Ashley Judd recently opened up about her experiences with grief. She explained how she had to first heal her childhood trauma to grieve for her mother, Naomi Judd. Speaking with Anderson Cooper on his podcast All There Is, Ashley went into detail on how she remembers her mother, her journeys through extreme grief, and advice for people going through something similar.
Videos by American Songwriter
Naomi Judd died by suicide in 2022 at age 76, and the music world grieved along with the Judd family—Ashley, her older sister Wynonna, and their mother’s husband of 33 years Larry Strickland. Naomi’s death brought the stigma of mental illness further to light, as she had suffered from depression for many years.
“I think that the death of a parent is something for which we, at least conceptually, have some kind of preparation,” Ashley said in conversation with Anderson Cooper. “I also knew that she was walking with mental illness and that her brain hurt and that she was suffering.” She continued, “My mother’s death was traumatic and unexpected because it was death by suicide, and I found her. And, so, it had this calamitous dynamic, my grief was in lockstep with trauma.”
[RELATED: Ashley Judd Shares Tribute to Naomi Judd on One-Year Anniversary of Her Death]
This was unfortunately not Ashley’s first experience with trauma. As she explained, her grief journey began in childhood. Before she could grieve for her mother, she found herself having to work through childhood trauma.
“I’ve had several journeys with grief and each has been distinct, unique, and also universal,” she began. “So my grief journey started as a child because I played the role of the lost child in my family system growing up. And so when I came into recovery in 2006, what they said is that I had unresolved childhood grief, that child grief is such a deep, hollow ache.”
Ashley Judd Reflects on Her Grief Journeys, and How She Chooses to Remember Mother Naomi
She continued, noting that she eventually learned “it’s not the crying that will kill me, it’s the not crying that will kill me.” She also shared that she has a better understanding of her healing journey. “There is a place where trauma and grief and transcendence meet, and I call it the braid,” she said.
However, Ashley did explain there is a difference between trauma and grief. “The trauma is intrusive and iterative, it comes up unbidden. We don’t have any control over it. It’s a memory that’s not processed and that lives free in the brain, bouncing around and seizes us and it needs to be stored properly in the brain,” she explained. “Grief is a natural, organic human process that has natural stages that self-resolve over time.”
Of how she remembers her mother, Ashley reflected, “I think we all deserve to be remembered for how we lived, and how we died is simply part of a bigger story.” She remembers Naomi in little things, like picking out a birthday card her mother would have gotten her. Now, she smiles when finding a folded tissue in one of her mother’s pockets, or when continuing family traditions.
“My mom is now in the vastness of consciousness in the mind of God. What a great place for her to be,” she said. “All of these mysteries which just made her daydream are now where her spirit resides.”
Listen to the full podcast episode here to learn more about Ashley Judd’s healing journey.
Featured Image by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
