“Who am I now, without them? The identity crisis no one talks about.”

Grief doesn’t just break your heart.
It breaks your sense of self. 

No one told me that after loss, I’d look in the mirror and not recognize the woman staring back.
That the things I once loved would feel hollow.
That the roles I used to fill so easily would suddenly feel foreign.

It’s not just the child I lost—
it’s the version of me who died with him.

The Identity Crisis No One Talks About

They talk about sadness.
They talk about anger.
But no one talks about the confusion.

The Who am I now?
The Will I ever feel like myself again?
The aching silence where your purpose used to live.

When you lose a child, a piece of your identity goes with them—
and what’s left behind is this fractured, unfamiliar version of you trying to survive in a world that no longer makes sense.

You’re still a mother… but not in the way you were.
You’re still you… but not the same.

And that’s where the unraveling begins.

What Rebuilding Really Looks Like

It’s not about finding your old self.
It’s about becoming someone new—
someone who holds love and loss in the same breath.

Here’s what that looked like for me:

1. Releasing the pressure to “go back.”

I stopped trying to get back to the woman I was before.
She didn’t know this kind of ache.
She hadn’t been split wide open by love and loss.

And maybe… she wasn’t meant to come back.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to return to who I was,
but rise into someone softer, slower, more sacred.

2. Letting grief become part of my identity—not all of it.

For a while, grief was everything.
It covered every corner of my life.
And I honored that.
But over time, I learned that I could also be more than my pain.

I am still a mother.
I am still creative.
I am still capable of joy.
Grief walks with me—but it does not define me.

3. Exploring new parts of myself.

Loss shattered the identity I knew,
but it also created space.

I started writing again.
I started walking in nature.

I started cultivating daily habits that were helpful over numbing.

I learned how to be alone in ways I never had before.

Sometimes, we discover new parts of ourselves not in spite of grief—but because of it.

4. Allowing duality.

One of the most profound concepts in my healing journey has been this concept of duality. You can laugh and still be grieving.
You can dream of the future and still long for what was.
You can feel lost and still be healing.

You don’t need to choose between joy and sorrow.
You get to hold both. You will hold both.
That’s what makes this journey so holy.

Joy + Sorrow.

Heaviness + Hope.

Gratitude + Longing.

Tears + Laughter.

Forever intertwined.

You’re Not Lost—You’re Becoming

If you feel like a stranger to yourself right now,
please know—this is part of the process.

You are not lost.
You are rebuilding.
And every tear, every breath, every question of “who am I now?”
is laying the foundation for a version of you the world has never seen.

You are not less.
You are becoming someone deeper.
Someone who carries the love of a child into every space she enters.
Someone who is still rising—quietly, slowly, beautifully.

You are not who you were.
But who you are becoming is sacred.

And she is worth waiting for.

Click the link below for some of my fav grief resources.

https://shaunadukes.com/resources/

With all my heart,
Shauna XO