The Invisible Load and the Mental Weight That Never Makes the To-Do List

Unpacking the impact of care, mental labour and unspoken responsibility

Jul 16, 2025

You wake up tired - not from sleep deprivation - but from a thousand invisible threads pulling at you.

The mental to-do list whirls into action before you’ve opened your eyes. Your brain starts to race, checking in to what day it is and what you’ve got scheduled.

You haven’t even lifted your head from the pillow and you’ve already run through everything and everyone who is lined up waiting for you to get going.

The errands. The jobs that need doing.

The role of being the default one-who-remembers.

This is The Invisible Load.

And it’s why so many midlife women are running on empty.

a blurry photo of a woman in a black top — Photo by Liza Polyanskaya on Unsplash

Mental overload is a much banded about phrase today; so much so that we, capable, fiercely independent women that we often are, will joke about it being part of the course.

“Of course, I’m brain fried. It’s part of the job of being a mother/daughter/carer whilst holding down a job.”

But making light of this, accepting and expecting we are the ones who can and will take care of anyone and everyone around us, hurts us over time.

Because you’re not just doing tasks.

You’re holding expectations and unspoken needs of others.

You are often the emotional firewall, the silent planner, the fallback parent or sibling, the always-on team lead … and none of this shows up in your calendar.

It’s expected of you and because you are more than capable and brilliant in achieving all this, you silently and invisibly take it all.

I’m 56 (soon) and both my children are (almost!) grown adults. But I remember my bat-shit crazy 40s of juggling work and young family life.

The more capable I became of being THE ONE who knew the answer to every ‘Mum, where’s my …?’ question, the prouder I became of my achievement of managing the kids’ schedules, home cooked meals, dog, house maintenance all whilst running my own business. I wanted to do all this but as I reflect back on this time, I see I never realised how amazing and incredible I was back then because I was consistently raising the bar on myself.

My body was waving every red flag at me before I succumbed to fatigue and realised that I was significantly burnt out at 42, my stress triggering the most horrendous peri-menopause symptoms for the following few years.

Yes, I was doing too much.

But I wasn’t taking account of the weight of energetic holding that I was carrying: the suppressed grief from losing my dad to cancer; the hurt feelings I was squashing down because I didn’t feel I was being seen; the exhausting treading on of egg shells that my relationship had become; the smile I wore every day at the school gates.

All this was invisible to me.

Seeing the load you are carrying

Working the way I do with clients now, using energy based practices to help women navigate midlife, life transitions and mental overload, I see The Invisible Load being the core of three weights: emotional labour, mental load and responsibility for others’ outcomes.

Emotional Labour

This is the effort of managing others’ emotions, whilst often suppressing your own in the process.

This may show up as you being the ‘calm one’ in the midst of a family crisis; calming your partner down even though you are stressed, too; keeping the peace when inside you want to scream or deciding to ignore the snarky remarks your mother-in-law is making.

You are emotionally regulating for others’ comfort, and this is exhausting for your body.

Mental Load

This is the cognitive burden of remembering, planning and organising everything.

You are the one who remembers every family members’ birthdays, including yours’ and your partners’; remembering to stop off and get milk on the way back home from work … oh and something for dinner, and heck, have you bought a birthday present for the party this weekend?

It’s packing school lunches even when your children are probably old enough to start doing it themselves.

And it’s remembering to sort out your mother’s electricity bill because she’s struggling to log into her online account.

All these things need doing but when it falls on your shoulders, your capability of achieving all this (and more!) can fuel your feelings of achievement, success and being seen as someone who has it all together.

We celebrate capable women and hold them up as heroines for ourselves.

Responsibility for Others’ Outcomes

This one is more tricky to see in yourself; holding yourself accountable for how others perform, feel or progress.

It shows up as feeling guilty that you forgot to remind your child to bring their swim bag into school again and they’ve been given detention; berating yourself that you forgot to book the times for the next parents’ evening when the booking opened at 8am and your partner has to rush back from work to get there; being pissed off with yourself because you forgot to check on your partners’ elderly mother … she’s not been feeling well recently and you know how disappointed she will be that your partner hasn’t called her yet.

This is often self-imposed but socially reinforced; all the other women remembered!

Where these three overlap becomes the core of the Invisible Load.

You feel responsible AND must stay composed AND must remember everything.

It’s unsustainable and exhausting.

Here’s what I know now

Energy isn’t just spent on what you do … a large amount is spent on what you hold.

Women who care for others - whether children, elderly parents or unwell partners - can often be the most depleted. And often don’t realise how depleted they are because they feel (and are led to believe) that this is normal.

If it’s invisible, even to you, you will continue on, just as I did … until I hit the wall and then spent many years recovering and having to change the patterns of my behaviour, which is what I want to help others’ avoid!

Once you name it, you can begin to see it.

And from here, you can make the changes to help you release yourself from it.

This may begin as asking for help; maybe your child(ren) or partner are more capable than you led yourself to believe?

Or simply speaking to a friend and having an honest conversation about how you are feeling. Yes, you’re OK … overwhelmed and knackered!

But first, you may need some simple ways to support your energy to help begin the process of decompressing the pressure and taking off some weight.

Simple ways to support your energy right now

Here are some of my simple suggestions that can fit into your day, without feeling another thing added to your to-do list.

Start your morning slowly - even five quiet minutes before the day begins can anchor your nervous system. This could mean taking a longer than usual shower, or literally watching the kettle boil for your first morning cuppa.
Take a ‘transition breath’ between activities - after you finish a phone call, before you leave the house or when you park your car, sit for a moment to take a few slow breaths before you go on with your next task or open the door. All these micro-moments of peace can help begin to slow down your system and stop the rushing feeling.
Protect small moments of solitude - a walk without your phone, or a quiet cuppa in the garden, can do more than you think.
Give yourself permission to rest - even when everything looks fine on the surface, five minutes with your feet up can make a big difference to the rest of your day.

If you are interested in diving more into this topic and curious to know how The Invisible Load may be impacting your wellbeing and stress levels, join me for a live Midlife Shapeshifting session on Wednesday, 23rd July.

As well as opening up the conversation on this topic, I shall be sharing a simple practice to help reconnect to your energy and feel a sense of lightness again, without needing more time or doing less.

Midlife Shapeshifting with Karen Skidmore

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