The Myth of “Having It All”: The Mental Load Women Carry and How Therapy Can Help
By Sarah I. Serluco LCSW
Many women are taught, directly or indirectly, that being capable means being available to everyone. We become the person who remembers the appointments, notices when a child is struggling, checks on an aging parent, helps a friend through a crisis, keeps the household moving, and still shows up professionally with a smile. (That is me every day!) We are not simply doing many things. We are being many things to many people: employee, partner, mother, daughter, caregiver, friend, organizer, problem-solver, and emotional anchor. Even when no one asks us outright, we may feel responsible for anticipating what everyone needs next. That invisible responsibility is part of the mental load. It includes not only completing tasks, but remembering, planning, monitoring, worrying, and preparing for them. The body may be sitting still while the mind continues running through tomorrow’s schedule, a parent’s medical needs, a child’s school issue, an unanswered work email, and what to get on the next Target run.
What Women Sacrifice
Sometimes women turn down promotions, change careers, reduce their hours, or leave work entirely to care for others. At other times, the sacrifices are smaller but constant: the workout skipped, the medical appointment postponed, the hobby abandoned, or the quiet hour that never happens. Over time, these choices can create exhaustion, resentment, anxiety, or a loss of identity. When our energy is depleted, even the things that might help us feel better can seem like more work. Self-care becomes another item on the list rather than something restorative. Our relationships can suffer too. Intimacy requires energy, presence, and space, all of which are difficult to access when our minds are managing fifteen unfinished responsibilities. We may love our partners deeply yet have little left for affection, conversation, or sex. Friendships may become another place where we feel guilty for not giving enough. A client, a working mom and entrepreneur, once told me in therapy that her partner rejected her because she didn’t hug him enough! Her lack of presence in the relationship, because she was trying hard to ‘have it all’, created distance between her and her partner.
The Myth of Having It All
I once heard Jada Pinkett Smith say that women could have it all, and I believed it. Many of us did. But the idea that we can have everything, give everything our full attention, and do it all at once isn’t true. Having a meaningful career, close relationships, a family, and a life that feels like our own may be possible. But every season involves choices, limits, and tradeoffs. Pretending otherwise leaves women believing that normal human limitations are personal failures. A Forbes article by Lynn Hall on working motherhood asks, “Why does society expect working moms to find happiness in having it all?” That question remains important. Maybe happiness is not found in having it all. Maybe it comes from deciding what matters now and letting go of the expectation that we must carry everything perfectly.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy cannot add hours to your day or remove every responsibility. It can, however, help you recognize the weight you are carrying and understand why setting it down may feel so difficult. At SIS Counseling in Atlanta, Georgia, therapy for women offers a space where you do not have to take care of anyone else. Together, we can explore anxiety, guilt, perfectionism, relationship strain, caregiving stress, and changes in identity. Therapy can help you clarify what is truly yours to manage, communicate your needs, create healthier boundaries, and reconnect with parts of yourself that may have been placed on hold. You do not need to earn rest by finishing an endless list. You also don't have to abandon the people you love to care for yourself. The goal is not to do everything; it is to build a life in which you are included among the people who matter.
