Sometimes it’s really hard to remember who I was before I became a mom. It almost seems as if it was a past life or like it was someone else who rode a motorbike in a bikini in Greece, or jumped out of a plane, or went trekking around Nepal in silence for days with nothing but the beautiful mountains around her. I think back and there are times I feel like that girl I used to be – brave, bold, adventuress and care free, is completely gone and like I am, bit by bit, slowly losing myself.
It’s another one of the things no one tells you about when you become a mom. How once you become someone else’s mother, everything else starts to fade away and disappear.
I know it can sound ungrateful and childish but I’m actually sick of apologizing for complaining, or for pointing out the “bad stuff”. It’s not about it being ‘hard’, it’s about losing a sense of who you are with every load of laundry you do and every chore you tick off that never ending “to do list” called ‘life as an adult’.
Well I’ll have you know that I am very grateful and as someone who struggled to get pregnant and nearly died in the process of having my twins, you can be sure that I appreciate just how fortunate I am to be anyone’s mother, let alone to be alive and able to moan about it. On top, although I was never the type of girl who always dreamed of becoming a mom, once I did become one, I was over the moon and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t days I miss the “old me”.
Remember her?
Topless on the beach on a summer holiday, dancing in a club till 6 am, or snowboarding in white powder and living life to the absolute fullest.
I’ve realized that for the past 6 years since becoming a mom I have been living according to the notion that once you become a mother, you are a “mom first” and a person second.
It kind of makes sense when you think about t because when your baby is born they need you for EVERYTHING so you do what any loving parent would do – you put yourself to one side, forget about your dancing shoes, your own dreams and needs, and you take care of that little new person you’ve created the best way you possibly can, giving them your heart and soul and all that you have to give.
And then one day you wake up and your baby is no longer a baby and can actually wipe his own butt (finally) and with every day that goes by needs you a little less (which is good news), but when you look into the mirror you suddenly realize that you don’t know who the person looking back at you is anymore.
The reason I know this is because I am there – staring at myself in the mirror and wondering where the hell did I go.
And the reason I am telling you this is because I know there are many women out there who feel the same way. Trapped in the daily grinding routine of diaper changing and blending squash with sweet potatoes and I want to tell you that it’s okay to feel frustrated and say that it sucks. It’s okay to want more, to miss what you had and to try and get it back. It doesn’t make a “bad mom” or any less loving than you are. It just makes you human.
And after you give yourself that green light to feel how you really freakin’ without worrying about what other people are gonna think about it, know this: that girl, is still in there and she is begging to come out. She may have been in a coma for the past few years and she may be hard to spot under the new stretch marks and added pounds each of our lovely babies left behind them, but she is 100% still in there.
Time to go get her!
I’ve been a mom for 20 years. For the early part of my 20’s I was a wild child. I was in the army, I went sky diving. I went dancing in 4″ heels the night before having ankle surgery just because I knew it would be a long time before I could do it again. I had fun. Then I became a mom.
I gained 70lbs during pregnancy that never came off. I got out of the army and became a stay at home mom. My son was my everything. I remember not knowing the woman in the mirror. I have fought to find her over the years. I’m now the mom of four. My babies are 20,17,11, and 7. My 20 year old son and my 11 year old daughter have both told me that their friends think I’m the best/ coolest mom and that they agree. I’m not sure I agree but who gets to hear that?
I may not be the girl I use to be but I’ll tell you this, her spirit is still alive with the whit and well aged sense of humor of a 44 year old mom.
Sometimes, the child you have can’t ever really leave your care. You realize, during the early days, in the nightmare of therapies and treatments, and speech and OT and PT and IEP’s that you will never, ever be able to get back to life “before”. That this life now is life. For the rest of YOUR life. You lose yourself, your marriage, your job (because people prove they will not follow instructions and are abusive to your disabled child more often than you could have possibly imagined, so what can happen is that your job is the last thing to go… and with it your last shreds of freedom).
However, when you see how all the work you did to mobilize YOUR life in defense against the chaos of his world begins to create a life no one expected him to have, you finally begin to try to relax, grab some of yourself around the edges, only to discover that the disability itself IS your family’s new life because it has eclipsed his whole life and his needs must be met and he will continue to need protecting against a world full of prejudice, and ignorance.
It’s hard.
Especially at 52. He is now 13. With the help of my oldest child, we have pushed back against it all, and she and her husband have graciously accepted much of what will be the ongoing responsibility for him as we move forward, but that loss of self? It’s real. I lost myself, to be honest, during those first years, when he wouldn’t stop screaming—22 hours a day, clawing at the breast, unable to suck properly, screaming because the world was pain and he had no words, no way to explain, no way to engage, just the sound of him screaming at me while I tried everything (LITERALLY EVERYTHING) to find a way to make it better. Years went by and the screaming slowly gave way to scripting and echolalia and then my life shifted to defending him against the institutional structures which should have followed the rules and often did not.
It’s been a hard, but very fruitful road.
I lost myself.
That’s okay. We eventually found him in there, underneath the screaming. The sacrifices made to make that happen matter. They make my losses meaningful. I regret nothing.
My friend with the Down Syndrome daughter has parented her child for 55 years. It’s really extraordinary to me. When I get to feeling like I don’t remember who I was, I look at their life: her disabled daughter has more friends than I do, and has come farther than every expert ever said was possible, all because of a mother willing to lose herself entirely to get the job done.
Mothers are all made of the stuff of mountains. We endure and we love and we sacrifice and we long for a time when the burdens of our life are perfectly balanced with the love we nurtured and sustained, love we gave and love given. The sacrifice of self has meaning and value.
Mostly, I miss the freedom to make a single plan that doesn’t always start with “can you look after him for me please, while I…?”
I’d like someday for that sentence to not make me feel so guilty. #squadgoal
You are inspiring and anazing ❤️
Thanks for sharing your story! Such an extraordinary life you gave lived through your experiences and sacrifices – such values you can share and influence!
I have three Kings day. My daughters are 20 and 16. My son is nine. I was married for 15 years. As a divorced and still single mom of kids quickly becoming adults in their own right, I have no idea who I am anymore. I went from being my parents’ child to a student to a wife to a mother. I’m still, and will always be, some of those things but I feel a little lost. I’m 43 and having a bit of an identity crisis. So I relate in a big way. Having my kids grow up sucks! I put everything I had into them. It shows because they’re amazing individuals, I’m so incredibly proud. But I’m also incredibly sad and lonely.
Oh my god! I totally agree!! I’ve got to the stage where my little boy is in year 1 at school, and we have been trying for another baby for nearly 2 years, and I think “what the hell am I doing?”
Should I reclaim myself? Or carry on trying? I’m 37, and now unsure if I want another child for me or for my little boy?
What do I do? I used to be so outgoing? Going on holidays 2-3 times a year, going shopping for ME all the time…. I cannot remember who I am without being a mum first. My 3 good friends are either childless or have older kids, so they’re social life is booming. Is it bad to feel like I’m missing out?
God…. I need a night out!!! 😂😂
I am not alone. It just feels like a group hug right know after reading this and all the comments that are truthfully written… And a tear falls…