The Mental Load: A Note About Work Anxiety and Raising a Calm Child

A diary entry from our Editor

Photo credit: Pinterest

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. For the first time in my career, I actually love what I do. I work in communications for an agency, spending my days speaking with journalists and collaborating with clients. But after nine months of maternity leave, something became crystal clear to me....I struggle with work anxiety.

I have returned to work and I am back at peak stress levels. Every mistake, every bit of critical feedback, eats up my confidence and my time. Time? You ask. Anxiety makes my heart race, my fingers fidget restlessly, and I stare at blank emails waiting to be written and nothing comes out.

Don’t make mountains out of molehills, they say. But what if that’s what I was trained to do my entire life, I learnt that molehills are mountains. How can I unlearn that? More importantly, how can I stop myself from teaching that to my son? How can I create a child exempt from my flaws, exempt from my stress levels?

"Don’t make mountains out of molehills, they say. But what if that’s what I was trained to do my entire life." - The Editor

The worst part about all of this is that it’s pretty bloody hard. In order to raise a child with healthy habits, I have to have healthy habits myself. In order to raise a calm child, I have to be calm myself.

They say to put the work in before you have a kid, and believe me, I have tried. This journey started way before having my first baby. From therapy courses to an anxiety diagnosis and then an ADHD assessment, I have followed the medical route. I have also gone down the holistic path, implementing yoga, meditation, breathwork, and regular walks into my routine.

But then you bring a baby into the world in replacement of your paid job for a few months, and for me at least, I felt calmer, more composed. I typically felt most stressed when my partner came home and didn’t click to my attention instantly - irrational, I know. But overall, my stress levels changed for the better.

Luckily for me, stress has not been a defining part of my motherhood experience. I went nine months with little anxiety, low stress levels, working out and moving regularly. I will not say that healthy eating was a part of that experience because many a pastry and ice cream were consumed daily.

But then some mums, myself included, need to add the job back in. I started work again after nine months and my baby went into nursery. Now, some days I feel like I barely have the time to shower or wash my hair. I say “feel like” because for me, it is a mental blocker, not a real time constraint. Between pick-ups and drop-offs, weaning him off breast milk, and making sure I have enough time to hang with my baby before and after work, there is little time left for me and my husband, or even a shower.

When our baby goes to bed at 7:30 pm - if we manage to get him down - dinner and the list of household chores pile on top of you. You just have to hope that you don’t have additional work to get to.

I felt my anxiety levels acutely today, sitting on the tube in London at 6:30 pm, half an hour after walking out of the office. They had barely declined, still operating at a high level. Rushing home to get back for bedtime. I tried to read a book, and that lasted a minute before I realised it just wasn’t going to happen. I couldn't relax.

So instead, I took to my notes section on my phone to write you this diary entry. This snippet into my experience as a mother, or a “working mother” as the world likes to label us. I am scared that I won't be able to find a way to calm my anxiety. I fear that I will bring this anxiety home with me. I fear that my anxiety will raise an anxious child.

I suppose this entire diary entry is to say I do not have an answer or a learning here for you. It is in fact just a diary entry of my feelings, my thoughts, and a download from my notes app.

You could, I suppose, see this as a call for help. Mothers, please share your stories on how you are managing the mental load, no matter what role you are playing at the moment.

I need your insights as much as the next mother, and I would love to share them with this community. Please send to zoeemilybull@gmail.com.