New Me, Same Patterns

While I feel in many ways like a different person than who I was before the baby, my old psychological patterns are still here, just now applied to parenthood: for me, two big ones are anxious attachment and perfectionism.

I never made the connection between overbearing mothers and anxious attachment but I guess it makes sense- they’re both part of the Enneagram Two. But it’s really so incredible to experience anxious attachment towards my baby— it feels like she’s the mom and I’m the kid, desperate for her love and affection. We’ve been having sweet moments on the changing table after naps and I lay my head on her chest and it feels soothing to me, like she’s my mother. And then I’ll feel weird, like am I setting up a parent-child reversal dynamic? Am I parentifying her? Am I asking her to take care of my needs?

Perfectionism and new parenthood are a terrible combo. It is so overwhelming for my perfectionist mind to constantly be on the edge of a new experience, doing something for the first time, learning lessons the hard/only way- from making mistakes. Perfectionism (and patriarchy/misogyny) has turned me against my body… My life-giving miracle of a body!! And yet I spend so much time and energy dealing with the shame I feel about my body having gotten larger. Today I’ve been trying on the mantra that bodies are supposed to change. It is unrealistic/fighting against nature to try to control the body to stay the same- especially after such a transformative experience like the perinatal. I DO feel like a different person from before— so I guess it seems only right that I should get a new body to go with it. But it just feels like so much change to deal with all at once.

And, the icing: It makes me so sad and feels like such a mirror of how fucked up our society is that new moms/parents endure this body shame too… On top of everything else they must endure, shame about the body that brought life into this world feels so hard to stomach.

Here’s an article I wish I had read/could have internalized while pregnant, to adjust my expectations: https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-body/postpartum/postpartum-belly-why-its-completely-normal-for-your-body-to-change-after-baby/

—Ellie L.