Bestie Energy and the Truth About Female Overwhelm and Emotional Labor

0:00 Jennifer: Hey there, I'm Jennifer. And I'm Jackie. And welcome to Slightly Unsupervised. We're best friends, business partners, and the chaos behind Bestimonia, a ceremony we created to celebrate the kind of soulmates who don't come with a marriage license.

0:10 Jackie: This podcast is all about that friendship energy, the deep stuff, the messy stuff, and the laugh till you snort stuff. So whether you're driving, folding laundry, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, you're in good company. Let's get slightly unsupervised. Hey everybody, welcome back to Slightly Unsupervised. Today's episode is about something I think a lot of women do without even realizing how much it's hurting them. Pretending everything is hunky-dory. Smiling when you're overwhelmed, saying, I'm good when you're falling apart, handling everything yourself, keeping the house running, taking care of everybody else, making the life look normal while eternally you're exhausted, anxious, lonely, or emotionally underwater.

0:44 Jackie: And honestly, women get really good at good at it. Because because because somewhere along the way, a lot of us learn that being strong meant not burdening anyone else with our problems. So today we want to talk about why women hide how overwhelmed they really are, why asking for help feels uncomfortable, why so many women feel pressured to perform happiness, and how dangerous it can become when nobody knows you're struggling.

1:09 Jennifer: Yeah. Well, here's here's the line I want to say. And if you haven't said this or you haven't thought this, then I'm not sure that this this will pertain to you. But if I stop holding everything together, everything falls apart. Have you ever had that thought in your head, Jackie? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because we as women find that we take on so many things that by the time we are exhausting ourselves, we have literally convinced ourselves that if we don't continue on the path down the path of keeping everything together, well, it will all fall apart.

1:42 Jennifer: And so what do we do? We just put more and more pressure on ourselves to keep everything together.

1:47 Jackie: And you know, some of us was taught that from an early age.

1:50 Jennifer: Yep. You know, we did that. We've got that with you. Yeah. Tricky was very uh inundated with having to take care of her little brother.

1:57 Jackie: So um not just that, I always felt I was tail also taking care of uh my parents in a way too. You know, I kept the house, like I always felt like if they were fighting, I wanted to try to keep the calm, like by keeping the house good, kept them from arguing, trying to, you know, doing certain things so that they wouldn't get upset with each other or, you know, that type of stuff.

2:18 Jennifer: Sure. So you kept your brothers in order, made sure the house was clean, made sure your parents got along, made sure that everything ran smoothly, made sure that, you know, people get up and move along. So you were a mother from the get-go, really. I don't know. Were you ever a child, Jack? Like, do you ever feel like I was without a lot of burden during these years? Do you have any of those years?

2:38 Jackie: Yeah, I would say when I was much younger. I would say I started feeling I would say when I start remembering worrying about things and trying to make things right was probably about fifth grade. So about the time.

2:53 Jennifer: Kindergarten or birth till fourth grade, you were at least felt like you were in pretty good. Is that about the time you moved to the mountains?

3:00 Jackie: Yeah, about well, we moved up a little bit before that, but it was about fifth grade that I remember that you were now in charge.

3:07 Jennifer: Well, I mean, that's typical. I think every child every child does that. I know in my house my parent my mom was divorced, so there was a lot of just paying attention to the environment around me and being very uh sensitive to it as it heated up and cooled down and heated up and cooled down that, you know. Especially I went my mom went through a second divorce when I was 12. So there's, you know, you definitely pick up on some extra responsibilities trying to keep everybody from falling apart or exploding or whatever it is.

3:33 Jennifer: So we start from a young age, as girls would do. Mm-hmm. I'm not saying every woman does it, but the majority of us do. I I would it would be harder to find somebody who didn't have any responsibilities like that than it would be to find someone who did. But being needed can and will become the identity of you, and it can be a curse for you because when you are this way, and most of us are, that being needed, you know, becomes your identity. And I can tell you, Jackie, you can agree with me or disagree with me.

4:02 Jennifer: Being needed is your identity because you're a woman who's been putting it all together. And then what happens? What happens that it causes a huge problem in your life? Your children grow up and they don't need you. And so it can be a very steep drop off of a cliff when you realize that your entire existence ran around children and being together and keeping everything together and the husband, all of it, keeping your house together, and then this group of humans don't need you anymore. You're like, Well, I mean, I know I had an emotional crises when my son went off to college because I was like, What am I now?

4:34 Jennifer: Like it was a hard time for me for sure. And I know that all women try to hurt your feelings.

4:38 Jackie: Yeah, it could hurt your feelings, depressed you. Yeah. Because you're wanting them to call you and ask for help. I know I remember like my son got hurt, him and his friends, and my son was up at college in uh, what do you call it? Up in Northern California, like five hours away. And he called me at nine o'clock at night, and I was there by the next morning. I'm like in my car, and I was like, Oh, he needs me. Right. I did not I'm like, oh, he called mom. I am there at the time, you know, emergency.

5:06 Jackie: I am there. We're back in the emergency room because he thought he was too so tough and he didn't need crutches. And I'm like, why didn't you get the crutches? We're going back to the emergency room. You're getting crutches.

5:17 Jennifer: Because what happened? Your calling came into place. You're like, they need me again. So here is my job. I'm back. And then the next minute, they're like, I got it, mom give go. You're like, what? Wait a minute. I need to take care of you. There needs to be, let me get you a bed, you know. Like, so some of that happens. And we're not the only girls that go through that. And there are a lot of women that go through that because it's like an identity. And when you throw everything into the childbearing part, the child rearing part of this life, then you are dropped off a steep cliff one day when you are not needed anymore.

5:49 Jennifer: So be careful. If you're not at that stage, let us just tell you that if you don't ease off of it a little bit and realize that they are their own human and they will make their own decisions and your opinions will no longer be needed. You can be yours get yourself into a pretty big depressional part of life because we have built these lives. So, but eat on that, Jackie, because this this this whole episode is about I want everyone to always think I'm hunky dory, which is something you said in our last podcast.

6:17 Jennifer: And, you know, I think for me, vulnerability is tough when you're a woman because we've had to be strong for too long. And vulnerability in particular in our generation was not something you got to be, right? So the new generations vary into their emotions and how they feel and what everybody around them makes them feel. And we're like, and nobody cares about what we felt like when we were children. So intervulnerability, it's tough, right?

6:38 Jackie: And they don't care how we feel either. They only care about how they feel. Because I'm sorry, they make me feel upset all the time. They don't care about my feelings, only about their own. Yeah, I can be doing everything for them, but that that doesn't matter.

6:52 Jennifer: No, it doesn't matter because how they feel is the way they feel, and that we should all be worried about how they feel. I I think it's hilarious. We weren't in the opposite generation, right? Nobody cared how we thought, but they're gonna raise these children, and one day they're gonna realize that all this tender, loving care, support, emotionalness that they're, you know, gonna give their children will too backfire on them because anything that you get overly done in, you get annoyed by, right?

7:21 Jennifer: So it's coming. It's just not quite yeah. They're just little still. So wait for it. Wait for it, girls. It's coming. So, and a lot of people, you know, this being vulnerable thing is in particular, it asks you most difficult for you to be invulnerable vulnerable with. In my case, I'm fine, nothing's wrong, is most vulnerable for me with my children, because for some reason in the back of my head, you have to be strong and everything has to be good for them, and we don't want them to worry about anything, and we wouldn't want them to think that we're struggling with anything.

7:52 Jennifer: It's a built-in narrative in our heads, and for me, that's the hardest place to be like, I am not doing so well. This isn't making me happy or I'm upset about this or whatever. Is that something that you kind of agree with? Who is the hardest person to be in your emotions and say how you really feel, Jack?

8:11 Jackie: Yeah, I guess the children. I I'm with everybody. I want everybody to think I'm always doing good. Yeah. I'm yeah.

8:19 Jennifer: But I'm trying to get better together for everybody, make sure everybody does it. Yeah. But hardest.

8:24 Jackie: Yeah, the the family, you know, even like my parents, my my my family, my my husband, my kids, everybody.

8:33 Jennifer: So who do you turn to when you think like I need I'm not okay today? Your dog? Yeah. Slitery, yeah.

8:41 Jackie: I do talk to my dog a lot. I'm always a bummer. That's why I hate summer when my windows are open. Because my neighbors probably think I'm crazy. Because you're talking to the dog all day. I'm talking to the dog about everything. Well, I can just figure what they talk about me.

8:55 Jennifer: I know. Well, I'm an animal lover. You know, I've always been since I was a kid. I do believe that part of that is from being with lonely and having my animals and then having comfort in them moving around all the time for me too. So I talk to my dogs. Talk to my husband. I'm like, now I'm gonna go to the store. I'm gonna be back. It's gonna be like 10 minutes or so, then we're gonna go walkies, then we're gonna get our treats, like, and then turn around like, okay, I'll just peace out and go to the store, and off I go to the store.

9:21 Jennifer: Like to my husband, because like, I'm not worried how he feels, I'm worried about how my dog my dogs feel.

9:25 Jackie: So And I've I've had some recent situations that have happened, and I'm getting better with talking to my husband and like talking to you and another friend of ours, and uh yeah, and I have a therapist who I'm talking to, which is helping. So I'm taking baby steps. I am definitely taking baby steps. Yeah. Well you can't at fifty at 56 years old. I mean, I did this a while, many, many, many years ago, and I felt I was better, and it just I hit the bottom again where I realized I needed I can't do it all myself.

9:54 Jackie: Right. I need other I need help. I need people to talk to and not think I can do all this myself. Right. Yeah.

10:00 Jennifer: Yeah. It helps it happens to all women. It happens to everybody at some point, right? It's like too much. The world has gotten head too heavy for me to hold handle anymore.

10:09 Jackie: And so a therapist believe me, going through menopause and everything else, too. I knew my husband said he could see it coming. Yeah, you know, he could just tell my emotions and everything. And so that I was trying to take on much and he was trying to help me. And he said he could tell I was trying to do too much.

10:23 Jennifer: Yeah.

10:23 Jackie: And trying to make everybody happy, and everything was hitting me.

10:26 Jennifer: Well, the key to that is you can't make everybody happy. That's just the way it is. Like you cannot possibly be who you are and be true to who you are and make everybody around you happy with it. It's an impossibility. You have to let some people just be upset. And sometimes that upsetness they get around from you being who you are is really where their their issues are in their own lives. Like they need to. But everything's hunky-dory. It's not, Jack. It's just not 100% of the time. So you don't have to play that with me.

10:55 Jennifer: I'll be happy to talk about, you know, all the problems. What are they? So there is the soup, there is the superwoman trap. The motherhood, marriage, career, caregiver, emotional labor, your aging parents, financial stress, maintaining appearances. That all is part of this. That you may not think about it. Hopefully, this episode will kind of let you get more into your thoughts about am I really this superpower? Do I really have this thing? Is my identity being a superwoman and taking care of everybody?

11:24 Jennifer: And please, if you are feel that way, I cannot stress to you enough that it is coming. The cliffs come with the children and they will be dropping you off of it. And it's not their fault. They're supposed to go on just like we went on from our parents. I can't imagine now calling my mom for every issue I have, even though as a child that was my source. You have to look at it from your perspective. Like you wouldn't call your parents for every problem you have. That's just not so that's just not what we do.

11:52 Jennifer: So we can't expect our children to be all of a sudden, you know, different. They're just like us. They're just in their own, their own way. So women definitely have a hard time asking for help. And it's one of those things that I think we're just embedded in our brains, at least our generation, maybe now the new generation asks for help too much, maybe, or expect help too much, or think help is available too much, or you know, they have their own way of dealing with that that is different from us.

12:20 Jennifer: It's just that from our perspective, it's like, well, can't you handle that on your own? Like, you know how we are? Like, we did that. That didn't seem that hard. Like, just move on. You got this, everything's gonna be good. Like, so we may not be the best generation parenting this other generation that's like in their fields all the time because we were never in our fields, we were never allowed to be. So um, there is a cost to pretending though. And you know, anytime that you're in this pretending mode for too long, everything's hunky dory, Jackie, you know, can come back to bite you in the ass.

12:51 Jennifer: So yeah, it does it, it builds up and something will snap. Let it snap. So um more, I just want to be very transparent on this. I'm more or less likely to be everything's hunky dory. I will I get more agitated, I'm more steppy, or you want everybody happy. I don't care if you're happy. Like be uncomfortable because I'm uncomfortable too. So that's kind of how I am. Jackie's more like everything's hunky dory and nothing's wrong, and we're all good, and everything's good. So you have to have an outlet though.

13:23 Jennifer: I don't know what that outlet is. Maybe it's girls' weekends, maybe it's hanging out, being a 12-year-old again and drinking with your friends.

13:30 Jackie: Yeah, I don't think I want to be 12 again.

13:32 Jennifer: Maybe maybe we aren't drinking quite at 12. Maybe at 15 years old, you know, down with your friends. So be silly, be you know, obnoxious, run around. I think some of that's good for you. I'm definitely an advocator of the girls' weekends. Of girls' weekends, that's for sure. Yeah, I think they help. Let it out. Let it out. Let it out, but just be silly and then go back to your life because it makes your life more bearable for a while, at least if you've got yourself under this thing. So all right, Jackie, are we ready for Bessie Rapid Questions?

14:01 Jackie: We are ready.

14:02 Jennifer: You go. When do you struggle most with pretending you're okay? My with my kids. That's the hardest because I'm supposed to be the strong parent that takes care of everything. And for me, that's the hardest person, people to express my struggles with. That's okay, Jackie. Why do women feel guilty asking for help?

14:18 Jackie: Because we are taught early that we can do it all.

14:22 unknown: Yeah.

14:23 Jackie: And asking for help or support is admitting personal failure or burden to others.

14:28 Jennifer: That's I know you're watching Mad Men right now and you're in the 60s and you're very upset about it. But do you think in even when we were children, the expectation was still honest that one day you'll marry and take care of your husband and take care of your children? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now I had a little bit of a difference there just off this because my mom was divorced. So and then divorced again. So two divorces, and we just tried to take care of my mom, make sure my mom was okay, right? Because that was our primary primary parent there.

14:56 Jennifer: And so I didn't really have this guy in my house all the time that my mom was taking care of. In fact, if I've got to be honest with you, my grandmother, my grandfather took care of my grandmother more. My mom probably was taken care of a little bit more than she took care of. So I'm a little bit on that side, right? That's what I learned. Your house was different.

15:16 Jackie: Your house was very you had the married couple that you know went through everything. And then my grandmother was always, she never worked. She was a stay-home, took care of my grandfather. You know, he was kind of like it's kind of like the madman. He was the business person with the big office and came home and she had his slippers and his drink ready and had his pipe, and yes, total the full-on five kids.

15:41 Jennifer: This nauseates me. I'm like, girl, no, that's what I grew up with.

15:45 Jackie: You took care of the man, you did all that.

15:47 Jennifer: Jack, you were you were doomed from the start, my friend. You were doomed from the start.

15:53 Jackie: Luckily, I have a husband now that really appreciates it.

15:56 Jennifer: Well, your husband had another marriage. This is awesome. This is awesome, right? He got into a new marriage. He's like, man, she's the bomb. But thankfully, that's good. He had some contrast, right? So that's good. All right, you're next.

16:08 Jackie: What's the danger of always being the strong one?

16:12 Jennifer: The danger is that when you're the strong one, you don't know when to not be strong, right? So you build up a muscle, it's like a muscle, like going to the gym every day. You just you've got this muscle and it's intense and it's strong. And to the point where you don't even know how to be vulnerable or weak. And that can be a problem because when you're never vulnerable and you're never weak, it can be annoying to other people because you're like, can't possibly have it all figured out all the time.

16:37 Jennifer: And don't you ever just break down? Everybody then thinks you're so strong that you can take all the punches. Everybody punches you, and you're the easy target because you're the strong one. And that is the that is truly the downfall of it because you don't you don't really look at them as a person, you look at them as something so strong that they can handle anything, and that's not that's not the truth. So it it's the hidden danger.

17:00 Jackie: And I answered up you became burnout, hidden loneliness, physical health issues, depression, isolation, and resentment.

17:08 Jennifer: Resentment, yeah.

17:09 Jackie: Comes with all of that.

17:10 Jennifer: Yeah, resentment's a big one on that one. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because you are the strong one, even if you're the strong one in your marriage, you get real resentful real quick about sharing not sharing the burden with somebody. Okay, Jackie, have you ever hidden how overwhelmed you really were?

17:26 Jackie: Yeah, we've been talking about that all the time. Yeah, yeah.

17:29 Jennifer: So I'm trying not to be more, more willing to let everybody in and everybody know. I'm overwhelmed, help me. Like walk it through me, get me through it. And she definitely can do that better. I always, if I get overwhelmed, I go internal and I'm quiet. You'll know it because I'm not gonna be around very much and I'm quiet, like I'm overwhelmed by life. So it may not be a good thing because I could get myself in the same like isolation, resentment, all those things that we just talked about. I have to learn to do some outletting too.

18:04 Jennifer: If I call you, I'm generally overwhelmed. I might be more like in a pissed off mood where you're more opt to cry. I'm more up to be like F this and F that and screw these people and what a bullshit thing happened. You know what I mean? Like, might you're different than me in that. So I guess if you get a call from me and I'm pissed off, just let me be.

18:25 Jennifer: You disagreeing with me? Yeah, like, yeah. Heck yeah, yeah.

18:29 Jackie: Yeah, at the girl store was a son of a bitch. Yeah. What kind of people make emotional honesty feel safe?

18:37 Jennifer: I think the the people that I've known for a long time, my friends, really, for me. Maybe because we've been through so many seasons that to be emotionally safe is is really about a bunch of time for me.

18:49 Jackie: They're the ones who listen to us without judgment, which that's our friends. Yeah.

18:54 Jennifer: And and where we came from. It's so much easier to deal with with my friends because it's the progression has happened and they can see it from start to finish. It's not an easy place to be vulnerable. So I really have to be very trusting. So I'm gonna go with people that are my friends long term. Okay. Why do women tie their worth to responsibility?

19:15 Jackie: Because if from a young age, some of us are conditioned. We're kind of conditioned for it.

19:19 Jennifer: We are from the get-go. Yeah. Needs to be a time, a change that we're best friends, so we gotta tell each other things. You gotta just listen to us for a minute. Well, my eldest tells me that Cinderella is not owned by Wit Walt Disney, that it is a story that's a folk tale, and that anybody can make a movie about it. Just that Disneyland did it first. We need to make a movie, Jackie, about Cinderella the after fact. If that has kids and is pissed off at him. Oh my gosh. So, anyway, sidebar.

19:51 Jackie: Sorry, everybody. Okay. That's funny. What's the difference between privacy and emotional isolation?

19:56 Jennifer: Privacy is when you don't want anybody to know about your issues, I guess. And emotional isolation is when you're actually feeling things and you're not letting anybody know about it. So you're emotionally isolating yourself so that people don't know how you're feeling. Privacy is fine. I mean, you have problems, you have privacy. Emotional isolation is kind of more what I do when I was telling you, like, I'm not talking to anybody, I'm kind of by myself. And, you know, I probably learned that from a childhood of being by myself a lot to like solve my own problems all the time.

20:23 Jennifer: So for me, I go internal. My dad used to slam my head together. My brothers when I would cry because we'd both get in trouble every time I complain about something. So all those things kind of come into a childhood thing. Like we get in trouble, we'd be like, come here. Let's slam our heads together and be like, shut up, both of you. We're like, ouch.

20:43 Jennifer: It explains things though, doesn't it? I was not allowed to complain, even about my own father, about my problems. Why do women fear being taken?

20:53 Jackie: Why do women we are taught if we are too emotional? We are told we are dramatic, irrational, crazy, needy, hysterical, etc.

21:03 Jennifer: Yeah. Wacko.

21:04 Jackie: Yeah, I had all kinds of words for that, but I had to stop myself.

21:08 Jennifer: From this one, why do women fear being too much emotionally? Because I'd get my hands slammed together with my brother. So I learned to be real quiet about my problems real quick. So that was just parenting style in the 1970s. Everybody is like, you're crazy, not crazy. What do they call the girls now? Psycho. Psycho. Yeah, lunatic. I don't know. They have new words for each other, but those are the words we used.

21:30 Jackie: Yeah. You're next. What does healthy support actually look like?

21:34 Jennifer: Someone that you can call and allows you to vent and then lets you walk you through it and then let then convinces you that it's okay, that you're okay, that everything's gonna be okay. I think that that's what healthy support looks like. It can't be like, no, you're wrong. No, you're wrong.

21:51 Jennifer: Listen to you and then just be like, okay, you're okay, right? Like convince you that you are okay too. What's one thing women need to stop apologizing?

22:10 Jackie: You know what I mean?

22:17 Jennifer: I agree. I think a lot of women have spent their entire lives becoming incredibly good at surviving quietly. Smiling through heartbreak, through exhaustion, showing up and falling apart privately. Making everyone else comfortable why they carry more than anyone realizes. And eventually that becomes lonely. Because the truth is strength was never supposed to mean suffering silently. Real strength is honesty. Real strength is allowing support. Real strength is that the people who love you can handle the truth about how you're really doing.

22:47 Jennifer: And honestly, I think women desperately need spaces where they can stop performing being okay all the time. Maybe healing starts the moment she finally says, I'm not okay right now. And sometimes and someone responds with, you don't have to carry it alone anymore. If this episode hit you in the feels or made you laugh way too hard, we consider that a win.

23:05 Jackie: Be sure just to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your ride or die.

23:08 Jennifer: And when you're ready to make your friendship official, book your bestimony at rhinestoneweddingchapel.com.

23:13 Jackie: Because the best love stories don't always come with a ring.

23:29 SPEAKER_02: We stick together at or die to the moon, and no amount of space could ever come between us two. The reuniting's like we've never been apart, and every single time we're out of iron heart to heart.

24:07 Song: You've stayed right next to me. I've ought to make you laugh till you cry.

24:19 Song: The definition of a bit stress.

24:38 SPEAKER_02: And we'll keep printed through the race. We're ever connected. We're writing a story. Every day, we'll keep on going every day.

25:10 Song: What you made a make. The heart aches to knock the dance in this life. You stayed right next to me. I'll make you laugh till you pray.

25:29 Song: The definition of a first pen.

25:33 Song: It's good.

25:37 Song: It's good.

25:40 Song: It's good.

25:51 Song: Trust. That's loyalty.

25:59 Song: You and me.

26:03 Song: Love trust. That's loyalty.

26:12 Song: You and me, I'm not sure.