Get Booked – Elizabeth Brown, “Mother Love”

Welcome to today's Get Booked radio show here in Covent Garden, supporting women's emotional well-being, opening discussions, and offering support via the incredible writers and listeners out there. And you can come and share my love of books hazelbutterfield.com where I put up all my book reviews as well. Now joining us in the studio today we have Elizabeth Brown, the author of Mother Love, a book that I completely and utterly devoured because it made me so incredibly angry, but also it just incited so many feelings, like a roller coaster, but I couldn't look away. It's like bottlenecking, so Mother's Love is bottlenecking. It probably is, yes. It even works like that on me and I wrote the thing. Welcome to the studio. It's lovely to be here. And so we've just found out the most incredible information about you while doing the soundcheck, that you eat prawn sandwiches for breakfast. Who doesn't? Yeah. That's what prawns were invented for. No one tells you what to have for breakfast. I'm in charge now. Yeah, good. Now this book, whether it's kind of like a diatribe of venom from Margaret or just really small responses from Matthew, isn't it? Matthew is the one that sums everything up in a sentence. I love it. It's like, so you'll have— so Margaret is the mother. Margaret is the matriarch of the family. And she is the one that— so every single chapter basically starts off with Margaret's opinion of events and then there's yours and then there's, um, Matthews, and then there's the other— there's Chloe. Well, it's Caroline, Matthew, and Chloe. I must emphasize that I'm not Caroline. No, it kind of felt like your voice. Oh, did it? Well, partially. Perhaps what I should say is that the first draft was just a couple of steps away from being an autobiography. So it is true, this story. It was, the first draft was quite true with just a dollop of imagination. So has it gone— But then gradually with each draft there was less true and more imagination. Okay. Because otherwise, well, like many aspiring writers, when I wrote it the first time round, I thought this is so wonderful that 'Everybody is going to want to publish it.' So instantly I sent it off to various agents and publishers, and then I was astounded when nobody wanted it. And so I put it away and got it out again a few months later, and I thought, 'Well, I don't blame them. This is absolutely a load of rubbish.' So I started rewriting it and then rewriting it again, and eventually it turned into Mother Love. But it's no longer an autobiography, although there are many, many parts of it that are based in truth. See, this is quite interesting because one of the main questions that I wanted to ask you was, you know, is it based on reality? And although there's like, there's 4 key people that offer their kind of take on events, which is a fantastic way to write a book, I think. But there were also, you know, snippets of other people that were a part of the situation. That's right, yeah. And it was written in the first person, but whenever Caroline was writing, it felt like it was the actual author. Okay, yeah. And it kind of, the other ones, it was the prominent piece. Yeah, well, I suppose in that respect, I am Caroline in my family situation. I am the eldest of 3 children. So I can see what you're saying, that perhaps my voice and Caroline's voice are closer than any of the other characters. Well, it definitely, it did come across, but I was actually, 'cause I was texting you, well, I was messaging you on Instagram while I was reading the book going, "I need a glass of wine." I was like, 'cause I think I put on Instagram, I think I put, "I'm reading this book and I'm drinking wine 'cause I need it. This woman is She's driving me potty. And I think I kind of tagged you in it and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. She is gonna drive you absolutely potty. But I couldn't stop reading it. Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear it. But I think the thing with Margaret, although she is clearly crazy, she's crazy for a reason. Really? Yeah, but well, one of the taglines that we considered is, Margaret, is she mad, sad, or bad? And I think you can read the book and conclude any one of those three, and you'd be correct. But I think personally, although I leave it to the reader to make that decision, I think that she probably suffered a childhood trauma that she never then grew beyond. In my mind, she remains an angry child. She does, but do you know what? I get that sometimes we can have things that happen to us, whether it's in our past or, you know, in the present, but how we deal with those determine who we are as people. And we aren't always responsible for some of the unconscious emotional responses that we have. But to her extent, the things that she got up to, You've got to take responsibility of that for 60, 70 years of basically, well, not for the first 20 of her life. That's not down to her. But she did some pretty wrong. I mean, she is the epitome of a narcissist. Certainly, but she doesn't know that. And I think that— Most don't. Well, no, of course not. But I think that in that period that we would be talking about, which would be, you know, the middle of last century, it wouldn't be recognised that she actually needed treatment to— counselling or some therapy to allow her to channel her anger in a different way and to overcome what had happened to her in her childhood, if indeed it did happen to her in her childhood. There's there's always a question mark. Well, that is the thing, and sometimes people like to play the victim, and because it's an excuse, isn't it? It's projection and just wanting to make— and this is what we have with life, with bullying as well, that some people, sad people, they want to make other people as sad as they are. And that is— yeah, and that's what's going on in the world, an unconscious habit. That it's very difficult to break out of. Yeah, and the thing is, is this your first book? It's my first adult book, yes. I wrote a children's novel a long, long time ago, but I don't really count that. The way that you kind of shaped what was going on, I mean, it was extremely addictive. And you could kind of see things unfold. And I was, I mean, I would, if the second one came out, I'd read it. It's just— I've been asked several times, is there going to be a sequel? And my response has always been no, because the story has been told. But more and more people say, oh, but we want to know what happens. To the family. Yeah. And so although I had an idea for the next book, um, I'm slightly altering the— my opinion of who should be the characters within that book, right? So I might be wavering on the idea of not exactly a sequel, but certainly perhaps following the characters' trajectory. But obviously Margaret will no longer be in it because she's We're not allowed to say. We're not allowed to say what happens to Margaret. But one, I mean, there's a lot of different themes in this book, but one of them that really got to me is nature versus nurture and how, you know, your surroundings are, I mean, like Matthew who just took himself, he completely cut himself. Detached himself. Off. That was his survival method, um, and for Matthew that suited him, uh, and, um, and he became very successful because he was able to operate in a completely insular world. But he needed to, and he was successful because he actually extracted himself from a very toxic environment, whereas the two that didn't, you know, Caroline constantly tried to please everybody around her, which I think she became quite— although she appears very saintly and patient, I got quite impatient with her, even though I was writing it. Somehow you can't necessarily control what your characters do. Why are you even responding to this woman? You know, why don't let her in your house? I mean, after some of the stuff that happened halfway through the book, I was even— but this is the thing, I was getting I was just going, well, why would you let her come back into your world when she treats you like this? I mean, so many people talk about forgiveness and you just think, nah, there's forgiveness and there's move on and have an actual life. Don't let someone bring you down. It's a well-documented kind of idea that children constantly want to please their parents. And in the same way that Margaret wasn't able to move on from her childhood trauma, I think neither is Caroline, in, in a different way. Well, it did— well, again, but that's what you demand of your children. Well, Margaret never really knows what she should be expecting of her children. Well, I think she wants to be on some sort of pedestal and kind of She wants to be in charge of everything all of the time and everybody bowing down to her and her needs. Oh, that sounds absolutely horrific. There are plenty of people out there. Well, you say that kids always want to please their parents and, you know, these are so many times I've asked my kids to empty the dishwasher and they don't care. That's good. That's good that they don't have to obey you every time. Well, I'm not telling them that. No, no, no, obviously don't let them know that. But when your children are confident enough in your love and affection for them that they know that even if they don't sort out the dishwasher for you, you're still going to love them. Mm, it's hit and miss. Most of the time you're going to love them. We've come to the end of today's first section of Get Booked. We're just going to go off to some ads and we'll be back very shortly. There's so many other sections that I want to talk about and we are going to be discussing narcissism next. Hooray! Welcome to Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station. 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Throughout my shows, we'll talk about the books I've read, new releases, chat to authors, publishers, and book enthusiasts, all with the theme and aim of supporting women's emotional well-being. If you have a book to tell us about, get in touch at presenters@womensradiostation.com. Join me on my show and share my love of books and writing. You're listening to Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women, and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter @WomensRadioStation, that's Women's Radio STN, or Facebook Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. Welcome back to the next section of today's Get Booked here at Women's Radio Station. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and in the studio with me today I have Elizabeth Brown and her daughter hiding in the corner of the studio. But it's all right, we haven't miked her up just in case she's gonna cause problems. You never know, right? Terrible. Yeah. Uh, and ironically, we're here to talk about mother love. Is it a blessing or a curse. And it's interesting because there's so many elements in this book. I mean, there's no doubt that the matriarch in this, she is a narcissist. She is. There's no question. But she doesn't understand that she is in any way at all. And although she does some really weird tricks, She always thinks that she's doing them for the right reason. She's always got a logical explanation. But that is a narcissist, isn't it? It's completely unself-aware. It's obnoxiousness. It's— but do we think narcissism is a mental illness? Um, I would say perhaps it can be triggered by a mental trauma, right? Okay, because it would become a defense mechanism. So if you think that nobody else has a good opinion of you, if you think that nobody else is looking out for your well-being, then to protect yourself from the world at large, you might have to big yourself up in your mind so that just because nobody else makes you feel important, you can make yourself feel important. So a defence mechanism. Mm. Okay. And, uh, but then of course it will become a habit because you have, you, you adopt that mindset and then in every situation your go-to response is, uh, is what other people would think unreasonable, but in your mind this is justifiable and it's the correct way to, uh, to proceed. In order that you don't get trampled on. But yeah, I mean, there is that and there's so many reasons that people behave in particular ways. And the amount of times, I'm sure we've all come across situations where we've gone, "Oh, they did this, but you can kind of understand that this has happened and this has happened and they're probably just trying to protect themselves." But the, of all the different, so basically each chapter in this book, it was based around a particular situation or a family gathering or something that they had to deal with. And there was quite often a letter end where, you know, somebody had written a letter to somebody explaining something, and it was predominantly Margaret the matriarch that was sending letters to somebody showing her displeasure at someone's attitude. The kind of things that sometimes, you know, we've all thought about writing something to somebody, but we don't actually do it. Or you do, and it makes you feel better, but then you put it in the fire. Yes. You don't send it. Yeah. Because that is the worst thing. Then that situation will escalate, or alternatively that person will just blank you in the future. So it doesn't actually help. It's unnecessary. It is unnecessary, yeah. But it is cathartic to write it down. It is. I mean, you know, you've had fallings out, or you, you know, even with, I don't know, partners or parents or whatever, I'm sure you've gone, "Oh, I'd love to write this." You get it out and it kind of orders it in your brain a little bit. And sometimes it will make you realise then, reading it back, 'Oh, this is a bit ridiculous.' Yeah. 'Let's calm down here.' But if you've sent the letter already, then you've dug yourself into that hole, and you probably— instead of just letting sleeping dogs lie, what you have done then is to create a situation which is more inflammatory. And so you either have to back down, which for somebody like Margaret is impossible, Or the whole situation will just escalate as you defend yourself. And when you're defending the indefensible, you just sound more and more ridiculous and cause the situation to be less and less possible to solve. And so eventually it becomes attention-seeking, doesn't it? Yes, it does. And in Mother Love, The problem for Margaret is that everybody becomes so fearful of her weird responses and reactions. Weird, rude, hurtful? Indeed, yes. I'm trying to be polite for her. Oh, sorry. Poor old Margaret. But nobody will stand up to her. So, you know, if somebody had, for example, if her husband instead of trying to look after her had said, "Now hang on a minute, love, we can't be doing this," or if something had happened during the course of her adult life to make her sit back and think, "Oh, do you know what, I could deal with these situations more reasonably and we'd all have a happier life." And sometimes you do have to do that. Even the most reasonable person in the world will still have an angry day and will still perhaps snap in a situation that they normally wouldn't. But you can go, "Oh, right, I'm going home. I'm having a glass of wine. I'm going to calm down and then I'm going to— tomorrow I'm going to go and apologise to that person because that's what a normal person will do." A normal person will not go home have a glass of wine and another one and a bottle and then write a terrible letter and put it in the post. No, but that's what made it so addictive, just knowing what nonsense she was going to come out with next. Absolutely. I loved writing the letters. They, they look wonderful. The thing is, I was like, I want to know what she's going to do, she's going to say next. Yeah. And I don't want to kind of say how the— how it ends, but there was a beautiful moment when she— because the thing is, there are some things that are subjective and some things that are objective, right? And our opinions are subjective. How something makes us feel, it's subjective. However, when she causes a problem online accusing the wrong person, and it is proven, which is objective, that she actually got it wrong, you could kind of sense— you, you got it from the pages— that she just kind of went Blim blim blim! Yeah— Boosh! Snap! And she snapped, and she didn't snap as in she shouted, she snapped as in she lost her marbles. She truly did. That was for her the last straw because see it but it had just little bit by little bit by little bit her head was becoming more and more crazed. More and more up her own bottom? Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. See, I didn't swear then, Melissa. Did I do all right? Well done. Yeah, and she couldn't somehow avoid— it was inevitable. From the moment you realise that she is not dealing with her mental state, there is nothing that is going to stop that progression. Just spiraled. Yeah. Yes. And nobody challenged her. Nobody sat down and offered her proper help. And so that was the inevitable conclusion. There's a fantastic phrase. I should have really looked it up before we started today's show, but it's along the lines of, if you argue with a crazy person, do you not then become the same? You end up being just as crazy. Yeah. Because you have to follow that crazy argument. Yeah. And your normal brain actually can't cope with doing that. You just have to— So you have to let it go. But of course that was sort of Chloe's problem, the younger daughter, that she never really, because she was the favourite, she was very much more involved with her mother than the other two children. And yet she was, because of the nurturing, air quotes on radio, that she got from her mother, it destroyed who she was as a person. It did. Chloe is actually my favorite character because she's such a free spirit. Sadly, she gets squashed by her mother's influence and, and she also ends up with problems of her own that she can't shrug off. But, but in the meantime, she leads such a wild life. I think she's wonderful because she was trying to escape. But if you are constantly told that you are perfect and you can't do wrong and that you're better than other people, then some people, the majority of people, are going to eventually believe it. And then that is pretty much what makes a narcissist. It's all the perfect ingredients, isn't it? Yes, yes, it is. Um, and yet it doesn't really help Chloe at all because although she's told by her mother that, you know, how wonderful she is, she's also aware that her mother is a bit of a nutcase. Well, I mean, in the next section, which we'll go on to shortly, we are going to be talking about what it takes to be a mother and what is a mother's love. And it is about, you know, teaching your kids to be accountable. And she was never taught to be accountable. So she was completely incapable. She was. And of course, she, she ended up running into very dreadful trouble because she couldn't be properly independent. See, this is the absolute, this is why I found it so addictive. It's just the human nature within this book and just seeing the different paths you can take and of which all three siblings did take different paths because of their different responses and outlooks to what was happening. And this is why, I mean, I think there are very few people that are gonna read this and just not feel something and just go, wow. I thought you meant very few people who are gonna read this, full stop. Well, that's on to my next section. No, it must be doing very well. You must be very pleased with the response. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't— it's the first time I've done this, so I don't really know what to expect. But, um, yeah, it's not doing badly. That's what it's like. So how long— so how long? Publication day was 28th of January, so it's just a month. A month. Okay. Since its publication. So you've not had that much feedback from it yet? Just not masses, but what I have had has been pretty encouraging. Good. So pretty encouraging. That's all you can hope for. I'm looking at your daughter now. She doesn't like to play her own trumpet. Exactly. Well, it's not natural, is it? To kind of say, "Oh, I'm such a wonderful writer. Everybody out there should be buying this book." We're going to edit that and just put it so that she says, "I'm a wonderful writer. Everyone should be buying this book." Can we arrange that, please? Yeah, yeah, brilliant. See, no, it's absolutely fantastic. Um, and we want to make sure that everybody can get hold of this book. Where— it's on Amazon, it's everywhere, isn't it? It's— yeah, but you, uh, you'll have to do it online, really. I've got a link up on my website as well because I did a review of it. Now we're just going to go over to our next ad break and we'll be back in a couple of minutes. 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We've been talking about so many different elements of this book, but this is a section I've, I mean, I've been looking forward to the whole interview, but this section I really wanna get my teeth stuck into. It is, you know, what is a mother's love? Because the main character couldn't quite figure it out and sometimes, and the actual children couldn't figure out what was acceptable mother's love. And it's interesting because a mother's love is, everybody's different. Every child has different needs. Every parent has different needs. And there's power struggles and fear, getting it right and wrong and being defensive and overcoming issues that happen to anybody. It's just human nature. And just a mother's love. Well, when you become a mother, the first time. You've got no experience of it. You're learning. And for some people it's just a natural process. For some people it's quite a lot harder. Yeah. And having a new child in your life can be very— although you've had 9 months to prepare for it, it can still be very unexpected. You don't know what it's like beforehand. To suddenly not be able to have a shower without the baby coming in with you and all that kind of stuff. I've only just in the last 3 or 4 years been able to go to the toilet on my own. I know, yes, that is really quite upsetting sometimes, isn't it? You know, especially when they want to help, but it's just no good. No. But yeah, so it's something that you've got to get used to. In a very short space of time, and you hope that your instinct will kick in. But what if it doesn't? What if you're just as uncertain whether you're doing the right thing or not when the baby's going off to school, and you're still thinking, "Oh, I hope I get the hang of this one day." But everything's new and everything's, you know, the way that you bring up children 20 years ago is not the same as, you know, yesterday. Doing it up north is different to doing it down south. Doing it with 3 kids is different to doing it with 1 child. Absolutely, yes. You know, putting on work, it's all different. It's a complete new world to a new mother. And so what you do with the first child, you hope you bumble along, and then you think this is really hard work. And then you get the second child and you think, crikey, I had loads of spare time with the first one. And now I've got none, and then you get the third one and your head just explodes. I think with that you just kind of go, "First one, you're up." Yeah, actually I did know a family, they were Roman Catholics and they had 14 children, and your jaw just drops at the idea of having 14 children. But the mother said, "Well, it's all right because the older ones look after the younger ones." Well, I'm not sure how the laundry worked or anything like that, but— Badly. She seemed to think it was all fine, and we all somehow bumbled along and got through each day, and then another day came and there we are. So it's each person to their own idea, isn't it? But of course the trouble with being a mother is you've got this baby. Gosh, I don't really like this. Well, you can't send it back. You've got to get on with it. You've got, you've got at least 18 years before that baby is grown up enough to send off into the wide world. Do you know what though? I mean, as my mother will tell you, she thinks that, you know, me and my brother need her more in our mid-30s than we did, you know, leading up until 10, 15. Yeah, I would agree with that, that your children are always your children, no matter how old they are. I read somewhere quite recently a quote that you are only as happy as your least happy child. And you understand that when you've got children. There's always one to worry about. I read that somewhere yesterday. I wonder if you read the same place. Oh really? Oh no, it was a while ago that I— Oh really? But anyway, yeah, but you can, as a mother, you can completely understand that sentiment, can't you? And yet one, I think Margaret got worse when you had children. And the interesting— Caroline had children. Caroline, sorry. She is not me. But yes, she's much more patient than I am. Yeah. But the thing is, as I said to you though, it feels like you were writing the part of the Caroline part. Yeah, it does. So I'm going to keep on saying that. Okay. I'm going to try not to, but I think I'm going to keep on slipping up and saying it. All right. All right. I'll forgive you in advance. Thanks. But the, I think what was quite interesting is when you have your own children, first of all, the issues to deal with are for the grandparent then, if they do something slightly different, they're saying, well, that's basically, it's like saying that you didn't like the way I did it, so it's an insult, okay? Yeah, that is true. It's the child going, I want to learn to do this on my own, this is my child and I want to do it. So the grandparent is feeling pushed out, but also the child is wanting to be defensive of their own ways because it's, you know, it's anything between 15, 20, 30. Yeah. And it causes friction. It can do, but you have to allow it to cause friction. I would say that conversely, if you handle it a bit more sensibly, it doesn't cause friction, it actually causes a more close relationship because a grandparent is able to assist, not contradict the way that their child is parenting, but to be there to fill the gaps, to give a bit of respite. But that's extremely a rarity. I'm getting people pointing at you. It is a rarity because, you know, I've had my mum wanting to do things a particular way with my children. I had my ex-husband's parents wanted to do things a completely different way and it was causing friction, but also they want to do things the way that they believe, whereas I was like, these are my children, 'You may want to have done things a certain way with your children, but I don't agree with that and I don't like it.' And they went, 'Oh yeah, but it's just our way.' I'm like, 'No, because that's actually affecting how I'm raising my children.' And it used to upset me and it caused friction. And the thing is, you know, that— They're your children. It doesn't mean that their way was wrong, it was, but it does cause— because you're at a time when you're very hormonal and you're really— and if you feel quite strongly about how you want to do things, And, you know— But I think that's a very unfortunate reaction if that is how the grandparent can only act in that way. Because you should be able to think back to your own early days of parenthood and think, well, how would I have liked to receive help to raise these children? And the last thing that you want is criticism. And I think that in the age of social media and, oh, we must be this perfect family, look at everybody's pictures of, you know, at the seaside and with the dog and, oh, aren't we all clean and tidy? And we all know that that is just false. Oh yeah, we didn't see the actual bit beforehand when the dog pooed on the beach, they got in trouble and they got asked to leave or, you know, whatever. Yeah, and the children were screaming. Screaming and hitting each other over the head with the bucket and spade. No, we all present ourselves as being this beautiful, perfect family, and there's no such thing. But I think that there is a greater idea in society that you have to project the image of perfection, and I think it almost makes it more difficult because you can't— you just can't match up to that ideal very easily. We do live in a comparative— Simply not 100% of the time. No, can you imagine? But we do live in a comparative world and it is causing a lot of issues. One of the reasons that we have, you know, set up women's radio station and men's radio station is to support people's wellbeing and to talk about these conversations, to get things out into the open, to normalise issues. And this is why I love books because they talk about so many people's issues and like this one as well, it's kind of dealing with the fractious elements of family and whether they're right or wrong. But if you look on the other side of what is a mother's love and although I've just said, you know, I wasn't particularly keen with how my ex-partner's parents wanted to have their input, if you look at it a different way where You know, kids seem to be on tech a lot more these days. And if a parent turns around and says, "Oh, just shove them in front of the iPad for 2 or 3 hours, they'll be fine," the grandparent is more than likely gonna go, "I want them to play Play-Doh and I want to do this." I want them to play football in the street. They are gonna get run over because it is a different street than it was 40 years ago. But hey, at least they're out in the fresh air. Don't let them play on the M4. Instead, just make them play in the park. Across the road. They were different. We can make alterations to things. I know, and everybody is different. I never liked to go outside when I was a kid. I liked to sit indoors reading The Famous Five, and my parents would go, "Oh, come on out in the garden, get some sunshine, get some fresh air." "No, I'm perfectly happy." And then when we'd go to, you know, a restaurant or something, they'd go, "Sit down and be quiet." "Well, I was doing that." Yeah. And you wanted me to go and run round the garden. 'Now I'm running around the restaurant, you want me to sit down? Please.' Can't win. But that's the thing, isn't it? Everybody has different requirements. At different moments. And so everybody's love from their mother is different. We all want different kinds of love, and this is why it's so difficult to— And those children all get a different kind of love. And it doesn't really help any of them. Whether they want it or not. I mean, it does basically document a very unfortunate unfortunate situation, but I do hope that my kids will kind of go, oh yeah, she kind of whinges at us to do this and to get off this tech and to go out and do that and to do our homework, and she whinges and she whinges and she whinges, and like, but it is, it's to try and have— it is our job to kind of steer them in the right direction, to protect them, to challenge them, to teach them. And then they grow up. Yeah. And if they grow up and they leave home and they're, they're happy and successful in what they want to do, you've been a good mother. Yeah, here's hoping. That's all you can ask for. Oh, I'm trying. Right, we're gonna go over to the last set of ad breaks and then we've got a couple of little bits and pieces I want to ask you about. I wanna ask you about who you admire in the public eye and your 3 tips on mental health and mental wellbeing. Ah, are you ready? You've got 3 minutes to think about it. Okay. Oh my. Go! Welcome to Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to Julie May Is Listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy, and we're at Women's Radio Station supporting women's well-being, and we're talking all things autism. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Meg Matthews, and I'm Carolyn Van Beers. Join us for a brand new show on Woman's Radio Station. It's the Meg's Menopause Show. Yes, for the first time on radio, there's an entire show dedicated to the menopause. A fresh new approach where we inform you of all the choices and treatments that are out there. Supportive and empowering, this is your show. So join us every week with a host of celebrity guests, our very own resident doctor, where we talk about everything menopause. Hi, I'm Lauren Mishcon. I'm a birth doula and mum of 3, and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experiences. Please join me for my brand new show, From Tummy to Mummy, here on Women's Radio Station. Every week I'll be here with an expert guest talking about women's reproductive health. Everything fertility, pregnancy, birth, and baby related, right through to the menopause and beyond. Please join us for an informative and fun hour. My name is Ingrid Marsh, and I host the Radical Wellbeing Show, supporting women's wellbeing. On my show, I bring you ordinary women like me and you who are sharing their unique stories. Women who have refused to be defined by their pains, to be be silenced by stigma or crushed by stereotypes and who are taking back their power. And together, our mission is a simple one, and that's to inspire you to kick away the roadblocks too, to don your wings and be the person that you were born to be. Hi, I'm Hazel Butterfield, a blogger, book lover, and mental health advocate, and you can listen to my show Get Booked here at Women's Radio Station daily at 5 AM and 5 PM. Throughout my shows, we'll talk about the books I've read, new releases, chat to authors, publishers, and book enthusiasts, all with the theme and aim of supporting women's emotional well-being. If you have a book to tell us about, get in touch at presenters@womensradiostation.com. Join me on my show and share my love of books and writing. You're listening to Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women, and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter at Women's Radio Station, that's Women's Radio STN, or Facebook Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. We are on our final section of today's Get Booked here at Woman's Radio Station already. We've been chatting away to Elizabeth about her book Mother Love. We've been talking about narcissism. We've been talking about how to be a good mother. What's, you know, how human nature is just subjective, objective, what we've got to deal with, and everybody has different requirements. And I must say, everybody, you've got to read this book just because of the emotional roller coaster you will go through and the characters that you will just kind of love to hate or just want to champion and go, please can you just— even Chloe, I was just like, why can't she just stick with her brother and lead a normal life? Because she really wanted to get out there and be a wild child. She couldn't help herself, but she couldn't control her wild child inside herself. She was all right as long as her meddling mother wasn't in the way. Not that I'm getting angry about that at all. No, no, she's fictional. I know you keep on— I feel like, I feel like you haven't— Hazel, it is fiction, I promise you. This is not real. I am not Caroline. Mm-hmm. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not as nice as Caroline, I can assure you. Wow, you don't put yourself down. You've just written a really good book. Yeah, Caroline is far too patient. Oh, she is patient. I was getting a bit annoyed with her. Yeah, I got annoyed with her as well. Yeah, fair enough. But now, in terms of, you know, what these characters had to deal with, and there was a lot of well-being issues in there and about how to try and look after themselves, especially with, with the brother who just knew how to look after himself, was just to completely extricate himself from a situation. But could you give 3 tips to our listeners about mental well-being, or anything really that you think are 3 good tips that you'd like to live by yourself? Well, I think the first thing is it's very hard to actually recognize it within yourself that you have any kind of mental difficulty. And I've always, in fact, this is how the book was born, I have always found it useful to write down a list of pros and cons. And it allows you to order things within your own mind and perhaps get a grip on what is troubling you. And perhaps when you've got it in perspective, you'll come to the conclusion that it isn't really that troublesome after all. So pros and cons is a good first step. Having good friends who you can talk to about stuff that's going on is also invaluable. And they can perhaps point out to you, hang on a minute, this isn't quite right, your reaction isn't quite right, perhaps we need to talk this through a bit further, or perhaps you need to talk it through with somebody else. And that's tip number 3, that professional help is available. And it's, I think now particularly, it's much more prominent. The stigma that used to be involved with the whole idea of having to seek help for mental issues, it just isn't there anymore. There's nothing to be ashamed of to go to your doctor and say, "I'm really feeling off and I need some help." And you'll be surprised then at how your doctor will respond and won't look at you as if there's something wrong with you or something to be ashamed of. And there's so much help that is available, but only if you ask for it. See, in America, if you don't have a therapist, people think there's something wrong with you. Yeah, what's wrong with you? It's like they go and see a therapist on a weekly basis or a biweekly basis, like they'd go and get their nails done. Quite so. Maybe we don't need to go quite that far. But yeah, the recognition of the value of counselling, of therapy, even medication if that's what it takes. You just, the point is, is that we need to be exploring. There are enough options out there. We need to explore them and try and understand ourselves enough to go down the correct route. Or to even trial things out, you know. What's the worst that could happen? You could either do absolutely nothing and nothing changes. Or you try something, doesn't work, you realise it's not working, try something else, you know. The worst thing you can do is isolate yourself. Yeah. Because you're feeling down and you're a bit miserable, the kind of the human nature tells you to cocoon yourself in and make yourself all safe and cosy in your little nook, where what you actually need to do is to get out there and have human interaction. Yeah. So, so for example, if you're going to retire, you might be thinking, oh, how wonderful to have lots of leisure time. Well, maybe not. You need to, to be busy. It doesn't have to be that you're receiving a salary each month for it, but you need to have something to do each day. Do you know what? This— I heard the most incredible thing from a GP friend of mine And basically she'd seen somebody and they were struggling with their mental health. They weren't quite sure about whether they wanted to go down the route of seeing a therapist. And she said, listen, it's a really long waiting list anyway, so we'll put you on the list and keep on seeing me, you know, every few weeks anyway. And I just want to check in on you. But what she said to her was that, and what I want you to do each day just to appreciate who you are and how well you're doing. I want you to go to the shop and just buy yourself, even if it's just a small chocolate bar or a packet of sweets or something like that, you need to do that every day to treat yourself, even if it's just 50p. And the woman's like, oh, okay, yeah, cool, that's brilliant. It was nothing to do with the treat, it was getting her out and going to a shop and having some interaction. And that is— But for goodness sake, don't go to one of those self-service checkouts. Well, exactly. We need those people on the checkout. Brilliant point, but that's the thing, but if you go to your local shops, then you're supporting them anyway, but a good GP will come out with solutions like that, which is just absolutely fantastic. Yes, yes, and don't be afraid to go and seek the opinion of your GP. You don't have to be physically ill to go and see your doctor. See, I'm a huge fan, especially if you're feeling a bit, you're wanting to be isolated or you're feeling a little bit down, sometimes reading a good book is good because it's escape. Yes. It stops your mind from overthinking. It's retraining the brain because quite often when you're going through a bit of a rough time, it's your brain's going, you know, into overdrive. And so, you know, this is why I'm quite a believer of getting hold of a good book, which is why we've kind of tied it into the wellbeing nature of women's radio station. It's escapism. Yeah, I'm reading about somebody else's lives. Yeah, and you can disappear into the imagination of that writer and it can really lift you. I read a book, we had somebody in quite recently and I loved his book, but it was entitled #AreYouHereYet? How to shut the flip up and stand and show up for yourself. And it was brilliant. And I'll be reading it on the train and people will be looking at it. And then there'd be all this nonsense going around on the tube and people having the usual kind of hissy fits and stuff. And I'd just be like, you need this book. And I did see somebody once take a picture of me reading it because I had like my beagle next to me. I take my dog to work with me most of the time. And there was the dog sitting on the text. I'm like, I'm sorry, but my dog is cleaner than the majority of you lot. So she's sitting next to me. Some guy spouting off about something. I'm reading the book that basically says shut the eff up, and I saw someone just take a picture and go— Yeah, excellent. You know that's going to be posted somewhere useful later on, don't you? It was quite cool. But are you a big reader? Absolutely. Always. Really? Yeah. And what are you loving at the moment? What have you read recently where you just think everyone's got to read that, other than Mother Love? Well, are we just I just posted about a book which I do not understand why everybody didn't read it. The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. I thought it was a wonderful, wonderful book. I'm Googling it. And yeah, and I just didn't understand why everybody wasn't talking about it. It's been out, I don't know, about 4 or 5 years, something like that. Oh really? Yeah. And— Oh, right, okay. Yeah, tell me about it. Well, it's a really big book. So the world— Get it on Audible, right? You could do. But yeah, so the world, we're in the future. The world is getting hotter, water levels are rising, and a project has been begun to go off and colonize another planet. Which is gonna be happening soon. Well, yeah. And so it, yes, it goes from there and it is just a magical, lovely book. Although it's not probably very optimistic in tone, but it was just so fascinating. It's one of those books where you feel like you've learned something afterwards. Well, the thing with it is that I read it years ago and I still remember it. And that doesn't always happen. You can enjoy a book but still not really remember it very well a couple of months down the line. Words are powerful, stories are powerful. And it was, it was, yeah. Oh brilliant, I'll put a link up on that one, for that one. I'm going to give it a whirl as well. It's really big. Take it on your holidays and read it on Kindle because it's not so heavy. Oh yeah, that's a really good— this is the thing, I love it that you've got so many different ways that you can do these things, but I quite like to get my audibles because then it means that I can go off on a little bit of a run or something like that. Yeah, you can take it with you. Or sometimes you slip it, you slip the earphones in your ear when your kids start talking about Fortnite and you're like, mm, yeah. That's a mother's love, that is. Yeah, definitely, I remember that one. Excellent. Everybody has their own ways. But now I pretend that I'm reading books not for my own pleasure, but so that I can review them on Instagram. Ah, see, yeah, you're doing it for the greater good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's wonderful. Yeah, same reason I do it as well. It's just— it's for— yeah, it's not for enjoyment. Yeah, well, I enjoyed your book. I loved it, and it's not just because you're here. I'm glad to hear it. I kind of— the only reason you're in here is because I kept on going on on Instagram going, I want to speak to you about this book. Uh, but thank you so much for coming into Women's Radio Station. It's been a great pleasure. And everybody can go and get the link to the book. I've put up, um, a review up on hazelbutterfield.com. Thank you. Thank you so much, Hazel. Welcome to the Women's Radio Station, supporting women's well-being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity, from opinion opinions, career, ethnicity, education, and most importantly, women's well-being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website womensradiostation.com for more information. Hi everyone and welcome to The Femaling Show. I am your host Nicole Goodman and I am a woman's identity expert and coach. As women, we fall into different phases of identity through our adult life, and during these, our challenges can look pretty similar. Here at WRS, I will be talking to you about the real issues we all face, and even the ones we can silently struggle with. Through honest, heartfelt conversation here at Femaling, you will learn how to accept yourself, understand yourself, and be yourself. Hi, I'm Carolyn van Beers. Please join me for a brand new show here on Women's Radio Station. It's Mother's Hour. If like me, you're a mum juggling far too many balls and dropping most of them, this is definitely the show for you. We'll examine the highs and lows of motherhood and make sure you laugh out loud as we take on this challenging role together. With spoonfuls of advice, incredible stories, it will be a refreshing, honest, and funny look at being a mum. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich, When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? 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