The Loud Quiet of Motherhood

I wish more mothers openly talked about the mind-numbing and overstimulated stages of motherhood. For me, it’s the season I’m in right now — with a 6-year-old and a 3.5-year-old.

At the end of every single night, without fail, I am overstimulated and my brain just hurts. It feels numb. Between constantly repeating myself, holding space for big emotions (theirs and mine), and breaking up brother fights, some days it feels heavy. Too heavy to carry.

Admittedly, I find myself zoning out and dissociating more times than I feel comfortable sharing — but it’s my current reality.

No one prepares you for this part of motherhood.

Not the diapers.

Not the sleepless nights.

Not the tantrums.

It’s the way your mind feels… gone.

Like you’re thinking a thousand thoughts and none at all.

Like you’re exhausted but wired.

Like you’re present but also somehow disappearing.

I used to wonder what was wrong with me. Why I felt numb and overstimulated at the same time.

Turns out — nothing is wrong with me. And nothing is wrong with you.

You repeat the same instructions, the same routines, the same emotional labor, the same conflict resolutions. Your adult brain craves growth, novelty, and completion. Instead, it lives inside a loop that never closes.

This isn’t boredom.

It’s cognitive deprivation.

And over time, it starts to hollow you out.

Some nights I realize I’ve been holding my breath all day, and I feel it everywhere — in my body, in my bones.

My bones hurt. I can’t breathe.

And when I finally release the breath, it feels like I’m drowning in my thoughts and in their emotions.

It isn’t just mental. It’s physical. It’s neurological. It’s the nervous system trying to survive a day with no pause.

There is no off switch in this season.

No silence.

No stillness.

No true recovery.

By the end of the day, my body feels like it has been bracing for impact since morning — exhausted but wired, numb but overwhelmed, craving quiet but unable to relax inside it.

Dissociating has become my comfort.

Our brains are always trying to protect us, no matter what they need to do.

Sometimes zoning out is the only way to survive.

I used to think that meant something was wrong with me.

Now I understand it as adaptation.

It’s impossible not to lose yourself in this season.

The old you is gone.

You’re left with these babies and a version of yourself you don’t recognize yet.

And now what?

You’re just supposed to keep going.

Keep holding.

Keep loving.

Keep everything afloat.

Including yourself.

So I stopped fighting the change — because it was going to swallow me whole if I didn’t.

I started digging up pieces of myself that used to make me smile.

Hobbies. Friends. Small reminders of who I was.

Slowly, I am coming back to myself — not the old me, but a new one.

Learning how to coexist with both the grief and the reality.

There is space for both.

I know I’m not the only one who has lived inside this season.

I see you.

This is a tale as old as time.

And even though the days are heavy, this truth remains:

This too shall pass.

And one day, you will look back and recognize the woman who survived it.

She will feel familiar again.

And she will be proud of you.