Too Strong for Too Long: The Hidden Burnout of Motherhood
The Things I Never Said Out Loud
It’s 2am again.
The house is quiet, but my mind isn’t.
There are thoughts I’ve never said out loud.
Ones I’ve buried under endless advocacy emails, therapy sessions, and coffee cups gone cold.
Like the day I sat in my car before a school meeting and thought, I can’t go in. I don’t want to explain him again. I don’t want to beg one more time to be believed.
A few days ago, I sat in one of those meetings again - me, my husband, our son’s OT, and his Spelling to Communicate teacher. We’d come in hopeful, ready to share the progress we’d seen and the joy we’d witnessed. Ready to show that presuming competence changes everything.
But the teacher in charge wasn’t there. “Out sick,” we were told.
And the conversation that followed… it drained the hope right out of me.
The same script appeared: “The other children are afraid of him.” “He’s aggressive.”
Words that flatten complexity into fear.
The principal asked, almost kindly, if I’d considered homeschooling. Not as an option… as an escape. I’d mentioned it once, as a last resort when I was at the end of my rope.
And that’s when I felt it again. The despair.
Because my son is thriving… just not in the system that refuses to see him.
He’s not too much. He’s simply too different for structures unwilling to stretch.
That’s what despair looks like.
Watching your child grow, and realising the system refuses to grow with him.
These thoughts don’t make me weak.
They make me a mother who’s been too strong for too long.
The Myth of the Indestructible Mother
Sociologist Dr Sophie Brock calls it The Perfect Mother Myth - the idea that a good mother is endlessly patient, endlessly giving, endlessly composed.
The world doesn’t ask how we’re doing. It assumes.
It assumes strength. It praises resilience.
“You’re amazing,” they say, while we quietly disassociate from chronic stress.
That kind of strength is lonely.
It demands silence. It demands smiling while you drown.
Dr Aditi Nerurkar calls this the allostatic load - when the body is stuck in long-term stress without reprieve.
You wake up tired. You go to bed wired.
You drink coffee to feel something and scroll at 3am to feel less alone.
You’re not broken. You’re human.
And you’ve been surviving an impossible situation without enough support.
Solitude in a Crowded House
You can be surrounded by people and still feel unseen.
Sometimes it’s not the meltdowns or the meetings that break you… it’s the invisibility. The quiet ache of being misunderstood even by the people you love most.
I adore my husband. We’re on the same team… but we cope differently.
And we both feel unseen.
As Brené Brown reminds us, “Shame needs three things to survive: secrecy, silence, and judgment.”
I’ve had all three.
I’ve swallowed words at dinner. Held my tongue in meetings. Smiled through panic attacks.
Until it leaked out sideways: sarcasm, tears, shortness, rage.
If you’re reading this with clenched shoulders or a tight jaw, soften them for a second.
Whisper to yourself:
“I don’t deserve to be invisible.”
Micro-Fractures and Quiet Cracks
Not all breaking looks dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like staring at the floor for twenty minutes while your tea goes cold.
It looks like forgetting why you walked into a room.
It looks like saying “I’m grand” on autopilot.
It’s not laziness… it’s biology.
When fight or flight are impossible, the body freezes.
That’s not failure. That’s a nervous system doing its best to protect you.
There’s a thought I’ve had I don’t say out loud:
What if I just went away for a week? Would everyone be better off?
That’s not suicidal ideation.
That’s maternal burnout… and it’s far more common than we admit.
Take a breath.
You’re safe to name what’s true.
Even if it’s only to yourself.
Rage Against the Machine
Sara O’Brien, The Autistic Social Worker, writes:
“Parents aren’t pushy. They’re exhausted by years of not being heard.”
We are told to be polite. To trust the system. To stay composed.
But the system wasn’t built for our children.
It was built for conformity, not compassion.
I’m tired of needing to package my advocacy in palatable language.
Of performing patience to be taken seriously.
Of being called “difficult” for demanding rights already written into law.
Some days, I fantasise about burning it all down.
Then I reheat leftover pasta and fill out another 17-page form, because that’s what love looks like in practice - rage and devotion tangled together.
Rage isn’t wrong.
It’s a response to injustice.
Let it move through you, not against you.
The Fantasy of Escape
Sometimes I imagine running away. Not from my children, but from the noise.
From the endless doing. From the cage of being everything to everyone.
As adrienne maree brown says, “Joy is a form of resistance.”
So I rebel quietly.
I skip therapy for puddle jumping.
Nap while the laundry waits.
That’s my micro-revolution.
And maybe that’s yours too.
You don’t have to earn your rest.
You’re allowed to want out sometimes.
You’re allowed to be more than what’s left of you.
Redefining Strength
Matrescence changes us… but post-diagnosis matrescence dismantles us.
We become the lioness and the sacrificial lamb, the advocate and the afterthought, the researcher and the emotional sponge.
And still, we’re expected to smile.
But strength isn’t silent endurance.
It’s honest vulnerability.
It’s saying, “I can’t keep doing this alone.”
Strength is crying in front of your child.
It’s saying no to one more meeting.
It’s texting a friend: “I have nothing to give, but can you sit with me anyway?”
We need less fixing.
More witnessing.
Letting the Cracks Sing
There’s a Japanese art called kintsugi - mending broken pottery with gold.
The cracks become the beauty.
My gold is made of 3am messages, half-drunk tea, laughter through tears, fridge artwork, and the whispered “I love you even when you scream.”
When I show my cracks, other mothers whisper, “Me too.”
Together, we become a mosaic - imperfect, radiant, real.
We make the invisible visible.
That’s how we heal:
Not by pretending to be unbreakable, but by letting our cracks sing.
No Pretty Bow — Just Breath
If you’re here at the end, maybe you’ve had your own breaking.
Your own 2am scroll. Your own meeting that left you hollow.
You are not weak for wanting more.
You are not broken for dreaming of escape.
You are not failing because today felt like too much.
You are a mother in a world that expects you to survive without support… and blames you when you can’t.
So tonight, choose one thing to let go of.
One guilt. One expectation. One load that isn’t yours to carry.
Exhale.
Unclench.
Rest.
You are not alone in this.
You never were.
And if no one else says it today, I will:
You are doing an impossible job with ferocity, grace, and breathtaking love.
You are enough.
Go gently. And if gentle feels impossible, go real. I’ll meet you in the honesty.
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Next step
If this story resonates, you might find my free guide The First 30 Days especially grounding — a gentle companion for those early weeks after diagnosis. Download it here →
