'It's not even that bad'...

When the everyday load gets heavy to carry...

Every time I start to admit to myself that things feel heavy…

I immediately think about the mothers who have it harder.

The mothers looking at their whole heart in a hospital bed, grieving loss, doing this alone, navigating financial struggles…

Suddenly my own load feels too ordinary to mention. That I should just keep on keeping on and be grateful that my hard moments could be someone else’s dream day.

But I’m starting to wonder if that’s exactly how high-achieving women end up carrying far more than anyone realises…

Why do we need our suffering to feel ‘bad enough’ before we allow ourselves to acknowledge it out loud?

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You know the feeling of being overstimulated and at the edge of your capacity as a mum, but then when you open your mouth to mention it or ask for help – you suddenly think of the mothers who are struggling more than you or the fear of looking like you can’t manage motherhood, and just push it down and go wash the dishes or prepare another snack plate?

I’ve found myself inside of that lately…

An accumulation of small things that have compounded over a number of weeks to leave me feeling like I was one misplaced lego piece away from crashing out (internally of course)

I have a tiny village that consists of a nanny that comes for 5 hours to play with the kids so I can get some work done, and my mum who comes for 3ish hours another day for the same reason.

6 weeks ago that village disappeared – my nanny got an amazing temporary job in the industry she’s studying for and would be unavailable till mid August. Then my mum went inter-state for her annual caravan trip for 5 weeks, and has only just returned.

Within that time, we also had 2 weeks of school holidays so I had my 4.5yo home with me the 2 days she’d normally be at kindergarten. Couple that with a 2yo who is now no longer napping…meant some long days of trying to keep them entertained on my own.

Then we got sick.

A respiratory virus that knocked me down for a few days (still coughing now though) then made it’s way to my 4.5yo who got impacted badly – very high temperatures over 5-6 days, a croup cough that was a worry in itself, 3 hospital trips due to temps & trying to rule out a bacterial infection.

We’re now at day 17 since her first temp rise and have spent the majority of that inside our house recovering and avoiding anything strenuous to trigger her cough.

I haven’t been able to do much work on my consulting business and have only managed to keep up on Substack because I can write things from the couch on my phone.

Throw in potential ADHD and post-weaning (perimenopause?) hormones, and it all got on top of me.

Keeping kids entertained inside all day – one who is very sick, and one who has some separation anxiety and wants to koala hug me all day and likes to scream if I touch my phone.

Meals, snacks, picking up toys that reappear 5mins later, endless dishes, trying to keep the house mildly presentable, and just not having the spare time to do things to the level I normally would.

My partner has been so great, he’s been up in the night with our daughter even more so than me, did all the hospital trips while I was home with our youngest – all while in a very busy period for his business.

We’re both in a phase of trying to catch up capacity wise with the events of the past few weeks.

And then as a high-achiever who prides myself on building my capacity to adjust to the things thrown my way…

I suddenly felt like I couldn’t. The bandwidth didn’t feel accessible.

There was a shame in that which kept me brewing internally and trying to work on my regulation and tiny moments of self-care silently, knowing things would pass…

But there was also a shame in thinking my situation ‘isn’t even that bad’

So why aren’t you coping better

I was reading about mums going through such challenging times with their kids, experiencing loss, emails about children we know in hospital with serious conditions, news reports about terrible things

Situations where I thought to myself, if this happened to you right now you actually wouldn’t be coping…so snap yourself together.

I didn’t know how or whether to write about it. I want to be honest with what I’m navigating as I build my career back up after motherhood and the REAL things that happen in the pursuit of that…

But it also felt like it wasn’t worthy enough of a struggle. It wasn’t big enough…or serious enough to put out there. Maybe that’s the high-achieving counsellor in me – after all the tough things I’ve heard about through my professional & personal life…a little bit of temporary sickness & days of solo parenting wasn’t that high on the scale

Then I realised that this is the kind of attitude that likely keeps so many mothers silent in their day-to-day struggles. Because they feel like it’s not ‘bad enough’ or that they should just be able to ‘manage’ the mental load because every other mum is doing it too

That they wait and wait and wait to say anything until it all compounds, and actually builds into something ‘bad enough’ like burnout or illness

It’s like a weight of carrying 1000 tiny stones and trying not to drop any, rather than being handed a 60kg rock

That the general exhaustion of showing up and completely so many repetitive, mundane & important tasks on top of worrying or lack of sleep or comparison or mum guilt – can take it’s toll

So I decided to write about it…not for sympathy or validation. But to show that we can talk about the smaller struggles out loud, the days where the load gets on top of us or a curveball comes and throws us off our tracks for a little while. That it’s ok to feel out of balance when the mothering hat takes over all of the other hats for a bit.

To acknowledge the little stones that keep needing to be held or get added to the pile that already feels heavy to hold.

I’ve been reminded again through this that fluffy self-care like a coffee in the sun, a funny tv show or an early night don’t replace asking for support. That sometimes the strongest thing you can do is ask someone else to hold some of the stones, or be ok with putting a bunch of them down so you feel stronger.

I’m working on rebuilding my capacity and getting back into some normality again (mum is home, nanny is back next week and we should be able to resume normal activities like kinder etc).

I could have kept it to myself and come back with an article on juggling work & motherhood well, but this is the real life shit that sidelines mums as they pursue all that matters to them – so I know it’s important to share.

That my career comeback era will be made up of many moments like this – sick days, slow days, silent days, scattered days – and the biggest thing we can do is acknowledge it, support ourselves, and return again & again.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments. Have you struggled with overload, then felt guilty or silent because others have it worse? Do you find it helpful to hear about how other mums find the everyday mental load challenging at times?

I’m working towards my delulu goal of 500 ambitious mum subscribers, so if you’re reading this as one of my followers or not yet part of the More Than Mama clan - it would mean so much to have you subscribe and support you as we build meaningful work alongside the realities of motherhood.

In your career comeback era too?

If you’re also building meaningful work alongside the realities of motherhood, then I’m looking to run a small group cohort in September called Comeback Era

– where we support each other to show up for the work that matters and practice our staying power – especially after the days that feel like a setback.

I’m gathering interest on a free waitlist which you can join below and I will be in touch with more details in the next week. There’s already 5 mamas on there 😊

Join the waitlist here!