The mental load: holding everything together, with nothing left for yourself
Tuesday, 7:15. You are looking for your keys, and at the same time remembering that the water bottle is still in the car, there is no milk, your mother’s birthday is on Saturday and nobody has bought a present, and the school form was due yesterday.
Nobody asked you to remember any of it. You just do.
“I’m holding everything together, but I have nothing left for myself.”
That is the mental load. As I put it in an interview for Onet, what weighs on us is not only the doing. It is the remembering, anticipating, planning and keeping watch.
Take dinner. Someone might say: “Cooking only took twenty minutes.” But before that, someone noticed the fridge was empty, took the meat out of the freezer the night before, remembered what the children won’t eat, planned the shopping and knew who would be home when. Twenty minutes of cooking, and three days of quiet management.
Sociologist Allison Daminger, who studied this in couples, describes the same invisible work in four steps: anticipating needs, identifying options, deciding, and monitoring the result. In her research, women did more of the anticipating and monitoring, even where the visible tasks and the decisions were shared more evenly.
How it creeps in
Nobody ever said: “From today, you remember everything.” It happens one thing at a time. Once you called the dentist because you happened to have your phone in your hand. Once you bought the present because you knew the size. Once you emailed the teacher because it was quicker than explaining to someone else what it was about.
And at some point you stop being the person who is asked. You become the person who is informed. “The school called.” “We need to buy a present.” “I won’t make it, can you take this?” Nobody checks whether you have room, because somehow you always do.
Why it is so tiring
It is not about the number of thoughts. It is about the responsibility you feel for what you are thinking about. Remembering the dentist is, in theory, one task. But underneath it there can be something much bigger: “If I don’t remember, nobody will.” “If I don’t keep an eye on it, something will go wrong.” “If someone is unhappy, I should do something about it.”
That explains why two people can live through exactly the same moment and pay a completely different price. Your partner comes home in a bad mood. One person thinks: he must have had a hard day. Another starts: did I say something? Is he angry with me? Should I ask? Should I lighten the mood? The event is the same. What changes is the responsibility you take on for it.
Then there is keeping watch over other people’s emotions. You know someone’s mood from the way the key turns in the door. You walk into the kitchen and within two seconds you know whether it will be a good evening. Before anyone has said a word, you have already adjusted: you lower your voice, put off the topic you wanted to raise, change tomorrow’s plan. It is a huge skill, and completely invisible, because it leaves no task behind. No calendar has an entry for “kept the atmosphere good at dinner”.
The cost is that you are never simply in the room. You are always also watching it.
It doesn’t stay at home either. At work, you are often the one who notices the colleague who is struggling, remembers the birthday card, smooths the tension before the meeting starts. None of that is in your job description. All of it costs energy.
Why it is so hard to put down
Because it gets tied to who you are. “I remember everything, so I’m a good mother.” “People can count on me, so I’m responsible.” “I sense what others need, so I’m empathetic.” Put the load down, and it can feel as if you are putting down part of yourself.
The way out is not to stop caring. It is to separate a single behaviour from who you are. “I didn’t help this time” does not mean “I am not a helpful person”. “I asked for help” does not mean “I am weak”. You can keep helping, organising and delivering. You just don’t have to prove it all the time.
Because that kind of proof has a very short expiry date. It lasts exactly until the next situation. You don’t stop being a good mother because your child went to school without a water bottle. It is not a subscription you have to renew every month.
The women I work with are good at boundaries. They can turn down a client, negotiate a multi-million budget, say no in a board meeting. The problem is not defending the boundary. It is where the boundary is drawn. If deep down you believe a good mother prevents every disappointment, the ability to say no won’t help you. First you need to allow a different definition of a good mother.
And yes, if you stop holding everything, some things will drop. That is exactly why “just delegate” rarely works. The real question is which things you are willing to let drop.
What helps
Make it visible. For two minutes, write down everything you keep track of. Not only tasks, but reminders, worries and checks. Most women are shocked by the length of the list, and so are their partners.
Hand over whole areas, not tasks. “Can you buy milk?” keeps the remembering with you. “Groceries are yours now, including noticing what we’re out of” actually moves it.
Accept a different standard. When someone else owns an area, it will be done their way. If you check and correct it, you have taken the load back.
The problem was never that you are bad at resting. You have been doing a job nobody can see, so nobody thought to give you a break from it.
Mental load is one of the four areas the Energy Drain Diagnostic™ looks at. In 15 minutes you see how much of your tiredness comes from it, and what to change first.
Further reading: Allison Daminger, “The cognitive dimension of household labor”, American Sociological Review (2019).
Kasia Biernacka is an organisational psychologist and leadership advisor based in Belgium, with more than 20 years in HR and leadership development. She has talked about the hidden cost of living in “I’ll manage” mode in interviews for Onet and iKobiece.pl (both in Polish).
