Not Alone In Feeling Alone
Nothing could have prepared me for the raw loneliness that I have sometimes felt after becoming a mom.
Having grown up loving kids, I honestly thought that motherhood would come so naturally to me, that I would thrive as mom, surrounded by mom friends and living my best life. I envisioned myself patiently rocking my kids to sleep and loving every moment, despite meltdowns and early mornings.
Hilarious.
When Eleanor finally came and we settled back at home, I was shocked and scared to sometimes feel alone and helpless, despite the near constant presence of daughter in my arms. I had never expected to feel lonely as a mom.
This is not to say that there weren’t good times in those early days of motherhood. Quite the contrary. I loved the newborn snuggles, the gassy smiles, the satisfaction and pride that I had created something so wonderful and perfect as my baby girl. But interspersed in those wonderful moments were shocks of isolation and fear that somehow felt as potent as my joy.
Even though Brigham was going through this adjustment to parenthood with me, I still felt so alone, so cut off from who I was before I became a mom.
And what was even worse was that it felt ridiculous to me to feel this way!! Eleanor was healthy and perfect. Brigham was kind and patient and attentive to both me and the baby. My parents and in-laws had come to visit in the weeks after Eleanor was born to help us adjust.
I felt like I had no right to feel sad or alone.
I had already been blessed with so much, and I convinced myself that by feeling these things, I was being ungrateful for this beautiful baby and this beautiful life.
Thankfully, for once, my logical side started to actually take charge in my brain. In the history of all the world, I could not have been the first woman ever to feel this way, right? Hadn’t so many women told me that being a mom was the most wonderful, fulfilling part of their life? There was no way that so many people could have lied to me about this, and I started looking for answers.
Turns out, You’re Not Alone
Research shows that almost one third of all new parents worldwide experience loneliness in a “hyper-connected world.”
One third. Think about it. That’s so many people. And not just moms. Dads struggle with loneliness in new parenthood too. Even though help or comfort or company could be just a text away, still, so many new parents feel like I so often felt as a new mom.
I was encouraged knowing that I wasn’t making these feelings up.
Loneliness is now widely understood as a painful subjective experience when the social connections a person has do not meet their interpersonal needs in respect to quality of or quantity of friendship or social contact.
Loneliness can be experienced in the presence of others and is different from objective measures of social connection, such as social isolation (the absence of social relationships) and social network size (number of social connections).
Sage Journals
In an interview with The Roots of Loneliness Project, Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad emphasized that loneliness is normal and not a sign of failure. She said, “loneliness is something that is an adaptive response. We all feel lonely from time to time, there’s no shame in that. I mean, that would be like feeling ashamed for feeling thirsty or hungry, right?”
Once I knew this was normal and I wasn’t a broken mom, I knew that I would be able to find a solution, even if that solution would be difficult or uncomfortable at first.
How TO Move Forward
Being a mom has its own learning curve and it is unlike anything else I have ever experienced. This learning curve included learning how to escape my loneliness and fear. As Eleanor grew, so did my ability and resolve to do something about how I felt.
The following is not an all-encompassing list of failsafe solutions for loneliness, but these are the things that have helped me in my adjustment as a first-time mom.
Validate Your Own Feelings
One of my favorite parenting quotes comes from Jim Gaffigan: “You know what it’s like having a fourth kid? Imagine you’re drowning, then someone hands you a baby.”
Now granted, I only have one kid the moment, but I find a lot of comfort knowing that I am in the same boat as other parents. Or rather, that I have fallen out of the same boat as other parents, and we are all drowning together. Either analogy works for me.
Because I would never look at a person who is actually drowning and say that they were overreacting.
So why do I sometimes look at myself when I am drowning in loneliness and think, “what is wrong with me? I shouldn’t feel like this.”
How you feel is important, and acknowledging how you feel is like giving yourself permission to start finding a solution.
Reach Out to Those Who Love You
I have a friend who once pointed out that the plot of every rom-com comes from a lack of communication between the main characters.
As a fan of rom-coms, I wanted to disagree. But as I thought through the plots of some of my favorite movies, I realized that she was right. As much as I love watching these stories play out on screen, I do not want my life to play out like a rom-com. I want to be good at communication in my relationships with family and friends.
This decision was put to the test when I became a mom. I did not want people to know that I was sometimes struggling and lonely. I wanted the people close to me to be amazed at my ability to adjust to mom life without skipping a beat.
It was such a silly desire and was pretty quickly abandoned.
I realized that the people that love me and that I love the most were the ones that needed to know how I was actually doing. How could they help me if I didn’t tell them how I felt?
After explaining how I was feeling to my husband, I was able to reach out to my mom, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law, as well as other trusted women in my family who knew what I was going through as a new mom. I also had trusted friends, both with and without kids, who offered help, love, and encouragement.
People always say that it takes a village to raise a child. But I would add, it takes a village to raise a mother.
Seek Medical Help As Needed
As I acknowledged my loneliness and addressed those feelings with people I trusted, I began to feel less constricted, less alone. But for some, it might take more than making some small changes.
As a teenager, I fought my parent’s council to get help with my mental health. I figured that I shouldn’t rely on medication or therapy to be okay; I told myself that I needed to “fix myself” on my own.
Silly, head strong girl.
I struggled for a long time without receiving the help that I needed, but once I caved into my parent’s advice a few years before I got pregnant, I never looked back.
The medication I take every day for anxiety allows me to function. It keeps my anxiety (and depressive tendencies) at bay. I am so thankful for modern medicine. Without it, my life as a mom would be very different.
It doesn’t solve all of my problems; I still deal with a screaming toddler just the same as everyone else. But my outlook on every situation, on feeling lonely in motherhood, they are completely shifted. I have the tools (and the brain chemistry) now to find the solutions to how I feel.
Don’t ignore the loneliness. Don’t talk yourself into pushing your feelings to the side. Yes, we might feel alone in motherhood at times. But this does not have to be our new normal. There is hope moving forward.
Love, Molly
Go Forth. Go North.
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