Becoming a mother unravelled me emotionally

And it was/is for my own good

When I met my husband, he said something to me that has stayed with me for a long time. He mentioned that I was not a very emotional person, that I hated being tactile with him and was not a vulnerable person. At that point, I agreed with him because it usually takes me a long time to be emotionally vulnerable with a person, so yeah he had a point. But then again, I thought to myself; “we have only been with each other for about six months, I need more time to fully open myself up to you”. But looking back now, I realise that perhaps a part of me, well, my intuition, knew something more than I did. And that unfortunately, is a story for another day.

But that all changed the moment I gave birth to my daughter. My emotions unravelled and erupted like a volcano. The emotional lava spilled into every part of my life and burned burned a few things along the way. To be honest, I think my hormones heightened my emotions in the first week of my postpartum journey, so maybe I can give myself grace over that period. But I have no excuse for my emotional tirades after that point. I slowly turned into someone I am was familiar with.

The one thing I hated the most of this new phase of dealing with my motherhood induced emotions was finding myself crying at things that were miniscule. The one thing that comes to mind that made me wail like a baby was the advert of Compare the Market that featured baby Oleg, Aleksandar and Sergei. By the way this advert was well before I had my daughter, and although I felt a twinge of sadness watching it, I didn’t cry at this particular time. But I remember stumbling across it again after I had my daughter, while watching something on YOUTUBE. This part of the advert featured baby Oleg going to Africa to visit his roots. He ended up loving his time there and decided to stay. Of course Aleksandar and Sergei were very emotional when they decided to let Oleg stay in Africa with his fellow meerkats. This was the first time these two meerkats ever showed any emotion since they took in baby Oleg who was left at their doorstep when he was a baby.

I bawled my eyes out while watching the advert. And again when Oleg and his new found lady meerkat friend decided to go and look for his uncle Aleksandar and aunt Sergei (he is a male meerkat by the way) in San Francisco after their meerkat village was destroyed. From this point on, there was no turning back. My emotional reserves were opened. In a day, I find myself experiencing a dozen of emotions, most of them connected to my role as a mother.

I find myself feeling things so deeply than I have ever done before. I am MORE compassionate, caring, kind and thoughtful. I guess in a way because I want my daughter to emulate such. But on the flip side, motherhood made me resentful of some things and people (honesty is the best policy), I am way more blunt than I ever was to the point that I can easily hurt feelings without a care in the world and I can easily get offended when I feel like my daughter has not been treated fairly. The mama bear within me comes out. My patience also seems to be in low reserve most of the time, and the few times I have found myself getting angry, I felt it so strongly that I have had to walk away.

“But you know what?”, I am glad that my emotional reserves burst wide open. I was a cold b***h and needed to be softened a bit. Although I hated this emotional, vulnerable and open kind of person at first, I have embraced it. But I am also learning how to strike a balance. I don’t want my emotions to rule over me. I want to be in control of my emotions. And I still also want to have a little streak of a cold gangster in me. I still want to retain some parts of the previous me.

Change is important, but I am sure holding on to some part of me won’t hurt. “Or will it?”