, which was when the kids were like in grade school or even middle school, and then they don't transition to the next step of having a young adult and allowing them to be, have their own agency, and so I think that that's where mothers can say, oh, let me, let me take a look, let me step back and take a look at this. Am I still treating this child as if they're in grade school and telling them to wear their coat, even when they're 40 years old or Whatever they are, you know, or am I allowing them to be there, make their own decisions about what's important to them? You have to evolve as your child evolves. As a mother, you have to evolve.

Daniela SM: 31:16

Yes, and that's interesting that you say that, because I have Concerns about that. I understand and I'm super happy that they are 18 and I don't have to take care of them, but I find that there is some you know, I have the Google Pictures there and that they show pictures of when they were little, and I and I feel, oh, that time is gone and they're not. And it's not that I would like to have kids now, but I feel like you for 20 years we were nourishing them and then it's gone. Sure, now they don't need us in that way, they need us in a different way, but that space that we were doing and taking care of them is is now Not replaced with something else. Right, there's a boy there that I feel that some people can handle better than others, but I don't think that we talk enough to help people towards that. They said, oh, empty nesters, and that's it. I think that there is has to be some kind of more conversation to help people go through that. I don't know.

Ann Batchelder: 32:16

Yeah, there's much more, and I think the the key really for me was to Was to think about how do I want to be a role model and guide my children, as opposed to more Raising them as I did when they were in grade school or middle school. So I think the relationship changes and in fact, that the the relationship with the story of Demeter and Persephone. It turns out that she couldn't come home. Her daughter couldn't come home all the time. She had to go back Three months a year to the underworld and every time she went back, her mother, demeter, would be sad and miss her. But she had to accept that that was the reality, that she was growing up and she was having her own life and that so eventually they became two individual women who respected each other as equals, as opposed to just a one-up, one-down. So it was still mother daughter, but they they were. They were queens of their own universe, let's say, having that different kind of relationship.

Ann Batchelder: 33:19

It's something that we don't talk enough about, we don't explore enough about how do you get to that point, and the way that I found what's the best way for me to get to that point was to try to think about okay. How do I want to be a role model in this situation? How do I want to show deep listening? How do I want to show respect? How do I want to show trust? How do I want to show that I can express my concerns without getting emotionally all caught up in my fear? Right, I can still say I'm concerned about this, but it's not about Controlling what their behavior is. It's more expressing my concern.

Daniela SM: 33:56

So how? How does the conversation goes? One person and the other person? Can you give me an example?

Ann Batchelder: 34:03

Let's say, she doesn't come home on time.

Ann Batchelder: 34:05

I mean, this is high school, not college, but I mean have a rule that you need to be home by 12, and it really concerns me when you're not home by then, because I start Worrying about what might happen and everything else and it's not respectful to me To not know where you are, because we have this agreement as two adults that this is what's going to happen. So if you're going to be late, I expect a phone call. You know that kind of thing, as opposed to just you have to be home and you're gonna get grounded and you know all those Kind of things. An adult to an adult.

Ann Batchelder: 34:36

It'd be like if you had a roommate and as an adult and the roommate wasn't keeping the refrigerator a mess and it was really bothering you you could sit down adult to adult and say I know you don't do things the way I do, but can we come to a compromise about this? And because it really bothers me and I need to Express that I don't like living this way. So I mean I think if you treat your children when they get to be adults, if you treat them as adults, they're much more likely to respect what you have to say, rather than if you still treating them like they're in grade school, but also role modeling. I mean, you're still the mother, you can still. Yes, we show that. This is how I express my feelings, this is how I deeply listen, this is how I control my fear, this is how I stay in the present moment. Those are the things that you're showing by your behavior.

Daniela SM: 35:25

Yes, because I feel that when you don't have the role model behavior, your kids will see, as they are the adults and you are now like the child, that they need to Kind of coach to move out of whatever feelings you're having. Right, and I feel that that's just not Right helpful because I confuse them, because now you're not a role model anymore, you're just an old child.

Ann Batchelder: 35:49

Yes, another adolescent, exactly exactly. So what so? Part of it is accepting yourself as becoming a wise woman, becoming a role model, becoming an adult, more of A transitioning as a mother to the next stage of motherhood. You don't stay stuck and having young kids, you transition and then they become Adults and then they have their own children. You still aren't telling them what to do. Hopefully, maybe, maybe you do, maybe some mothers do what is do, but you have respect for them to have their own lives.

Daniela SM: 36:25

Yes, for example, if your son gets married and have children Yep, how do you know your boundaries? Or like well, I think they need help.

Ann Batchelder: 36:35

I could say I can offer these, but don't come across like oh, mom you know, my first response was I won't know until I get there, how, how I won't respond because I'm trying to stay in the present moment. Okay, and we're not. We're not there yet, so I don't know exactly how I would respond because I haven't had that experience yet. But I would hope that again, I would express my thoughts without telling him what to do. And I think there's a big difference between saying hey, I, you guys, are doing a great job as parents and I'm just I'm wondering what you think about this, because I have some concerns as Opposed to you guys aren't doing this right, you're failing as parents. You know, which is kind of the message I got from my mother is You're not doing it right if your kid is not succeeding, and so what's wrong with you? And that's so much pressure to put on someone. You know it's nice, it's not, it's not helpful.

Daniela SM: 37:28

Did you manage to with your mom to educate her or to Guide her to a better communication skills with you? No, no.

Ann Batchelder: 37:38

No, but but. But I learned to have more compassion for her really okay, for what she had gone through in her life, for her Mother and how her mother had parented her. And I realized that it wasn't my job to change her Anymore. It was my job to change my child but I could have compassion for her and there were times when I could speak up and say, hey, that hurt what you just said, or I don't agree, or those kinds of things. But I I wasn't about to change her. I could speak up for myself and I could set my own limits, and that was healthy. But I wasn't trying to change her, to educate her, to make her different. That wasn't going to happen, so I let go of it.

Daniela SM: 38:23

You're right. If I think about my mom, I will be intellectually, I can Process and understand it perfectly. You, you are the compassion, and perhaps that's what is missing. What is the difference between the compassion and the intellectually knowledge of how she grew up, how her parents were?

Ann Batchelder: 38:41

The generation knowledge, compassion versus intellectual well, I think you have to balance. Compassion doesn't mean that they get away with doing anything right. I mean you have to set limits, you have to stand up for yourself. You have to say I'm sorry, I don't want to talk, hear that, or I, we can't talk about it that way, or Maybe I'll only see you, you know, a certain amount of time, or whatever, because it's too toxic.

Ann Batchelder: 39:10

I mean, I had a. I had a good relationship with my mother. I'm, I wasn't that bad, but there were things that I couldn't talk with her about because I knew she wouldn't understand. So I had to find other places to get that support. So, in terms of compassion, I think it's not about Making excuses for them, but it is about understanding that this is the situation that they grew up in and their parents and their situation and what was happening in the world and culturally and everything else. So I think that there's some allowance for that, while you are also taking care of yourself and standing up for yourself too. So it's about looking at what your intention is. Is my intention to educate my mother, or is my intention to show her my heart appreciation for the good things she did?

Daniela SM: 39:58

You have learned a lot. What were you doing before? What kind of job you had?

Ann Batchelder: 40:02

I had many different jobs. I was an editor, I was a curator, I worked in business. I have a master's in social work. I did many, many different things because that's my personality.

Daniela SM: 40:17

Oh wonderful, and so you wrote this book. What else are you planning to do Right now?

Ann Batchelder: 40:21

I just finished the book, so I'm planning to get it out in the world and hope that other people who need it or could find meaning from it will find it. So the next year probably is doing the promotion with the book for the most part, and after that I don't know I'll decide when I get to that moment. I don't have any plans right now. What is the name of the book? It's called Craving Spring, a mother's quest, a daughter's depression and the Greek myth that brought them together.

Daniela SM: 40:48

Wow.

Ann Batchelder: 40:49

And it's on Amazon if anyone wants to Good.

Daniela SM: 40:52

And so you said it took you 10 years. What else was the challenge? Writing the book. Well, I hadn't written a book before.

Ann Batchelder: 40:57

So trying to put it together, I had a lot of writing, I had a lot of pieces of writing that I'd done in writing classes and journaling and that kind of stuff, but putting the whole structure together was difficult. When I realized that the myth of Demeter and Persephone was following the same storyline as my storyline, then I had structure for this for my book, and that's when I wove the two stories together and that's when, all of a sudden, the book started writing itself.

Daniela SM: 41:23

Oh, wow.

Ann Batchelder: 41:23

All came together, it was like yeah, it was great, it was really good.

Daniela SM: 41:27

I feel that with this book also, and with your knowledge that it's not just about people with severe situations, but in general, you could be guiding a lot of mothers.

Ann Batchelder: 41:38

Yeah, it's about mother-daughter relationships. It's some of it's about my relationship with my mother. In the book I kind of unravel where a lot of my assumptions came from, a lot of my attitudes and a lot of the struggles that I had, and then it's also about me learning to transition from raising a child to guiding a young adult and how that worked. At first I thought I was writing for just mothers who had kids with addiction. So many people since then have said no, no, this is really a story about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a mother, what mother-daughter relationships, all of that. So it's about grieving. It's about overcoming obstacles, it's about looking at yourself. It's a lot of self-discovery.

Daniela SM: 42:16

Yes, and that's the beautiful part, because you think that you were going to be specific in some one point, but it's actually helped so many people Just conversing with you. I haven't gone through what you did. However, I'm learning so much for my own life. I think it's super important, so I'm really grateful that you share your story.

Ann Batchelder: 42:36

Oh, thank you. Yeah, a lot of millennial mothers have come up to me and said oh, I want to read your book because I have a daughter in grade school and I want to know what to expect when I get to the next stage, and hopefully they won't go through so much trauma. But it's about a mother's transition.

Daniela SM: 42:51

Yes, we're so blessed now that we have more ways of learning things through podcasts and books and YouTube and all these social media, but something that I think that we don't concentrate enough is communication. I still think that that should be one of the biggest subjects from kindergarten on how to communicate. It's not just about writing English or writing any language. It's about how to communicate with other human beings.

Ann Batchelder: 43:17

Right, and I think the key to that is listening. I used to think I was the great communicator in our family and my husband and I went to a therapist one time together and we had an exercise where one person spoke and the other person listened, and then the person who was listening had to repeat what the person who was speaking had said. I thought, oh, I totally got this. So my husband said something and I looked at him and I had no idea what he said because I was already thinking about we were arguing about something, so I would already have my rebuttal in my head. I was already thinking about how I was going to respond and when it came time for me to repeat what he had said, I went you have to tell me again, because I wasn't listening and I realized how important it is to do what I call deep listening, when you're really present with someone and you're really focused on what they're trying to say. That's hard, it's a skill.

Daniela SM: 44:08

It is hard. You have to learn dancing and move your arms and your legs at the same time because you want to prepare. Okay, I'm listening, and then this is what I'm going to say, but it doesn't seem that there is room for both to keep listening, well, and then to get a new answer. I know the trick. Now you have to listen and then I'm like, oh my God, but I want to say this, even if I don't, if I listen, it's going to go away.

Daniela SM: 44:34

And then sometimes it happens and I'm listening, and then I the thought came and I pushed it away that now it's my turn to answer. I'm like, oh, I don't know what to say anymore I forgot. Yes, it's not easy.

Ann Batchelder: 44:47

Yes, Sometimes I think it's okay to just take a deep breath when you listen, and take a deep breath before you respond, and just you don't have to speak right away, you can just say huh, let me think about that. But let me get back to you, or when you're talking with your child. It's like I need to process that. Let me think about it and get back to you. I think that's perfectly fine. You don't have to have right answers all the time.

Daniela SM: 45:09

I grew up in a Latin culture. There was no time to think, booze blur whatever first came out, and so that's kind of my teachings. And so my husband is the opposite.

Ann Batchelder: 45:21

He actually needs to think and process, and so it's just quite interesting to see that yeah we've lost a little bit the ability to just take that space and ability to recognize that somebody else is not going to have the same experience you're having in that moment and you've allowed them to have their way of coping and their way of talking or their way of dealing with it. It doesn't mean it's right or wrong, it's just that you have to allow for that and you can't do that when you're constantly talking.

Daniela SM: 45:51

Exactly so, Ann. Thank you so much for sharing your story. We will put in the show notes how people can contact you and all about your book.

Ann Batchelder: 45:59

Well, thank, you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Daniela SM: 46:02

Thank you, Ann. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you were listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This would allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. I will see you next time.