Midlife Women Are Stretched to Breaking and Saying Nothing

There's never been a time when women have juggled so much, as if I really need to tell you that. But when it comes to women in their 30s to 50s, we're the most stretched demographic in the UK, caught in the middle between potentially caring for children on the one hand, ageing parents on the other, absorbing all the emotional labour around us, trying to have a career and a life in the middle or any combination of them all. No wonder this group is known as the sandwich generation.

When a friend recently pulled out of my birthday dinner party at the 11th hour, she perfectly summed up the challenges of the sandwich situation. She wanted to come, she assured me, but she had two children about to sit exams, a mother whose cataract operation had gone wrong and was being cared for by her 95-year-old father with heart problems. Her husband was away on business. "It's just my life matrix at the moment," she told me. "I have to do all the duty stuff rather than the fun stuff. I feel I should tell my friends to just write me off for the next five years." I understood, of course I did. Did she have any support, I asked? Was she talking to anyone? Nope, she scoffed. She just had to suck it up and get on with it. That sounds familiar. 

So it shouldn't be surprising to learn that a recent report from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found that for many women over 50 the mental challenges of midlife are having a devastating impact on their everyday lives, with nearly nine in ten women facing mental health challenges. And Bupa recently stated that this group can see many women so pushed to breaking point that they're leaving careers at their peak due to inadequate support, including in the workplace. 

And yet that same report also warned of an epidemic of silence among middle-aged women. We aren't speaking up. We aren't asking for help. What we are doing is keeping quiet. We're coping, putting ourselves at the bottom of every to-do list and forgetting that much-trotted-out adage about the importance of putting on your own oxygen mask first. Though government statistics show that younger women aged 16 to 24 are better at seeking mental health support and psychological therapy for their problems, the most stretched women aren't. 

Sandwich fillings may vary too, but it doesn't mean life is less stretched. I don't have kids. I'm not married either. But recently, after helping to care for my mother in the last year of her life, holding down a full time job, having to move house only weeks after my mother died, then going through redundancy, and even having my beloved Mini Cooper pack up, I had no idea how to cope with so many key pillars of my life collapsing around me. Did I tell anyone how hard I was finding it? No. I hadn't even told close friends when my mother died because it happened just before Christmas and I didn't want to ruin their festive cheer as well as my own. Like so many other women, I didn't want to add my troubles to anyone else's. We're the generation that felt to have it all we had to do it all, and without complaint. Clearly, as I'm able to write this feature, I got through it. But I reckon it took me much longer than it needed to if I'd opened up. 

It was only when I started looking into what support is actually out there that I discovered how much easier things have become. Bupa's Mindplace centres have been designed with exactly this woman in mind. From navigating menopause and career-related stress to the more complex emotional fallout of the sandwich years, they offer a range of therapy options, from counselling to cognitive behavioural therapy and clinical psychology, without the need to commit to a series of sessions. You go when you need to. That alone removes one of the biggest barriers most of us quietly cite for not getting help.

And really, isn't it high time we started seeing caring for our daily mental health as much a part of our regular self-care as the dental hygienist or even getting a facial or a blow-dry? If our mental health is suffering, then everything else is too. It's time we started opening up, sharing our issues, accepting there's no shame in asking for help. As that old BT ad used to tell us, and anyone in my sandwich generation will remember: it's good to talk. So let's do more of it. 

Ready to prioritise your mental health? Mindplace (part of Bupa) offers flexible, professional support including counselling, CBT and clinical psychology. No long-term commitment required. Just help, when you need it. Because mental health care should carry no more stigma than a visit to the gym.

*This piece is a paid partnership with Bupa.