How Women in High-Stress Jobs Benefit from Support Groups

As a woman in a high-stress job, there is so much pressure on yourself on a daily basis. Think about it, you spend all day taking care of others at your job, then you come home with nothing left and no one that has time to support you. Women in high-stress jobs, especially those that require supporting or caretaking of others, are often left out in the cold when it comes to getting support of their own.

You give your all at work, but some days you feel like your job is taking over your whole life. With no real or accessible support system for yourself, you’re starting to feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and under-appreciated. Maybe even more anxious or depressed, and others are noticing. The good news is, there is a different way to carry everything that you are shouldering.

Why High-Stress Jobs Leave Women So Isolated

So often, women in high stress jobs are either consciously or unconsciously expected to be the one that others lean on. This ends up leading to no one asking you how you are, or how you are coping with everything. Especially if you work in male-dominated fields such as tech, engineering, or finance, you may be the only woman in the room. Editing yourself and your responses all day can be exhausting.

To cope, perhaps you started to refer to yourself as “the strong one”. However, this identity can make asking for help feel like failure. And then this becomes routine, and others learn to rely on you, but you end up taking care of everyone except yourself. Recognizing that, at the end of the week, all of your conversations with your coworkers were about work, can be a stark realization. You may even wonder, why are my relationships with my coworkers so unsatisfying?

The Hidden Cost of Doing It All Alone

At some point, you realize that it’s not possible to be both happy and satisfied with your career, while also giving 100% of your time and energy to your job. You realize that you want to start focusing on yourself, but self-care keeps sliding to “after busy season” or “next month” or “after everyone else’s needs are met.” Or you’re not even sure where to start with prioritizing yourself, it’s been so long since you’ve done so.

If you can’t think of anything outside of work, and your relationships with others have started to thin out or even stall at the starting gate because work always wins, you may be experiencing more beyond just being a workaholic: burnout.

Some signs of burnout that you may be writing off as normal can include:

• Disrupted sleep or constantly dreaming of work

• Lack of social support or friends you connect deeply with

• Unable to relax when you get home from work

• Weight gain or loss due to prioritizing work over healthy eating

• Irritability with anyone or anything that interrupts your working time

Do any of these sound familiar to you? If so, keep reading on!

What a Women’s Support Group Can Offer

There are many great things about friends and coworkers, and both can provide you with some support at times. However, friends also have their own work, and lives, to worry about. Further, you may even feel guilty sharing or burdening them with your needs, especially if that goes against your workplace culture. A Women’s Support Group can benefit you in ways you may not have even considered.

Joining a Women’s Support Group that is facilitated by an experienced therapist allows you to step out of the “helper” role and into a space where you can request and get your own support, with no guilt involved. Coming together with other women who are in a similar situation as you are can be powerful, affirming, and healing. They group can point out your blind spots and offer different perspectives on your situation that may not be readily apparent.

Five Ways Women in High Stress Jobs Benefit from Support Groups

You stop feeling like the only one. 

Hearing the words “me too” from women who get it, who have been in your shoes, makes you feel so much less alone and isolated. Just knowing that you’re not the only one experiencing burnout from high stress jobs can give a sense of relief.

You practice receiving support, not just giving it. 

You know how to support others - take a step back and get that same caring, non-judgemental, positive support back to you. Exercising a new muscle in receiving support will help you balance out your external relationships with others. Give and take are good skills to know.

You get honest perspectives on work and boundaries. 

Let’s be honest here - you may not be the best judge of what boundaries to enact with your job. Other women in the group can offer a different idea that works for them. Other women can also notice what is a toxic work environment that you may have normalized for yourself.

You have built-in time that is just for you. 

The accountability of showing up for a group for yourself and for others is a great first step in your own self-care. Taking an hour a week to prioritize your own needs, and wishes, in a safe environment can go a long way towards daily self-care.

You relearn how to connect with others outside of work. 

Perhaps you forgot about how to develop relationships with other women. Or you never made the time to nurture promising new relationships with friends due to work, and that muscle is weak from underuse. Practicing how to connect with other women in a confidential group space will translate to your life at home.

Making Time for One More Thing

You are probably asking yourself about now, how in the world do I have time for a Women’s Support Group when I can barely manage to get everything done with the little time I have? You do have the time, it’s just shifting your priorities. What can you give up for 1 hour per week to make time for supporting yourself? Likely, you have some unhealthy habits that have been taking more and more time and energy (scrolling social media, watching 5 TV shows in a row, etc.) that you can cut back on.

It can also be challenging to think about going to a group and opening up to a bunch of people that you don’t know; in fact, that can be terrifying! Remember, that everyone else in the group had that exact same worry and thought, and yet the benefit is worth it many times over to get over this hump. If you’re nervous in the group, say you’re nervous! It’s highly likely you’re not the only one.

What I see from women in the first few sessions of my online Women’s Support Group, is that everyone starts out unsure. Unsure of what the group is like, if others will judge them, and even what to talk about. My role as the group facilitator is to create a safe space for that anxiety to be named and discussed amongst the group members, and once we do that, a sense of relief settles over everyone.

How We Can Help

Think about coming home in the evening after work and having a group of women to talk with about your day, that annoying coworker, and your hurt back. Isn’t that a better picture than settling on the couch, doom-scrolling? If you’re ready to take the leap and get started, reach out today to learn more about our online Women’s Support Group.

Author Biography

Shannon Heers is a psychotherapist, approved clinical supervisor with Firelight Supervision, guest blogger, and the owner of a group psychotherapy practice in the Denver area. Shannon helps adults in professional careers manage anxiety, depression, work-life balance, and grief and loss. Follow Catalyss Counseling on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

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Here at Catalyss Counseling, we want to meet all of your counseling needs in the Denver area. Our supportive therapists provide depression counseling, therapy for caregiver stress, grief and loss therapy, stress management counseling and more. We also have specialists in trauma and PTSD, women's issues, pregnancy and postpartum depression or anxiety, pregnancy loss and miscarriage, and birth trauma. For therapists, we can also provide clinical supervision! We look forward to connecting with you to help support your journey today.