Confronting Parental Burnout
Waking up one morning without the slightest feeling of desire is disturbing, isn’t it?
No desire to hear “I love you” from your sweetheart, or “you’re beautiful Mommy” from your child. Burnouts happen in family life too.Loss of desire is disturbing. And yet, when exhaustion has quietly but insidiously taken over our bodies and minds, that’s the way it feels first one day, then two, then three… This feeling of exhaustion stops us from doing all that we’d like to do, then it stops us from doing the minimum, and finally from doing anything at all. Let’s not be afraid to say the word: Burn-out.
It’s not because you work from home or because everything is going well at the office that you aren’t a candidate for parental burnout. Why wouldn’t you have the right to be tired out by your role as a parent? A role full of responsibility and stress!
An executive mom on maternity leave, mother of four, confessed to me one day that she is more tired now that she’s staying home. The reason being, in addition to the lack of sleep and stress of caring for a family, she never stops. Mothers on maternity leave who are guilty about not working do more. More housework, more activities with their children, more cooking, more entertaining…
Not only are all these activities physically exhausting, but they’re also not recognized by family or friends (it’s normal to eat at your place, you’re not working!) nor are they appreciated. It doesn’t take much more than that for your little bit of self-confidence to evaporate and for you to go on autopilot.
You’re productive, but you don’t exist anymore. Unable to say how many hours you’ve slept or how many times you’ve checked that your front door is closed. How long can we live on autopilot? There are no stats about it, but we’re nonetheless surrounded by examples to think about.
And we all have one or more persons around us who are burned out. Regardless of whether you are a witness or a victim, you know that it’s not worth it. It’s much easier to react to the first signs of fatigue rather than to end up a case of parental burnout.
But we rarely listen to the first signs of fatigue such as lack of attention or irritability, mistakenly thinking that it will take care of itself. It rarely does, because fatigue isn’t a little thing, it’s actually three big things:
Physical fatigue, characterized by backache and/or stomach upset, migraines, skin problems, hormonal imbalances;
Psychological fatigue, characterized by boredom, bad moods, distraction, recurring anxiety, rigidity, feelings of failure;
For men, we’ve noted also a desire to escape, feelings of loss of control, excessive violence, addictive behavior.
Extreme fatigue: “I’m tired of being tired”, frequent or uncommon bouts of moodiness, lack of desire to please or sexual desire, loss of interest in friendships, exaggeration of the importance of events.
These three elements combine and interact with one another. Physical fatigue weighs on one’s self-esteem; psychological fatigue is inversely proportional to self-confidence and exhaustion seems to upset one’s perception of reality. That’s why doing well day to day seems impossible to you. You are physically incapable, you have no desire and each everyday task seems too huge to be executed and much too important to be trusted to you.
A few tips to help you get over parental burnout
Speak out about it without shame or guilt, and get some help. Parental burnout affects mothers and fathers. It’s accompanied by a deep sadness that could be related to depression, but also by a feeling of inability to educate one’s children.
Also, talk about how you feel; putting words to your feelings is vital to keeping in touch with reality. One can say that they can no longer put up with their children, but the reality is that we love them but they disappoint us.
Take care of yourself with as much love as if you were taking care of your best friend. And finally, get some rest! You’re not a machine or a superhero.
