It’s no surprise that many parents experience burnout at some point while raising children. You’re often running on a lack of sleep. You may not have a large support system to fall back on when times get hard. To top it all off, you’re figuring things out as you go.
Each day, you spend at least a moment or two wondering if you’re doing a good job. Trying to plan ahead can feel impossible when unexpected challenges seem to pop up every week. You can barely keep your head above water—and sometimes, you feel like you’ve lost yourself to parenting. Here’s how to recognize the signs of parental burnout so that you can get the help you need.
1. Unrelenting Exhaustion
It’s normal to feel exhausted when you’re a parent. This is especially true when your newborn isn’t sleeping through the night yet. You’re up at all hours, and you struggle to finally fall asleep when your baby does. But burnout is characterized by a deeper kind of exhaustion.
Even when you do get a night off from parenting duties, and you’re able to relax and sleep for hours uninterrupted, you still don’t feel refreshed or energized the next day. In fact, it can seem like no matter what you do, the exhaustion permeates your brain and body and never truly leaves you.
2. Feeling Trapped
Even if you love your children deeply, every parent will experience moments when they miss their life before kids. It’s typical to feel like the sacrifices that parenting entails are worth it, yet also crave the days when you had the freedom to do whatever you wanted. But a parent who is experiencing burnout may feel completely trapped by their new responsibilities.
You may even feel something akin to claustrophobia at times. Being in your home can feel suffocating, and suddenly, you look forward to just going out to run an errand alone. You may even try to delay going home when you’re checking items off of your to-do list.
Part of you might feel guilty for experiencing these emotions, but it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad parent. It just means that you’ve been pushed to your limit, and you need more support and flexibility in order to care for yourself as well as your children.
3. Emotional Detachment
As a parent, the emotional connection you feel towards your children can be overwhelming. But what if you start to feel emotionally detached? It’s not that you don’t care about them anymore, or that you don’t love them—it’s actually another symptom of parental burnout.
You might become emotionally detached simply because your brain can’t handle everything that you’re suddenly responsible for. You’re trying to manage so many different things, and in order to keep going, you end up suppressing your emotions, just to get a little breathing room.
4. Irritability
Have you ever snapped at someone because you were overwhelmed? Anger and stress can go hand-in-hand. If you’re drowning in responsibilities, it can be hard not to get annoyed with everyone around you. At times, you might even feel guilty because you’ve taken out your anger on your partner, children, friends, or other relatives.
But at the same time, you feel like you can’t bite your tongue anymore. You’ve been forced to the brink. It’s important to remember that the anger you feel isn’t who you are. You can process these emotions with support and find healthier coping strategies.
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Do you suspect that you’re suffering from parental burnout? Working with a therapist can help. Reach out to us today to discuss your options for scheduling your first session for anxiety therapy.