Of course I understood that motherhood would change my life.
I did not understand that it would also change my sense of identity.
I was as prepared as I could be for the sleep deprivation. I knew my body would forever be changed. What I didn’t anticipate was that my priorities would reorder themselves without asking permission.
In the very beginning, I would get disoriented in time. My nervous system was instantly hijacked. It was me in the mirror — but at the same time, I felt foreign to myself.
I found a strength I never knew I had. But somewhere in that strength, I lost access to myself.
Mom Guilt Is Wild
It felt almost illegal to admit that I missed the old me.
In my worldview at the time, I believed that mothers are totally selfless. They put their children above all else. If I longed for pieces of my former self, I must be failing.
I wasn’t. I just didn’t understand that two things could be true at the same time:
I loved my children fiercely.
I missed the old me.
I missed the writer. The creative craftor. The ambitious and organized woman I used to see in the mirror looked back at me with tired eyes and vomit in her hair.
If you have ever thought:
-
“Good moms don’t feel this way.”
-
“I chose this.”
-
“Other women handle this better.”
-
“Something must be wrong with me.”
Identity shifts are not ingratitude for the blessing of your beautiful baby. They are side effects of growth.
You are not failing. You are evolving — in rapid time. And this kind of evolution is disorienting.
The High-Functioning Mask
Especially if you’re used to being the capable one. You can be high-functioning… and still feel like you’re disappearing. You can manage schedules, volunteer, show up at games, cook dinners, answer emails…
And still lie in bed wondering:
Where did I go?
This is the hidden cost of holding it all together.
When you’re competent, no one checks on you. When you’re strong, no one assumes you’re struggling.
When you’re capable, the world keeps handing you more.
And you take it. Because you can. Until one day you realize you’ve been functioning on performance pressure — not connection.
The Truth: You’re Not Gone
You’re layered.
Motherhood doesn’t erase you. It expands you.
But sometimes the expansion is so fast that the fibers of your being are stretched to the max. Much like when you build muscle, those fibers tear before they rebuild stronger.
It can feel like loss. It can feel like disappearance. But what’s really happening is integration. The woman you were is still in there. She’s not gone. She’s busy integrating all these new parts of herself.
What Actually Helped
Not my usual “powering through.”
I seemed to have lost my gift for bouncing back. Guilt stopped working as a motivator. Forcing productivity only fried my nervous system more. Those old techniques didn’t work with this new version of me.
So I stopped trying to muscle my way out of it.
The kids reached an age where they were less physically dependent, and I began reclaiming the things that had once been scarce:
-
Silent time alone
-
Journaling
-
Movement
-
Balanced nutrition (not punishment, not deprivation — nourishment)
-
Something that was 100% mine
I was not seeking to escape motherhood, but to stay whole inside it.
The “selfless at all costs” approach led to burnout. It didn’t make me a better mom. It made me a resentful, depleted one.
When I stopped guilting myself for wanting to feel human again, my nervous system softened. And slowly — not dramatically, not overnight — the familiar version of me started to resurface.
Not exactly the old me, but a deeper one. A steadier one. A woman who now knows she can survive sleep deprivation, identity shifts, hormonal chaos, and emotional overload.
I found strength. And I found myself again — differently: layered, wiser– still becoming.
