When suffering scares our friends away

Reframing the shame of losing a friend when hardships in life change us

I was listening to an audiobook about health for women postpartum while walking around the neighborhood pushing my baby in his stroller. The audiobook had a holistic approach and the author shared something important and often overlooked for women’s health as they transition into motherhood—friends.

Instantly, the familiar sense of shame I felt around friendships started to creep up as the author talked about how women should do everything they can to keep their pre-baby friendships.

The author’s reasoning was simple—keeping up with old friends will improve your mental health by helping you still feel like yourself. What better way to feel like “you” than to be around people who know you?

Later that week, I turned down another invitation from a friend from my pre-baby era. The offer she made was something that just wouldn’t work for me in my mom season of life and I felt exhausted thinking about trying to explain to her my nursing schedule, bedtime routine, and desire to be close to home. So I just said no again without getting into the details.

Instantly, I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me.

Another friend had a baby a few months after me. She was in the stage where her baby would still nap in the carseat (oh the glory days…) so she was still running all around Nashville at all hours keeping up with friends.

Soon, a nap schedule slammed her social life to a halt. The next time she saw me she lamented over how she had to give up some of her favorite pre-baby commitments because of the baby’s schedule. I nodded. I did the same.

Then we talked a bit more. Even if we could get a babysitter or have our husbands tag in, those social circles just felt lonely to us now.

The things that worried us, the things that made us laugh, the things that we were thinking about were different now. If they were the same topics occupying our minds after becoming moms they still took on a different perspective now.

Priorities changed. Values changed. So everything else shifted too.

The audio book made it sound so simple—make time for consistent girls nights, tell your friends what your life is like now, keep up with pre-baby hobbies and your mental health will thrive!!

There are some simple logistics that stop me from seeing some of the people I used to see pre-baby. But then there’s another layer beyond that that has started to become more clear.

I chatted with a pre-baby friend over coffee and she told me how absolutely hard her life was. She went on and on about how tired she was. I sipped on my decaf coffee (I’d already hit my breastfeeding caffeine limit for the day five hours earlier at around 5am) and nodded trying my absolute hardest to feel sorry for her for how sleepy she was with work and her hobbies. She continued to complain about the busy child free weekend she had.

She was overwhelmed by things that were very real and very overwhelming to her. But I just didn’t connect with it. I left feeling lonely and thinking to myself, that might be the last time we hang out.

I didn’t like the idea that being a mom would change all of my friendships. But I realized it was way deeper than that.

I was struggling to hold empathy for this friend because she didn’t have any for me. She didn’t ask how many times I was up with the baby, didn’t ask about how my recovery from surgery was going, didn’t even know I was still going to physical therapy, and when I mentioned I was feeling really down she brushed my emotions aside saying it’d surely be easier soon.

After trauma, whether it’s related to birth, mental health or any significant life change this concept of empathy fatigue can come up.

I’d spent so much emotional energy navigating my own suffering that hearing someone else’s struggles—even if they were real to them—felt like too much. It was hard to be genuinely present for friends who hadn’t walked through the same suffering I had. I felt a massive gap between myself and some people begin to form.

This is what can be so isolating about trauma: it changes how we connect to ourselves so it changes how we connect to others.

For me, this became glaringly obvious in the loneliness I felt around friends who just didn’t feel like they knew me anymore. I felt so lonely around friends who hadn’t experienced a similar level of suffering before. I didn’t want for them to experience suffering too but I still longed to feel known in mine.

I noticed myself craving relationships where empathy felt mutual. I needed people who knew a “dark night of the soul” themselves and could hold space for pain without dismissing it or referring to it as something I would quickly grow out of or move past with some magical amount of time or prayer.

The message that my friendships should endure brought up a surprising amount of shame for me.

Was there something wrong with me if we didn’t make it “through thick and thin?” Was my growing distance with some people a sign of failure on my part? Was I less likable now that I had been through trauma? Were people afraid of me?

Shame tells us to try harder, explain more, stay quiet about our pain, and try to manage other’s emotions. But my shame wasn’t a moral failing—it was an invitation to understand this new version of me.

Motherhood and trauma had changed me. It made sense for my friendships to change, too.

Letting go of a friendship isn’t a sign of failure, it isn’t even a message of not loving that person anymore. Instead, I think it’s honoring the person you’re becoming—the version of you that longs to be known and deserves to feel known in friendships, too.

Change—both in us and in our friendships—can be holy. It’s acknowledging things that don’t fit and finding connections that nurture our current selves and seasons.

One person, who I deeply love, just did not show up for me in my suffering. What hurt the most was how much I had shown her love and care when she went through something hard. I don’t know why she didn’t make it a priority to be present for me and I probably never will.

But I found freedom when I realized it didn’t diminish our friendship history to move on from what wasn’t working anymore. I could be thankful for the memories and acknowledge that in this season, it was time for something different.

My shame put my needs on display and I wasn’t receiving what I needed in that friendship. With a bit of courage, I decided to move on.

I could walk away, find people who were willing to know me, to stick with me in my questions, embrace me in my fear, and be fully present for me right where I was. There, I was known, and in the place of shame I found people who were ready to love the version of me that exists now without trying to push me back into being who I was before.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” – C.S. Lewis

P.S. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not quite you anymore, my latest podcast episode, "I don’t feel like myself anymore" might resonate. I’m diving into the tough, messy side of losing and rediscovering yourself after trauma, with some real talk on faith, motherhood, and mental health. Listen in if you're navigating this season too, or forward it to a friend who might need it. ❤️ Find it anywhere you get your podcasts or right here! ⬇️