Women’s Mental Health Right Now: Why So Many Are Exhausted, Anxious, and Still Telling Themselves They’re Fine
Although it may seem many women arrive in therapy feeling like they are “falling apart,” They’re exhausted from carrying too much for too long. Anxiety, self-criticism, and burnout often develop when emotional labour is constant and recovery is rare. This isn’t a personal or moral failure or even a lack of resilience, it’s ‘simply’ a nervous system under sustained pressure. Therapy offers a space to slow things down, reconnect with suppressed emotions, and move from coping to something more sustainable.
Many women appear to be coping on the outside while carrying significant emotional strain internally.
Although it may be felt at the time. Many of the women I work with don’t arrive in therapy explicitly saying:
“I’m falling apart.”
They arrive saying:
“I’m coping… but something feels off.”
On the surface, life often looks functional. Work continues. Relationships are maintained. Responsibilities are met. But underneath, there is a persistent strain: anxiety that never fully settles, a sense of carrying too much, and a quiet exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch.
These aren’t signs of weakness. It’s a nervous system under prolonged load.
The Hidden Pattern I See Again and Again
A recurring theme in women’s mental health is emotional overextension.
Many women have learned, often very early, to:
Manage other people’s feelings
Anticipate needs before they’re spoken
Keep things running smoothly, even at personal cost
Over time, this creates a pattern where emotional labour becomes invisible, expected, and rarely reciprocated. The result is so more than just tiredness, because it borders on chronic tension, a body and mind that never fully stand down from duty.
Anxiety frequently grows here because the system is never allowed to rest.
Why This Feels Worse Right Now
Several pressures have converged:
Emotional reserves were depleted during the pandemic, but expectations never reduced.
Women are encouraged to be resilient, adaptable, and capable, often without the structural support to match.
Social media quietly reinforces the idea that everyone else is managing better, with less effort and more grace.
The common thread is this: pressure without recovery.
When there is no space to feel anger, grief, disappointment, or resentment safely, those emotions don’t disappear. They turn inward. Anxiety, self-criticism, numbness, or burnout often take their place and the emotions get repressed into the body contributing to the symptoms of chronic tension.
“I’m Coping” Isn’t the Same as “I’m Okay”
Many women are highly capable of functioning under strain. However, that doesn’t mean the strain is sustainable.
By the time some women seek therapy, they are already far past their limit, but still telling themselves they should be able to handle it. This internal pressure often mirrors the (often historical) external expectations they’ve lived with for years.
What Support Actually Looks Like
Supporting women’s mental health has nothing to do with telling women to be stronger or more confident. It’s about creating conditions where strength isn’t constantly required.
That includes:
Normalising emotional limits, not just emotional endurance
Valuing emotional labour rather than treating it as automatic
Encouraging support earlier, before distress becomes chronic
Most importantly, creating space to feel emotions that were never safe to feel before
In therapy, this often means slowing things down and listening not just to what is being said, but to what has been held back for a long time.
A Different Kind of Therapy Space
Much of my work focuses on helping people reconnect with emotions that were once necessary to suppress in order to cope. For many women, this includes anger, grief, or a deep sense of unmet need.
When these feelings are approached carefully and safely, anxiety often reduces, and usually quite quickly too because its job is no longer necessary.
If you’re reading this and recognising yourself, feeling functional but depleted, capable but stretched thin, considering therapy doesn’t mean something is “wrong” with you. It may simply be time to stop carrying everything alone.
FAQ: Women’s Mental Health Right Now
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Many women are managing sustained emotional and practical demands without enough recovery or support. Over time, the nervous system stays in a heightened state, which can show up as anxiety, irritability, poor sleep, or constant mental load. This is really not a personal failing, it’s what happens when pressure outweighs capacity for too long.
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Yes. Many women function highly while feeling internally depleted. Coping often means suppressing needs, emotions, or limits in order to keep going. Therapy can help distinguish between surviving and being supported, and create space to address what has been carried silently.
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From an early age, many women learn to manage relationships, anticipate others’ needs, and keep things running smoothly. This emotional labour is rarely named or shared. When it remains one-sided, it can lead to chronic stress, resentment, or anxiety, even when life appears outwardly stable.
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When emotions like anger, grief, or disappointment don’t feel safe or acceptable to express, they don’t disappear. They are often redirected into anxiety, self-criticism, or physical tension. Therapy provides a contained space to explore these emotions safely, which often reduces symptoms rather than intensifying them.
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Therapy can be helpful long before things reach crisis point. If you feel constantly “on edge,” emotionally flat, resentful, or exhausted despite doing everything you’re supposed to, it may be a sign that your system needs support rather than more effort.
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Yes. Therapy often focuses on understanding how these patterns developed and why they once made sense. With greater emotional awareness and safety, many women find it easier to set limits, tolerate conflict, and reconnect with their own needs without guilt.
If this reflection resonated, you might explore:
Therapy and the Experience of Being Seen
What Happens When You Finally Feel the Feeling You’ve Avoided?
You’re Not Relating. You’re Re-Enacting…
Each explores the tension between what we show the world and what we hold inside, a containment battle that therapy helps us understand and work through.
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