“I don't recognize myself since I became a mom”
Becoming a mother can change a body, a career, a marriage, friendships and how every hour gets spent. Many mothers say they look in the mirror and don't know who they are anymore. The anthropologist Dana Raphael called this change matrescence, and the idea is popular though it has had little formal study. What matters most is whether the change feels like loss, growth or both, how the mother's mood is overall, and whether any of her old self has room to come back.
What to check first
It helps to check how long ago the birth was and how much sleep the mother is getting, since the first year can blur anyone's sense of self. If low mood, anxiety, numbness or feeling unreal have lasted more than two weeks, a doctor or midwife can check for postpartum depression or anxiety. A hard birth is worth mentioning too.
What could be going on
Matrescence (Raphael, Athan): Fits if the change feels like a whole shift in who you are, in body, work, friendships and priorities, and it is still underway.
Postpartum depression (perinatal depression): Check whether the lost feeling comes with low mood, tears, anxiety or numbness that has lasted more than two weeks.
Intensive mothering and intensive parenting (Hays): Could be that being a good mother, as you picture it, leaves no room for the rest of you.
Self-concept clarity: Fits if you are unsure what you like, think or want outside of caring for your kids.
Parental burnout (Mikolajczak and Roskam): Check whether you feel drained, distant from your kids and unlike the mother you used to be.
Dissociation (including depersonalisation and derealisation): Check whether you feel unreal or cut off from yourself, as if watching your life from outside.
Telling them apart
Matrescence (Raphael, Athan): The change may run through everything: body, work, friendships, priorities. Raphael, and later the psychologist Aurélie Athan, described it as a passage like adolescence, with growth and loss mixed together. Little research has measured it, so it works best as a lens.
Postpartum depression (perinatal depression): The lost feeling may come with low mood, crying, guilt, anxiety or a sense of being a bad mother. It may last well past the first two weeks. Postpartum depression is common and treatable.
Intensive mothering and intensive parenting (Hays): If being a good mother means constant presence and sacrifice, the rest of the self may have had to go. Sharon Hays described this ideal as intensive mothering. The loss of self may come as much from the standard as from the child.
Self-concept clarity: The mother may be unsure what she thinks, likes or wants apart from her children's needs. Old interests may feel far away or unimportant. Her sense of self may have been put on hold more than lost.
Parental burnout (Mikolajczak and Roskam): Exhaustion from parenting may leave the mother feeling distant from her children and unlike the mother she was at the start. She may run on autopilot. The not-recognizing may be about who she has become under strain.
Dissociation (including depersonalisation and derealisation): The mother may feel unreal, foggy or as if watching her life from outside. It can come with severe tiredness, stress or trauma, including a hard birth. If it lasts or keeps returning, it is worth raising with a doctor.
Questions to carry
- When did I last feel like my old self, even for a minute, and what was I doing?
- What part of me do I miss most, and what part has grown?
Also said as
- i lost myself after having kids
- who am i since becoming a mother
- i miss my old life before kids
- motherhood identity crisis
- i don't know who i am anymore since the baby
- i feel like just a mom now