I'm not as outgoing as I used to be. I get incredibly anxious and stressed in social situations. I know mine is PPA-related, but my kiddo is two.
Before I liked things organized and planned. That chaos is normal. I was on edge, short with everyone, had terrible social anxiety, was stressed out all the time, and worried about everything. Once I had my PPA under control with self-care, exercise and medication, I've become more myself than I have ever been.
I am happy, confident, don't care what others think. The bottom line is that you will never be quite the same person that you were before having a baby. Motherhood brings powerful identity changes and all-consuming emotions: love, protectiveness, a need to nurture your baby, exhaustion, confusion, exasperation.
The inner experience of motherhood cuts across different cultures, age groups, and socio-economic status. Interestingly, these emotions and changes are rarely attended to by health professionals or family members. It is easier to talk about external issues such as morning sickness, sleep deprivation, and bottle-or breast-feeding than it is to talk about the contradictory and overwhelming emotions all mothers go through in association with their new identity.
During the process of becoming a mother and adjusting to your baby, some struggle and distress are normal. If you are having hard time adjusting to being a mother or if you feel lonely and unsupported; you may benefit from professional help. Previous research has shown that during puberty these hormones cause dramatic structural and organizational changes in the brain. Very little research has focused on anatomical brain changes during pregnancy, however.
Hoekzema and her colleagues performed detailed anatomical brain scans on a group of women who were trying to get pregnant for the first time. The 25 women who got pregnant were rescanned soon after they gave birth; 11 of them were scanned two years after that.
For comparison, the researchers also scanned men and women who were not trying to have a child as well as first-time fathers. During the postpartum period, the researchers also performed brain scans on the new mothers while they looked at photos of their infants. The scientists used a standard scale to rate the attachment between mother and infant.
The researchers found that the new mothers experienced gray matter reductions that lasted for at least two years after birth. So did a relationship.
The boy became the father of my children and, for eight years, my husband. He was easy-going and carefree and, at the time, I valued those traits above most others. We fell in love, had a baby, got married, and had another baby in that order. In the span of a few years, our lives changed in just about every way possible. We had more responsibilities and less personal freedom. In many ways, we rose to the challenges.
My husband and I worked hard as both parents and partners. But something fundamental had also changed. He was not just wild and fun, he was late and distracted. The problem was, in a sense, simple: As a married mother of two, I no longer felt attracted to my husband. We separated. When I began dating again, I had no defined idea of what I was looking for in a partner. Sexually and socially, I was a new person with new concerns.
To my shock — though maybe not the shock of others — I found myself drawn to an older man who had joint custody of his child. I was head over heels for a man who claimed his adult responsibilities.
He cooked and cleaned and went on field trips with his daughter.
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