Feeling Trapped: Support for Exhausted and Overwhelmed Parents

I remember it vividly: Pacing back and forth like a caged lion, feeling the rage simmering just beneath the surface. My kids were in their rooms, the house was a mess, and I felt like I was about to burst out and destroy anything in my path in a desperate rampage for freedom. We hadn’t left the house in days. This wasn’t just a bad day; it was a culmination of months of feeling trapped within the same four walls, grappling with the intense emotions of parenting a child in burnout.

If this resonates with you, know that you’re not alone. Many parents experience this intense feeling of being stuck and trapped in their own daily life. One parent called it “the relentless sameness of my daily life,” and another says, “it’s knowing Ii have to be ‘on’ every moment of the day, every day, without any end in sight.” It can be a potent mix of rage and despair, all stuck inside your body, sometimes feeling like a rippling sensation, a monster trapped under your skin. 

Many of our kids need co-regulation, or a person who’s mind and body are dedicated to supporting theirs, literally 24 hours a day. When we get up to go to the bathroom, slide in an ear bud to try a podcast, or crawl out of bed at night to return to our own bed, they panic, pulling us back close. For many parents, it feels like an invisible leash tying them to their own kids. 

When my babies were young, it was them not taking a bottle or being able to be put to sleep by anyone but me. Family members and babysitters would call me, a screaming child clearly audible, asking me to please come back home as soon as possible. Then it was the fact that my kid could not be understood by anyone but me, and later that they could not eat or go to sleep with anyone but me. During burnout and the long recovery period, I could not be out of sight, out of reach, or even move my eyes away without my child’s stress levels shooting through the roof. 

I know parents who cannot sit down on the toilet without their child moving through an elaborate routine around it (they call it “sitting them down”). They thought they were alone with this particular ritual until one of my programs when they found another family with the same pattern. 

You may hold it together for long periods of time only to explode on your kids when you just can’t hold it in anymore. You might experience waves of intense shame afterward. Your intense feelings are real and legitimate responses to the incredibly challenging situation you're in.

Understanding How Emotions Build Up

According to Emily and Amelia Nagoski, autistic authors (and twin sisters) of the book "Burnout," emotions are physical experiences that get trapped in the body if not properly processed. When you're under constant stress, your body is in a heightened state of alert, similar to an animal trapped in a cage. To process these emotions, we need to complete the stress response cycle, which involves acknowledging, experiencing, and releasing the emotions in the body. 

Feeling Trapped and Needing Escape

Have you ever dreamed of getting sick so you could spend a few days in bed? Have you fantasized about something catastrophic happening, like breaking multiple bones or getting cancer, just so you could have a break from your daily existence?

You’re not crazy and you’re not alone. In fact, these escape fantasies make perfect sense. The feeling of being trapped is so distressing that the human mind will invest ways of escape, even if only in our imagination. These fantasies can start as simple desires for an afternoon alone or a solo vacation, a brief respite from the relentless demands of parenting. However, as the trauma and stress intensify, these fantasies can become more extreme. Some parents imagine getting seriously ill and needing hospitalization, seeing it as a way to escape the daily grind and receive care themselves. In the most severe cases, these fantasies can turn towards suicidality. Understanding this spectrum of escape fantasies is essential for comprehending how deeply overwhelmed and traumatized parents can feel.

The feeling of being trapped, coupled with the desperate need for escape, highlights the profound impact of chronic stress and trauma. It underscores the importance of finding healthy outlets and support systems to manage these intense emotions.

Three Aspects to Navigate the Feeling of Being Trapped

1. Tend to Your Basic Needs

Listen to Your Body: It sounds simple: Eat when you’re hungry, drink when you’re thirsty, and rest when you’re tired. But in some seasons, this can be incredibly difficult. Make this your new short-term goal. Can your child tolerate you going to the bathroom right when you need to, even if there need to be other accommodations around it? Can you add blankets, cozy socks, nice smells, yummy snacks, and soft lighting to places you often find yourself? Is there a great novel or fun interest that you could plant in those spots, so that you look forward to being there?

Build Trust With Yourself: According to somatic experiencing, attending to these basic needs helps your body feel safer and more grounded. You are cultivating a trusting relationship with yourself, teaching your body that you can be a trusted friend to listen to its needs and respond with gentle attunement. Accessing these body needs on a regular basis sets a foundation for bigger goals like finding activities you enjoy, work that fulfills you, or therapists who understand and respect your season of life. Focus on creating a reality where you can trust yourself. Let those other needs flow from the relationship you are creating with meeting your own basic needs.

2. Release and Process Your Emotions

Create Rituals to Release Rage: Identify moments when you felt acutely trapped and let out your emotions—scream into a pillow, trash your bed, punch a chair or the couch. Regularly releasing rage helps to complete the stress response cycle, preventing emotions from building up. Stress needs to be felt and moved through the body. It feels like giving more space to these emotions will make them bigger and harder to deal with, but actually, when they have room to come out, they complete. We feel better. They are less likely to bust out or pop up in scary or unexpected ways.

Make Space for Grief and Sadness: Often, grief and sadness lie beneath the rage. Create a safe space where you can lean into these feelings. Listen to music, take a warm bath, or get cozy under a blanket. Allowing yourself to grieve is crucial for emotional release and healing. Many of us were actively suppressed when we tried to express our sadness, anger, or rage as children. You might feel young or pulled into younger patterns when your rage builds up. Let it out on behalf of the little You who was told to go to her room, or cut it out, or dry it up, or fix her face. She deserved supportive space to feel it all, and you do too.

3. Exercise Your Autonomy (in small, accessible ways)

We All Need Autonomy: Your intense emotions are signaling a fundamental truth: autonomy is a basic human need. Freedom, control, authority, and independence are key to thriving. When these needs are restricted, your emotions rise up, pushing you toward freedom and release. When we do not have control over big aspects of our lives, like when we fall asleep or go to the bathroom or speak or work, our mind begins to give up attempting to find control anywhere. A kind of helplessness and malaise can set in. But autonomy is an important part of human thriving.

Start Small: Honor this need for autonomy in whatever small ways you can. In my courses, we often start with tiny autonomous practices like trying several silent breathing techniques, discerning which one feels the best, and then continuing on with that one for several minutes. Squeezing and releasing our toes, to feel the sensation of ease in our feet and legs. It may be accessing your ability to shift your eyes and your attention to look at something pleasant in the room when you can’t get up and walk away. Or pre-planning short 1-2 minute habits and rituals that make you feel more like yourself, so that when you do have time to yourself, you know what to do. Starting small and focusing on actions that give you a feeling of autonomy is crucial when the trapped–panther feeling creeps up on you.

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You are not alone in feeling this way. It’s so, so hard, but there is a community that understands and supports you. Your emotions are valid and are trying to tell you something important. Take small steps to tend to your needs, access your freedoms, and release your emotions. Remember, I’m with you on this journey.