Can't Stop Thinking about Everything for Everyone? That's Mental Load.

Wondering what mental load is? Or why you’re tired even when you’ve slept decently? Perhaps why you’re doing more work when someone’s offered to ‘help’ you? 

It's not packing the school lunch. It's knowing the goldfish crackers are almost out — and that this child only eats the rainbow ones, not the regular ones, never the regular ones — and that you are, somehow, the only person in your household who holds this information.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

Now multiply that by a 100. For each kid. For each person in the household. That’s the mental load you are carrying. 

Mental load is the cognitive, emotional, and physical load of thinking about everything for everyone everyday.

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It is the invisible labor of running a household. Of running life. 

It’s not the doing part alone - it’s the relentless thinking behind all the doing. 

Mental load is anticipating, exploring, deciding, planning, possibly delegating, tracking, noticing, nagging, remembering, re-nagging, and eventually just doing it yourself (more often than you care to admit) — and quietly losing your mind so that everyone else doesn't have to.

Your household is supportive. Genuinely. And yet somehow, when someone offers to help, you find yourself writing a how-to guide - with what to do and how to do it. Because they need the guide. Because you’ve been doing things for far too long, that you know how to get it done. Because honestly, you're not sure anyone else even knows where to start.

Your labor is invisible. Even to the people who love you. 

No wonder you're exhausted by 9pm. No wonder your "me time" is doom scrolling at midnight when you should be sleeping. No wonder you've started to feel like you're running on fumes.

Know this - you’re not alone. I also thought that my mental load was a ‘me’ problem. It turned out that it wasn’t. Mental load is a universal problem that needs a solution now. You need a solution now.