The Mental Load is Killing Mother’s Mental Health

The Mental Load Made Me Do It

You know the drill, it’s 8:25 a.m. on a seemingly nice and happy Thursday morning, things are hectic as per and one thing too many prompts a snide, passive aggressive or just straight up snarl from yourself that makes the partner ask ‘What’s wrong?’. Instantly that question gets your back-up, no need to tell me why, I get it. I’ve got ‘it’ for years, yet never had a term to put to the ‘it’. The partner, on the other hand, probably don’t get ‘it’. And so the shoulder blades rise as you struggle to define the ever present ‘it’ that makes your mind an overloaded, always functioning, constantly juggling swirl of overwhelm that has no time for repeated asks or the eye-roll inducing ‘where’s my…’ questions. No, your mind is far too busy dealing with the mental load.

What is the mental load?

The mental load is a term for the invisible labor involved in managing a household and family, which typically falls on women’s shoulders.

www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/what-is-the-mental-load

You want to scream ‘are you fucking kidding me?!’ and recite the 3000 lists in your head, but please, you don’t have the time and energy is sparse too. But being perceived as a raging, unreasonable and unjustified overly stressed maniac doesn’t sit well either.

“What’s wrong” is you are overloaded. Remember that meme? The one that goes a little like ‘I have 400 tabs open in my mind right now‘. Quite frankly, we don’t have the time or space to discuss ‘what’s wrong’ at this present moment. It is so true; the majority of mothers have list upon list of shit that needs done, remembered or actioned soon, mixed in with another hard drives worth of thoughts about body image, health, snacks, clothes, hobbies, sex, worries, blah blah blah. You get the drift. It is BUSY in there.

Tip of The Iceberg,

My non-Mental-Load-Understanding Friend 

What’s wrong isn’t the pile of clothes from last night on the floor. Or the fact 2 children are chappin my ass and I haven’t even been for my morning pee yet. That pisses me off yes. Hey, that’s parenthood right? All the mess, the crazy, the 6 a.m. screams and tantrums, the bargaining with the 7 year old that no, taking her favourite toy to school isn’t a good idea, instead take Turtle, a less beloved friend. Mornings, evenings, weekends; all whirlwind of crazy as we ‘enjoy’ it whilst it lasts. And silently cry in the shower that we can’t enjoy it due to that big olde back ache called the MENTAL LOAD.

(Check out Happy As A Mother if you want to read more about the mental load - plus they are a great resource for parents, they blow my mind with every post.)

The mental load is that thing you find hard to describe, the ever present mental list of shit that occupies your mind so much, that seemingly small and insignificant things can force your top to blow and produce the screaming parent known as ‘GET THE SHOES ON NOW!!!! FOR THE 14^th TIME! SO HELP ME!!!!’. Yeah, that parent.

I’m Actually Not A Ruthless Raging B*tch

Myself, like many people, struggle to articulate this mental load affliction and the resentment/frustration it builds within. Or rather, struggle to articulate it in a productive and healthy manner. Apparently muttering ‘for fuck sake, this place is a mess’ isn’t conducive to a healthy, communicative discussion. Nor does it provide the partner with any insight to the issue. Other than there is an issue and you may very well be in this raging-bull mood for quite some time.

I certainly fail at any attempts of a healthy conveyance of ‘grievances’ during the early morning school run rush – the time I am most likely to lose my shit. And also again at dinner time. And bedtime. And being woke during the night. The best way for me to explain why the fuse is so short is to describe exactly what is going on in my mind on a daily basis. To divulge that largely invisible and thus forgotten (but not by those that are dealing with it) mental load. And that’s part of the issue; us parents have become so expert at creating, collating and managing invisible mental loads that to the outsider there appears to be nothing more to parenting than hugs, nightly wakes and wiping of poopy bums.

If only.

Constantly managing and updating multiple mental ‘to-do lists’, it becomes a little easier to understand why mothers lose our shit on the daily. The question of ‘have you seen my jumper?’ from the partner becomes less of a innocent query and more of another brick upon our backs as we rage clean the stuff left out from last night, whilst complaining the place is a mess and spouting ‘no fucker ever picks up anything in this house’ – absolute classic, heirloom maw phrase if you ask me.

What I’m trying to say, what I need to say, is my mind is full at this moment in time (when is it not?) and being asked silly questions or seeing so much mess burdens me more. I feel like I am being pulled in 30 different directions, with very little mental space to deal with it. I am acting grumpy as I am at maximum capacity. And if that still doesn’t make sense, then here’s a list I complied of some of the thoughts pacing through my mind on this ‘breezy’ Thursday morning.

My morning mental load goes a little like this:

And that’s not even a rough day. There’s seasonal mental load. Or the load that comes with the kids social calendar. Birthdays, parties, outing, requests – they all slip into the mental load.

Please Don’t Tell us to ‘Ask For Help’ – I Have.

You could argue a better routine or more structure may help, but I doubt it. The school clothes are prepped, ironed in advance (sometimes), the snacks have been bought, everything is there for an easy and swift school morning – ha fucking ha. It doesn’t work that way.

So I martyr about, hurriedly getting the kids ready, packing bags and putting the dishwasher on at the same time – why I do that, because if I don’t, then it eats in to my oh so precious ‘alone’ time when the kids are out. Which currently sits at 2 hours, twice a week. In which I usually do not spend that time on myself – I don’t count job hunting or having mini panics of ‘what the fuck am I doing with my life’ to be relaxing, zen, alone time.

You could look at that list and think, I could cut some of the load out. Don’t worry about the library books. The washing will be done later. So what if the bed covers aren’t pulled back. Make a list of things to buy and let my mind be free of it for now. But that is not how the mental load works. The mental load is an ever present load for the simple reason that if I don’t think about or do it, it will not get done.

End of.

Otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting my sanity thinking about it. There are a plethora of reasons why this is my mental load; lets not make another list, that’s not what is important right now. The issue is, this mental load is churning constantly, a high functioning overactive excel sheet with 300 columns of shit to think about, each containing 300 rows in each.

Passing Over The Load? Don’t be Naïve

If you think I could delegate, then you don’t understand the ‘mental load’. A lot of the things on this list are not my load to mental about, but I do. Because I want and need to run the house, family, life, well. To delegate would only cause resentment if one of the items slipped through the net. Or worse, would cause and emotional outburst from a distraught daughter going to school without her snack or in the wrong type of clothes for that day – which I learnt from previous experience.

There have been many things I have passed over to my partner, removing them from my mental list and onto his; Christmas present for relatives being one. But even then, I’m not completely void of it. I would like to believe if the tables switched, if I was the one going to work each day then the mental load could be shared more, equal and less of a burden on me. But I’ve been there, crumbled under that. That’s not how a sexist society functions. It’s a myth; the heavy burden of the mental load would still fall on the mothers shoulders – in my household at least.

So, the next time you lose your shit, morning, lunch, evening, whatever and you find yourself doing that mad rage filled ‘this fucking place’ or the ‘nothing, I’m fine, I need to hurry up’ – polite ‘fuck this place’, then know I get you. Your mind is (to quote my granda) ‘going like the clappers’, checking off mental ‘to-do lists’ and adding about 40 new items to that list. All while a kid or 2 screams round the place, naked and your optimistic cup of tea has gone cold, then the partner just asked what day it is – honest to fuck, who asks shit like that?

K x

Check out my brutally honest, and hilarious of course, journey through postnatal depression:

Not All Mothers Love Their Baby (Well, not straight away at least) Available on Amazon.