In my Denver therapy practice, I work with many mothers juggling work and family. They are capable, warm, conscientious, and have a history of accomplishment. Yet as demands have multiplied, the margin for difficulty has disappeared.
Work, children, and managing a household are hard individually, even more so in combination. Whether in a marriage that's become harder to tend or managing more on your own, you often feel out of step with the people closest to you, wanting to parent thoughtfully but without the energy or support to do so.
The hardest part is often the story you carry alongside all of this — you've excelled when the stakes were high and yet can't seem to stay on top of things that should be easy. Even though it's not accurate, you feel like you're letting everyone down.
The strategies that once worked — the perfectionism that ensured quality, the willingness to take on more, the difficulty saying no — were adaptive at one point. They stopped working when demands increased in ways the old approaches couldn't keep up with.
Attention, executive functioning difficulties, anxiety, a loss, illness, sleep problems, or perimenopause often also contribute, sometimes bringing attention and memory difficulties that were manageable before to the surface right as everything else is asking more of you. A child's ADHD diagnosis can also prompt a closer look at your history and lead you to consider testing for yourself.
Therapy focuses on understanding what's actually been happening. That often means looking at where limits are hard to set and why, and how collaboration with the people around you might work better. It may also involve being challenged about habits that are no longer working.
As our work progresses, your sense of agency and competence tends to grow. New options occur to you in situations that once felt all-or-nothing. When things slip, there's less self-blame and more of a felt sense that you've been here before and know the way back.
You don't have to figure this out by yourself. I'd be glad to set up a consultation.