3 Minute Read

Author: Sonia Harrison, clinical psychologist, founder Be & Become Psychology

Why does the mental load seem to intensify for so many women during perimenopause and menopause?

For a lot of women, this stage of life coincides with careers being in full swing, kids getting older but still needing you, and parents ageing.

And then, on top of all of that, your brain starts to feel…. different.

The brain fog. Forgetting nouns mid-sentence -you know the one, ‘can you pass me the…the… thing’. Finding that quick thinking and decision-making just takes more effort than it used to. The executive functioning skills you’ve relied on for years, the planning, organising, anticipating, remembering can be affected by hormonal shifts that can also mess with your sleep.

The energy, focus and mental bandwidth you once had? It’s just not the same.

And here’s the thing, what hasn’t changed is the mental load.

You’re still tracking everything. Still remembering what everyone needs and noticing the things nobody else seems to notice.

And you’re still carrying most of the emotional labour too. Monitoring everyone’s moods, checking in, comforting others, anticipating needs. All while managing your own emotions on top of it.

Emotional labour is deeply connected to the mental load. It’s another layer of invisible work that most people around you don’t see, and don’t count.

It’s why you might feel exhausted even when you’re ‘not doing anything physical.’ Because your brain is continuously engaged in invisible work.

When you’ve been carrying all of this for decades and then have less energy, less sleep, less mental sharpness, it makes complete sense that what once felt hard now feels like too much.

And it’s why you eventually reach that point: ‘why am I still the one doing all of this?’

And it’s not a simple question to sit with, because the pull goes both ways.

On one hand, there’s pressure, internal and external, to keep managing everything the way you always have, even with less energy and capacity to do it.

On the other, you’re looking around thinking—surely by now, my kids and husband should be noticing these things, taking more responsibility, rather than it all defaulting back to me. Again.

So many women say they feel exhausted before they even start the day. How do we know when the mental load has shifted from “busy” into burnout?

Busy has a certain pressure to it. There’s a lot to do, you might be tired, but rest actually helps and you still feel resilient enough to get through it all.

Burnout feels different.

It tends to creep in when you’ve been carrying too much, for too long, without enough support, rest or shared responsibility. You wake up tired, and rest doesn’t seem to help. Concentration gets harder. Decision-making feels heavier. You find yourself feeling detached from things that used to matter, and might find yourself thinking ‘I can’t keep doing this.’

And then there’s peri/menopause, which can bring its own fatigue, brain fog, sleep disruption and emotional shifts. It can look a lot like burnout. For many women, both are happening at the same time.

A few questions worth asking yourself:

• Do I feel constantly drained, no matter how much sleep I get?
• Am I feeling detached, numb or disconnected from things that used to matter to me? Like I’m going through the motions without much enjoyment or connection?

Busy	Burnout
Life feels full and demanding	Life feels emotionally and physically draining
Tired, but rest helps	Tired all the time, even after rest
May feel overwhelmed, but still coping	Feeling like you can’t keep doing this
Can still enjoy things	Feeling detached or disconnected
Energy improves when demands reduce	Energy doesn’t bounce back

One of the hardest parts of the mental load is that much of it is invisible. Why is it still so difficult for women to communicate what they are carrying, at home, at work, and emotionally?

The mental load has been carried for so long it just feels normal. Anticipating, monitoring, remembering, mentally scheduling, noticing, scanning ahead.

All invisible. All in your head. You cope. You manage. You keep things moving.

And there’s a reason for that. Social conditioning plays a big role. Directly and indirectly, many women have been raised to believe that nurturing and keeping everything running behind the scenes is just part of their role. Speak up and you risk being seen as complaining, difficult, ungrateful, or failing at ‘your job’.

And when you do try to explain it? The response you get matters, a lot. Being dismissed, minimised or met with defensiveness shuts it down fast. So, the path of least resistance wins: it’s just ‘easier’ to keep on keeping on.

Layer that belief, that it’s your responsibility, with the pushback you get when you try to raise it, and it becomes harder and harder to talk about.

Until one day, you snap over something small. You get the bombastic side eye from the people around you because everyone thinks you’re overreacting to this small thing. But you’re not, you’re reacting to years of carrying too much, with no real break from it.

Here’s the other part of it: you can’t clearly communicate an invisible burden until you can name it for yourself. You know you’re exhausted, frustrated and completely over it, you just can’t always explain why. So, it comes out messy, emotional, reactive. Maybe an argument. Maybe nothing changes.

Eventually, you stop bringing it up, until you’ve had enough again.

It’s a cycle. Solutions exist, but without knowing what they are, or how to use them, it just keeps repeating.

What are some practical ways women can start reducing the mental load without feeling guilty or like they are “failing” everyone around them?

Here’s the thing about guilt, it can keep women stuck.

A lot of women carry the mental load because they genuinely believe it’s their job to keep everything running, otherwise things won’t get done. As long as that belief continues in the background, your attempts to change things often won’t stick. You’ll try, and then quietly slip back into carrying it all again. Sound familiar?

There’s something really important to recognise first. Carrying everything is not the same as being caring. Or competent. Or a good partner or parent.

Other adults are capable of remembering things, planning ahead, and taking initiative and following through. They just haven’t had to in this area of family life.

Changing your beliefs can feel really uncomfortable, but once that belief starts to loosen its grip, the practical strategies actually become possible.

A good place to start? Make the invisible visible. Talking about and showing what’s happening behind the scenes. Voice notes your full mental load and print it off.  Map the hidden steps inside a ‘simple’ task and how that task connects to the next one. Stick post-it notes on everyday jobs and list out all the thinking involved in everyday tasks you quietly own. ‘Just making dinner’ can start to cover a kitchen bench when you write down the planning, shopping, remembering and coordinating happening behind the scenes.

However, making the invisible visible is only part of it. The real shift happens when you move away from asking for help to handing over ownership. Whoever owns the task owns the whole thing, the remembering, the planning, the organising, the follow-through. Not just the doing.

Sonia Harrison is the clinical psychologist behind Be & Become Psychology, an online practice supporting women across Australia. She helps women who are carrying family life, work and everything in between to lighten their mental load and make space for better well-being. With more than 20 years working across a broad range of mental health settings, Sonia brings deep clinical insight to her work with women. As a wife, mother and business owner she has learned to lighten her own mental load. Now she helps other women do the same.