Motherhood Didn’t Make Me Lose Myself—It Led Me Back to Her

How motherhood exposed the emptiness beneath who I thought I was—and gave me the chance to build something real.

With Mother’s Day around the corner, I’ve been thinking about how differently we all enter motherhood. Some of us have a strong sense of who we are. Others—like me—walk in without one, and a little broken. Not searching, not questioning—just stepping into it with good intentions and not a clue.

Lately, as I get ready to send our oldest into her next chapter, I’ve been looking back. And I can see now—I never lost myself in motherhood. It suffered because I’d never given myself the space to exist. I hadn’t done the work. I didn’t know who I was, and that made it hard to show up the way I wanted to.

I’m sharing this because I know I’m not the only one who had to unravel before things started coming together. It’s not always pretty. But there’s something honest—and even kind of beautiful—about what happens in the becoming.

This one’s vulnerable, so please read with kindness. Hitting publish like: 🤢

I always knew I wanted to be a mom. I assumed I’d have kids. I looked forward to it. But that was as far as the thought went.

I never stopped to consider who I’d need to be in order to show up for it fully—not just physically, but emotionally.

That’s what I missed at the start.

I walked in with no real identity of my own. No emotional roots. Nothing to anchor me. And I had no idea how much that would matter.

There was a time, though, when I caught a glimpse of who I was becoming. For a few years—during and just after college—I felt grounded. Curious. Confident. Connected to something that actually felt like me. I didn’t have everything figured out, but I saw her—and she was excited, optimistic about life. That version of me felt real. Whole, even.

But I never gave her enough time to come together. I rushed ahead—into adulthood, into responsibility—before she had the chance to take shape. And when things got hard, I didn’t rise into who I was becoming. I reverted—back to my defaults. My factory settings: deep unworthiness, the belief that I wasn’t enough unless I was useful, agreeable, easy to love.

That version of me—the one I caught glimpses of—started to fade. And I didn’t know how to hold on to her.

I thought love would be enough. And it was—deep and real and all-consuming. But I didn’t have the steadiness. The self-trust. The calm.

I couldn’t mother the way I wanted to.

Of course, I loved my children fiercely. That part was never in question.

But for a long time, it felt like I was living just outside my own life—hustling, holding it together, smiling through it, performing. The version of me I thought I’d become fading like a mirage in the distance.

It felt like I went straight from college to marriage to motherhood with barely a breath in between. One minute I was carefree with big plans, and the next we had a mortgage we couldn’t afford and every dream was on indefinite pause.

There wasn’t space to stretch or flail or figure anything out. Having Maddie felt like skipping chapters. Like jumping timelines.

I carry a lot of shame around that chapter. I have a hard time looking at pictures of myself from those years—because I can see it in my face. The pain. The trying. The distraction. I feel everything from massive embarrassment to deep empathy for that girl. She was doing her best. She just didn’t know what she needed.

I was there, but I wasn’t present.

I missed things—not the big milestones, but the quiet, everyday moments I couldn’t fully inhabit. Because I didn’t know how to be with myself, let alone anyone else.

And it took more than one crash-and-burn moment to become the kind of mother—and person—I am today.

We found out we were expecting Maddie just weeks after having the “we need more time and money” conversation. That moment set the tone: doing things before we were ready, flying by the seat of our pants. In some ways, that worked for us—it made us resourceful, adaptable. But it also created a lot of chaos we didn’t know how to navigate.

I was too naïve to realize how far in over our heads we were. I was launching my first business with no resources. We were broke. Everything felt unstable. Her pregnancy—luckily—was easy.

Once she arrived, I struggled. I didn’t feel like myself—but I didn’t have the language for it back then.

Ava came a few years later. Her pregnancy was planned. It happened quickly. And I didn’t take a single second of it in. I was too disconnected to recognize how lucky we were to build a family with no issues.

That season is a blur. I was running a business I didn’t know how to manage, overseeing a household that constantly needed more than we had to give, and doing my best to stay ahead of the next crisis.

Bri and I were young. We were guessing. There was no pause, no margin, and definitely no manual.

And yes—there were joyful moments. We laughed. We loved each other deeply. We were a very regular family.

But under the surface, something always felt off.

And it was.

I was.

I didn’t lose myself in motherhood—I walked into it holding on to the tiniest scraps of the woman I hoped I’d become.

But underneath that hope was a younger version of me—still aching, still convinced she was unlovable. And when she started making decisions, it set off a decade of slowly unraveling.

I clung to relationships that weren’t right. Tried to prove I was okay by being useful, agreeable, easy to like.

I told myself I was independent and ambitious.

In reality, I was manically seeking approval.

Not from strangers—but from friends, cousins, a big extended family. I kept handing my heart to people who didn’t know how to hold it. Not because they were cruel—but because we simply didn’t line up.

Still, I kept trying.

I thought if I was part of their collective, I’d be worthy.

In the process, I became someone I barely recognized—anxious, insecure, hyper-aware of how I was being perceived. I wasn’t grounded. Not in my worth. Not in my instincts. Not in my parenting.

And by the time I got around to parenting, I had nothing solid to give.

When I did parent, it came from fear, control, and depletion. I said things I didn’t believe. Enforced rules I wouldn’t have followed myself. I was more focused on looking competent than being connected.

I leaned hard into the Pinterest version of motherhood—coordinated outfits, themed birthday parties, picture-perfect everything.

What a mess.

Eventually, all the discomfort I had buried came boiling up. I didn’t have the tools to name it, so it came out sideways—in ways that made me look irrational or unhinged, when really, I was just in pain.

Keep reading…
How a surprise baby gave me the second chance I didn’t know I needed—and what finally helped me show up as the mom (and woman) I’d been trying to be all along.