When Everyone Thinks You Are Handling It

Some overwhelm does not show, because the woman carrying it is very good at making sure it does not. The thank-you cards went out on time. The freezer is labeled. Every appointment is in the calendar with two reminders. If anyone is worried about you, it is not because you have given them a reason.

Inside, it is a different picture. You are tracking feeds, naps, ounces and moods in your head at all hours, with a running inventory of everything that could go wrong and what you would do about each. You have not sat down without a reason since the baby came home.

Nobody notices because you have arranged it so nobody has to. That was never a trick. It is a skill, and very likely one you learned long before the baby.

• 01

  Answering 'How are you?' with 'Busy, but good' before the question is finished

• 02

  A flash of panic when someone offers to help, because now you have to explain how things are done

• 03

  Redoing what your partner did, then resenting that you are the one who does everything

• 04

  Saving the crying for the drive home, with the radio up

• 05

  Being praised for how well you are doing, and feeling lonelier each time

• 06

  Coming undone over a lost sock or a changed plan while the big things stay flawless

Capable women tend to be overwhelmed in exactly the places other people do not look. The tasks get done, so everyone reads the tasks. Your partner sees a fed baby and a running house. Your mother sees the photos. Your doctor sees a woman who arrived on time with her questions written down. Each of them is reassured by evidence you produced.

There is often an older reason as well. If you grew up as the easy one, the responsible one, the child who did not add to anyone's load, competence may be how you learned to stay safe and stay loved. Motherhood asks for more than any one person can give, and that old strategy answers the only way it knows: work harder, show less.

Performing fine is work on top of everything else. It costs sleep, because your mind uses the quiet hours to audit the day. It costs closeness, because people cannot help with what they cannot see, and after a while they stop offering. And it costs time: anxiety or depression can run for months behind a capable face before anyone names it.

Letting someone see it does not mean falling apart in front of them. It means letting the outside match the inside a little more closely.

• 01

  Tell one person the true version of one day, including the parts you did not handle well.

• 02

  Answer 'How are you?' with one honest sentence. 'Honestly, I am stretched thin' is enough.

• 03

  Hand over one task completely, including how it gets done, and do not redo it.

• 04

  Let one thing stay visibly undone, the laundry on the chair or the unanswered text, and notice that nothing collapses.

• 05

  Tell your doctor or midwife how you are sleeping and feeling, not how well you are managing.

If you are getting through the days but dreading them, if the drive home is the only place you let go, or if nobody knows how you actually are, that belongs in therapy. You do not need a crisis to earn the help.

In therapy with me, how well you are coping is not the question. Internal Family Systems gives a name to what is going on: a part of you that keeps everything running, and a part underneath it that is exhausted and has not been allowed to say so. We get to know both, and why the capable one works so hard. Sessions are in person in Prince George or by telehealth anywhere in Virginia.

If Nobody Knows How Hard This Is

The consultation is free and it is only a conversation. Fifteen minutes, no pressure, and you decide afterward.