How to Handle Depression as a Working Mom

It can be hard to imagine working moms having depression – after all, from the outside, we seem to have it all together. Some of us even wear dry-clean-only clothes to our jobs!

But the truth is that working moms are human, like everyone else. And just like all moms, working moms are susceptible to postpartum depression. Plus, we’re undersupported and overloaded, which can lead to issues like depression and anxiety even if they weren’t present before returning to work.  

Working moms are struggling 

According to an article in Fortune, in 2022 alone, 42% of working moms had anxiety and/or depression – and that’s only the women who were diagnosed. With mental health support so hard to come by, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that many more were struggling alone.

With so much childcare, both physical/logistical and emotional/mental, falling on moms rather than dads, it’s no wonder we’re overwhelmed. And when you add a whole other set of responsibilities to that load (especially when your family’s survival depends on you meeting the expectations of those responsibilities), it’s a LOT. 

Layer in some extra mom guilt, blended with employer pressure to perform no matter whether school is out or your kid is sick (and we all know when your kid gets sick, so do you, with zero time to recover), and you’ve got a perfect recipe for some pretty serious mental health struggles.

How to know if you’re depressed

So how do you know if you’re depressed versus ‘just’ buckling under the weight of too many responsibilities and not enough support?

Well, the first thing to know is that, contrary to a lot of people’s perception, depression can absolutely be situational. This means that you don’t have to be someone who’s chronically depressed because of inborn imbalances in your brain chemistry to experience depression – your circumstances can make you depressed, too.

Depression is about your symptoms, their impact on your life, and their duration. Talking to a mental health provider or your primary care doctor is the best way to get diagnosed; they’ll likely have you answer a series of questions called the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) to assess your mental health. If your answers indicate that you have depression, whether mild, moderate, or severe, your provider is probably going to look at your present situation to see if there’s a cause that can be addressed.

When symptoms of depression are caused by temporary circumstances, such as a breakup or the loss of your job (or even the weather), you might be experiencing something called ‘situational depression,’ which is a type of adjustment disorder. Adjustment disorders are exactly what they sound like: a struggle to adjust to a stressful event, resulting in emotional or behavioral symptoms. When these symptoms last for less than six months, it’s known as a short-term adjustment disorder, but when the symptoms go on for longer than six months, the issue becomes chronic, which is exactly the concern for working moms.

What might at first seem like a struggle to adjust to going back to work after maternity leave (if you even got to take leave – that’s a whole other blog post) can become a chronic mental health issue if you don’t get help.

How to handle depression as a working mom

The best thing to do if you’re having a hard time with your mental health is to reach out to a mental health provider for regular support. Your primary care doctor can refer you to someone, or you can reach out to a company that specializes in maternal mental health. Either way, make sure your provider has a firm grasp of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques; CBT has been proven over and over again to be the best therapy for anxiety and depression.

The other thing you should do (which is easier said than done in many cases, but it’s worth the effort) is try to increase the amount of logistical and emotional support you’re getting, both at home and in the workplace. Here are a few ways to do that:

• If you didn’t take all your available maternity leave, take the rest of it now – maybe a day a week, to help you catch up on your home life or simply rest while your child is being cared for (at daycare). 
• Set boundaries with your colleagues and managers to help improve your work/life balance. Try to avoid accepting work outside your regular hours, and let emails wait until the morning. If it can’t get done within your contracted hours, maybe your workload is unrealistic, and you need to talk to your manager about getting some additional support.
• Ask your partner to step up if you have one, and reach out to your family and friends for help coping. Maybe they can support you by babysitting once a month on a regular schedule or doubling a recipe they make often and delivering the extra meal to your house to ease the burden of cooking. There are so many ways people can help us if we just have the courage to ask.

Just because working moms can do it all – parent, work, and run a household – doesn’t mean we can or should do it alone. And if you’re suffering from signs of depression, please know that not only are you not the only one, but you also deserve support and care. 

 

Bio: Anne Godenham is an award winning writer and editor at Prospera, with a passion for mental health awareness and accessibility.