Short answer: Feeling that you've lost yourself after becoming a mother is very common. Becoming a parent changes your body, relationships, daily life and sense of self all at once — a transition sometimes called “matrescence”. You don't need to get back to exactly who you were. Start small: one thing you used to enjoy, in the diary, somewhere you're not “someone's mum”. If the emptiness is constant, or you no longer enjoy anything, talk to your GP — it may be depression.
At a party, someone asks what you do in your spare time. You hear yourself say: “I have two children.” That wasn't the question.
There's a word for it
“Matrescence” describes the transition to motherhood, sometimes compared with adolescence: a period when your body, hormones, relationships, priorities and place in the world all shift at the same time.
Even your brain changes. A brain-imaging study of first-time mothers found that pregnancy brought lasting changes in brain structure, in areas involved in understanding other people. Those changes overlapped with brain regions that responded to their own babies, and were linked to measures of mother-to-baby attachment — suggesting an adaptation to motherhood rather than a loss.
You haven't lost yourself. You're changing — and that's confusing only as long as you think you have to go back to who you were.
Why it often hits later
In the first year, you're mostly surviving. There's little room to miss yourself. The sense of loss often comes when things calm down a little — when your child starts school, when you're back at work, when there's a bit of space — and the emptiness can be startling.
Small steps back
Start with what you used to love
Not a five-year plan. What did you enjoy at twenty? Music, drawing, running, reading, dancing? Pick one, in the smallest form possible: twenty minutes, once a week.
Put it in the diary
What isn't scheduled usually doesn't happen. Treat it like an appointment you wouldn't cancel, and arrange childcare for it as you would for anything else.
Go somewhere you're not “someone's mum”
A class, a choir, a sports club, a book group: a place where people know your name, not your children's.
Do something that isn't caring
Work, a project, learning a skill — something where you feel competent rather than responsible.
Stop waiting for the right moment
It rarely arrives. Life with children doesn't get quieter by itself; one kind of busy is replaced by another.
About the guilt
Time for yourself can feel like time taken from your children. Try turning it around: your children learn from you how an adult treats themselves. A parent who keeps something of their own shows that this is allowed.
You don't have to become who you were. You get to discover who you are now — and that's one thing nobody else gets to decide.
When it's more than that
Losing your sense of identity and depression can overlap. Talk to your GP, midwife or health visitor if you feel empty most of the time, no longer enjoy anything, feel hopeless, or feel it will never change. Postnatal depression can start any time in the first year after birth, and it's treatable. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, get help straight away: 999 (UK), 911 (US) or 112 (EU), Samaritans on 116 123 (UK and Ireland) or 988 in the US.
Related reading
Who are you, besides mum? Back to Yourself (PDF, English) is about rediscovering yourself after becoming a mother.
Sources
- Hoekzema E, et al. Pregnancy leads to long-lasting changes in human brain structure. Nat Neurosci. 2017;20(2):287–296. doi:10.1038/nn.4458.
- NHS — Postnatal depression.
- NHS — Every Mind Matters.
Written by the Bloom Guides editorial team. Last updated: 20 October 2026. General information only — not a substitute for advice from your GP or a mental health professional.