Dear Women, Here are 7 Ways Therapy Can Help You Heal

Dear women,

Did you know that women are more likely than men to face mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and burnout – yet are often less likely to seek therapy in Singapore until it becomes too much?

Why? Because, from a young age, many of us are taught to endure, adjust, be nice and prioritise the needs of others. 

You, too, may be carrying many such heavy bags, passed through generations like unwanted societal heirlooms.

But we’re here to remind you that therapy can help you find your way to a life that’s not burdened by these invisible bags. 

Our blog explores seven common types of emotional baggage that women carry and how therapy for emotional healing can help. Read along, dear women, and give yourself the permission to speak, feel, and heal.

7 Types of Emotional Baggage Women Often Carry (& How Therapy Helps Put Them Down)

Being a woman in a patriarchal world is a challenging whirlwind of unfair expectations, silenced voices, denied opportunities and invisible labour. Right from childhood, society conditions women (directly or indirectly) to accept this unfairness silently.

However, the world is changing, albeit slowly. Today, women are waking up, taking up space, breaking out of shackles and putting down burdens that were never theirs to carry.

Therapy is a powerful tool that can help women understand these issues and unlearn years of conditioning. This section explores seven common types of such emotional baggage and how therapy services helps women unpack them.

1) The Bag of Being ‘Nice’ & Putting Yourself Last

Women are subtly conditioned to be agreeable, smiling and gentle – often at the cost of their own emotional well-being.

Growing up in a world that tells you to always be ‘nice’ can leave you pushing down your own needs. You may:

• Hold space for and anticipate other people’s needs
• Take it upon yourself to cool down arguments and absorb unspoken tension
• Internalise and mirror what you saw your mothers and grandmothers do growing up
• Quietly tend to the needs of others – be it family, friends, or colleagues – while ignoring your own

Thus, women often end up carrying all this invisible emotional labour. Consequently, speaking up, disagreeing, or asking for space may feel risky, rude, and overwhelming.

The question then arises, who provides emotional support for women when they need it? Talk therapy can. Tools drawn from emotion-focused therapy can also help you express your needs more clearly and ask for support from the people you care about.

2) The Bag of Guilt & Emotional Suppression

Feeling guilty for resting. For saying no. For taking up space. For feeling an emotion. Many women carry so much guilt or emotional overwhelm within themselves without ever realising it. 

This guilt may, in turn, cause you to push down emotions and needs and keep pushing forward like nothing happened – until it spills over.

3) The Bag of Comparison & Perfectionism

Women are conditioned to measure themselves constantly – against timelines, societal standards and success markers. You’re either seen as doing too much or not enough. Judged for being too invested in your career or for not having a job and being a stay-at-home mom. 

You may thus end up comparing yourself to other women around you based on factors like the following:

• Marriage: ‘Most of my friends are married, but I’m not. Am I a failure?’ or ‘I don’t want to get married, but my family believes that’s the only point to my life.’
• Career: ‘I wish I could start my own business like Sara’ or ‘I’m unable to spend as much time with my kids as stay-at-home moms do because of my career. Am I a bad mom?’
• Children: ‘I don’t want to have kids, but everyone makes me feel like I’m supposed to want to. I’m afraid I’ll be judged and ostracised because of my choice.’

These are just a few examples from the thousands of expectations that are placed on women. 

As a result of internalising such expectations, you may compare yourself to those who seem to tick society’s boxes. Comparison, in turn, leads to perfectionism and pushing yourself too much.

4) The Bag of Generational Trauma

More often than not, women carry baggage that didn’t start with them. The effects of violence, trauma, oppression, and societal beliefs can echo through generations, from mother to daughter.

In addition to this, intergenerational trauma often festers on the inside silently, shaping many areas of your life, including self-esteem, behavioural patterns, physical and mental health (ie causing anxiety and stress).

5) The Bag of Playing By Gender Roles

You may feel caged in by the boxes you’re expected to fit into and the roles that you’re expected to fill. Daughter, partner, wife, mother, caregiver. 

The rules society lays out for women are often unspoken and contradictory. Lead, but not too assertively. Be attractive, but don’t seek attention. The list is very long. 

Below are some examples of gender roles that patriarchal cultures expect women to fill:

• The ‘nurturing mother’ who sacrifices everything for her family
• The ‘dutiful daughter’ who obeys, compromises and never questions
• The ‘loving wife’ who supports her husband without expecting support back
• The ‘emotional caretaker’ & ‘selfless giver’ of the family who puts others first, always
• The ‘modest woman’ who’s attractive but not too much
• The ‘career woman’ who manages her career, household and children single-handedly
• The ‘nice woman’ who never raises her voice, doesn’t laugh loudly and always has a smile on her face

6) The Bag of Double Standards & Discrimination

Double standards against women are everywhere. Right from the way your mother is expected to cook dinner to the cost of women’s consumer products being higher than men’s (the pink tax).

If you’re a woman, odds are you’ve likely been called too loud, emotional or weak at least a handful of times in your life. You may also have experienced the following:

• Unwarranted comments about body hair and clothing while men’s body hair and clothing aren’t measured by a moral compass
• Being overlooked in professional settings, while male colleagues receive attention for the same action
• Having to work twice as hard for a promotion that pays you half what your male colleague earns

Such instances of double standards, gender bias and subtle (or blatant) discrimination fill the everyday lives of women in Singapore and beyond. 

7) The Bag of Male Validation

From a young age, women internalise, through mass media, social media, societal and family dynamics, that their value is tied to male validation. That the love, appreciation, admiration and desire of men are the ultimate proof of their worth.

When such validation becomes an integral part of your self-worth, it can quietly shape your choices throughout life.

When you start to see how therapy works, it also reminds you that your worth isn’t dependent on anyone else. It never was and never will be.