Today I socialised. That’s not common for me anymore. Well, not to the extent I used to.

How do other mums find the time to socialise? Actually, I think time can always be made. It’s how do other mums find the desire to socialise? I don’t know if it’s a post covid world or if it’s exhaustion due to busyness that makes me hesitant to use the little spare time I have to exert energy I’m short on.

Regardless, it was a cup filling day. At my core, being with people/friends, giving of my time to friends has always been fulfilling to me. I think it’s where part of my identity lies if I’m being honest. I say it to my husband often. Before having kids, even before meeting him, I found purpose and identity when being the friend that you come to for advice, solace, comfort or simply just company. I delighted in it. Even though my cup was being emptied, I always felt I had more to give.

Since being a mum I think I’ve shied away from that part of me. It didn’t help that becoming a mum also coincided with Covid and our world being shut down for almost 2 years. We were made to be recluses. We were made to let go of that social side of ourselves, because socialising equalled ‘fear’. Even though that was something that was enforced upon us, it’s hard to deny that we didn’t get used to it. I know I definitely got used to being in my little insulated bubble, with my little family, having little contact with others that didn’t share my surname. Getting used to that meant getting comfortable with the solitude and uncomfortable with company.

For me, it took a little getting used to being back in the real world, with friends. Once I started embracing that part of me again, I fell pregnant with my second, and I involuntarily became a recluse again. I always make the joke that I lose an entire year of my life when I’m pregnant, but there’s no other way to put it. When you suffer from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (which I have twice now), you are so weakened, it is so debilitating, you have very little energy for anything more than walking to the kitchen. Unless people go out of their way to see you, you don’t see anyone. Not by choice, but mere survival, because that’s what suffering from Hyperemesis does. You live on the border of survival and death, and I wish I was exaggerating.

The HG pregnancy followed by the post partum period never leaves one with room for mingling. If anything it sends you down a deeper hole of isolation because that season of life is so robbing of ‘self’. There’s not one inch of that season that is about you, or leaves room for you to indulge in anything that serves you, let alone having time to be a ‘friend’.

For me, another aspect that deepened the recluse in me was the weight gain I had after my second pregnancy. As much as I hate to admit it, my physical appearance played a big role in my identity and the way I saw myself, and that wasn’t really highlighted until I found myself looking different.

Even though I breastfed, I was never one of those mums who lost weight while breastfeeding. If anything, I felt I gained weight during that season, which when you think about it, makes sense because you’re burning so much energy creating the breast milk, it’s only natural that energy fuels further hunger. Yet we’re told if you breastfeed the weight will drop off you, and it’s really not true! Not for me and a lot of other mums I know, anyway.

So in the midst of all the ‘loss of self’ you’re feeling in that early parenting season, the fact you don’t look like yourself is just another challenge you’re juggling.

For me, its been one of the hardest transitions to deal with and accept, particularly after my second pregnancy, and even still 18 months later. I find myself coming up with reasons and excuses to people as to why I haven’t lost my baby weight yet, to excuse why I look so different before being judged. Excuses for why I gained so much weight. Excuses for why I still carry that weight. Excuses for why I haven’t ‘tried harder’ to lose the weight. Guilt and shame surround that, and as a result of it, I don’t want to see people; rather, I don’t want people to see me. I feel like I’m exposing people to a hideous beast they weren’t expecting (so my insecure mind leads me to believe).

And when I do decide to be social, I’m so caught up in my mind about how I look, that I’m anxious and distracted the entire catch up. I feel as though I’m no longer fully present because I’m constantly thinking “what are they thinking when they see me”. I’m constantly adjusting my clothes so they’re not clinging to my ‘fat’ in anyway. On top of that, I no longer know how to dress for my body, so another loss of self there for a self proclaimed fashion lover. I feel like what I wear is no longer ‘cool’ because I’m dressing to disguise my body, which doesn’t leave room for the chicest of ensembles. Or room for me to dress and express myself how I would usually.

And then there’s the modern, body positive feminist inside of me who’s trying to battle those thoughts with reminders that what I look like does not equate to the person, and the friend (wife, mother, daughter, sister) that I am. That’s the woman who agrees to being social. That’s the woman who plans to see her friends. And that’s the woman who showed up for her friend today, because shock horror, there is a world outside of us, that needs us, wants us, doesn’t judge us, and just loves us. Being in that company was refreshing. Showing up for each other is more fulfilling than we allow ourselves to remember. That outside of our lives as wives and mothers, we were friends first, and we still need those friendships to stay grounded and connected to our true selves. That true self that sometimes gets lost in the chaos of ‘adulting’, ‘parenting’, ‘wifeing’.

Our sanity will thank us for it. As will our children when they see their mothers as whole, rounded humans that have personalities and intricacies outside of just being their mum. That we have more to offer others, and the world, and they too, can and will be the same.

Today was a reminder of an element of my identity I left behind for a while, but want to start embracing fully again. Claudia the friend.

This is excerpt 10.