The Hidden Emotional Landscape of Motherhood

Many mothers arrive at therapy believing that something is wrong with them, when in reality they are responding to an intense, identity-altering, emotionally demanding life transition - often without enough support.

There are many experiences that are incredibly common in motherhood, yet are still relatively rarely spoken about publicly.

Motherhood is still unfortunately wrapped in powerful cultural expectations and myths. For example: that it should feel natural, fulfilling, joyful, and instinctive; that love should come easily; or that gratitude should outweigh our struggle.

When our lived experience as a mother doesn’t match this ideal, we often feel we need to keep silent about our own experiences ... And in that silence, shame grows.

Yet it doesn't have to be this way - I offer specialist women-centred psychological services, for all of the following common (but too-often hidden) experiences of motherhood:

“Something feels wrong, but I can’t quite name it”

For many mothers, distress doesn’t announce itself with a clear label - Instead, it creeps in over time, and perhaps shows up as a constant sense of being on edge. Or maybe feels like a mind that never switches off, or a body that feels tense, depleted, or sometimes suddenly flooded with emotion.

Very often, we are “functioning” on the outside - caring for the children, showing up, getting through the days, smiling - while quietly underneath all of this feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or not quite ourselves.

We often also wonder why this feels so hard when it looks like everyone else seems to be coping. We can easily feel guilt & shame for struggling at all.

These experiences are far more common than most mothers realise.

If we are brave enough to seek support, our emotional struggles are often quickly labelled as "postnatal depression", or "depression" (if we seek support later, once our children are older) in the medical sphere - But, for the majority of us, labels like this don't come close at all, to capturing the intricacies of what we are experiencing, and struggling with, in our experience of motherhood.

The constellation of emotional experiences many mothers carry:

Motherhood places enormous emotional demands on women, often alongside invisible labour and relentless responsibility. It is unsurprising that many mothers experience a wide range of emotional difficulties - especially when those experiences are not widely named or supported. For example:

Anxiety and fear

Many mothers live with heightened anxiety, including social anxiety, health anxiety, panic, or intrusive fears around harm or death. Becoming responsible for a child’s safety can dramatically reshape the nervous system, leading to hypervigilance and chronic worry.

This is not weakness - it is a nervous system trying to protect itself, and all it holds dear.

And it can be very challenging to know in motherhood - how much anxiety makse sense, in the context of this reposiblity, and how much is too much?

Low mood, numbness, and grief

Some mothers experience depression or a loss of joy. Others feel emotionally flat, disconnected, or weighed down by sadness they can’t quite explain.

There is often grief here too - grief for the joyful motherhood journey we imagined, or for parts of ourselves that feel lost along the way.

Rage, overwhelm, and burnout

Many mothers feel overwhelmed to the point of burnout. Rage can surface suddenly and intensely, followed by guilt and shame.

This is especially common when emotional and domestic labour is unevenly shared, when rest is scarce, and when needs are consistently unmet - all common experiences in Western motherhood in a patriarchal society.

The inner world: guilt, shame, and the critical voice

Alongside emotional distress, many mothers carry a harsh & loud inner-critical voice.

Perfectionism. Imposter syndrome. A sense of never doing enough, or never being enough. Guilt for resting. Shame for having needs. Self-hatred for feelings you believe you “shouldn’t” have.

These inner patterns are not personal failures. Instead they are often the internalised result of unrealistic cultural expectations being placed on women and mothers - to be endlessly patient, selfless, calm, grateful, and emotionally available at all times - coupled with our own upbringing having been a practice ground for the neglect of our needs - while we learned to prioritise keeping the peace, and the feelings of others.

Our bodies often hold our story

For many mothers, distress also lives in the body - Birth trauma, breastfeeding trauma, fertility-related trauma, or experiences of loss can understandably leave deep psychological and physiological imprints.

Chronic health conditions such as migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions, or significant menstrual cycle challenges (including PMDD, premenstrual anxiety, rage, or a heightened inner critic) can also profoundly affect mental wellbeing.

These experiences are too-often minimised or treated in isolation, rather than understood as part of a whole, interconnected system.

Identity shifts and relational strain

Motherhood also reshapes our identity - Many women experience a shift from “woman” to “mother” that feels disorienting, grief-laden, or destabilising.

Relationships often change. Boundaries may feel harder to hold, and self-care can suddenly feel much harder to do. Decisions about whether to have more children can bring up fear, conflict, or ambivalence that feels difficult to voice.

None of this means you are 'failing'. It means you are adapting to a life that has fundamentally changed, even if society doesn't acknowldge that openly, very often.

Neurodivergence and motherhood

For neurodivergent mothers, parenting can bring unique challenges.

Sensory overload, emotional exhaustion, masking, and burnout are common, and parenting can also easily reactivate old wounds - particularly for those who grew up without their own needs being recognised or supported.

Many neurodivergent mothers carry enormous shame for struggling in ways that remain poorly understood by society.

Additionally, many of us do not even know we are neurodivergent, until the overwhelm of mothering starts stripping back the masking we've been unconsciously doing our whole lives, but no longer have the capacity to keep doing.

And of course we may also be parenting neurodivergent children, and/or children with atypical health needs too - This means we are managing additional meetings, emails, phone calls, assessments, appointments, treatments, prescriptions, and more... all of which place an additional, incredibly heavy burden on our differently-wired brains.

Understanding all of this context matters, if we are going to find some compassion for ourselves, and for how hard mothering feels for us.

What many mothers are really longing for

Beneath the distress, many of the mothers I work with share similar longings:

To take care of themselves without drowning in guilt; to set boundaries and still feel kind, caring, and compassionate; to stop exploding in rage and return to the calm, connected parent they hoped to be; to have a safe place to release emotions they feel they’re not allowed to have; to feel seen, heard, validated, and supported; to raise their children differently - to notice, validate, and support their child’s emotional world in ways they themselves never received.

These are not unreasonable desires - They are deeply human ones, and they are very common, and they are achievable for many of us, with the right support.

You don’t have to do motherhood alone

Motherhood was never meant to be done in isolation - You don’t need to navigate this alone.

Needing support does not mean you are failing - it means you are human, living within a culture that asks far too much of mothers, while offering them far too little in return.

If you need some support, like so many mums, you can find out more below about how I can become an invaluable part of your village, or you can contact me directly here.

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I'm Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist, Mum, late-in-life-self-identifying AuDHD human, and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a specialist, trauma-informed, private psychology service for women.

I can help you at any stage of your life journey - whether you need support to enter adulthood, navigate perimenopause, heal from trauma, finally transform your relationship to your own anxieties, shame, guilt, rage and/or overwhelm - I can support you to enrich your life & relationships.

My services are trauma-informed, non-pathologising, compassion-focussed, neuroaffirmative, and always offered through an intersectional feminist lens.

I offer online appointments to women based all over the UK, and I offer in-person appointments in Ripon, North Yorkshire - click here to find out more: www.mindbodysoulpsychology.co.uk

You might also like to follow me on Instagram, @drjennypsychologist , or perhaps you'd like to receive regular doses of solidarity and compassion right into your inbox? If so, you can sign up here to my Substack newsletter for regular moments of solidarity in the challenges of being a woman in this patriarchal world, as well as compassion & inspirations for guilt-free self-care - so we can all stay resourced for the experiences we're navigating, and fights we're facing.