At a Glance
September can bring a strange mixture of motivation and pressure. Summer comes to an end, routines return, children go back to school and workplaces often become busier. For some people, that shift feels refreshing. For others, it can create anxiety, mental overload and the uncomfortable feeling that they should somehow be coping better.
Feeling overwhelmed does not always mean that you simply have too much to do. Sometimes it can be linked to perfectionism, self-criticism, difficulty setting boundaries, fear of failure, ADHD-related difficulties or long-standing beliefs about how much you should expect from yourself.
Therapy can help you understand what may be sitting beneath that sense of pressure. It can help you recognise patterns that keep overwhelm going, respond differently to difficult emotions, soften harsh self-criticism and develop a more sustainable relationship with achievement, responsibility and rest.
I am Dr Sonney Gullu-McPhee, Chartered and HCPC-registered Clinical Psychologist, with extensive postdoctoral clinical training. I am an ISST Certified Advanced Schema Therapist and also work with EMDR, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Compassion Focused Therapy and DBT-informed approaches.
I provide psychological therapy from my practice in Petersfield, Hampshire, as well as online across the UK.
Get in touch with me to book a complimentary 15-minute consultation.
Why September Can Feel Like a Second January
There is something about September that can feel like a psychological reset. The relative flexibility of summer begins to disappear, diaries start filling again and the remaining months of the year suddenly feel much more visible. For many people, this creates a renewed desire for structure. You may want to become more organised, establish better routines or finally tackle some of the things you have been putting off.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a fresh start. The difficulty comes when that motivation quietly turns into pressure. You may find yourself thinking that you should have achieved more by now, that you need to catch up, or that everybody else seems to be managing life more successfully than you are. September can begin to feel less like an opportunity to reset and more like another deadline.
What is interesting psychologically is that overwhelm is not always determined by how many things are actually on our to-do list. Often, it is shaped by what those demands mean to us. If making a mistake feels threatening, every task carries more weight. If disappointing somebody feels unbearable, every request becomes more difficult to refuse. If your sense of worth is closely connected to achievement, an unfinished task can begin to feel like evidence that you are failing rather than simply something that still needs doing.
For adults with ADHD, there can be another layer. Difficulties with organisation, managing time, remembering tasks, focusing and completing things are recognised features that can affect day-to-day life. What looks like an ordinary routine from the outside can therefore involve considerably more mental effort internally.
Therapy can help us step back from the immediate pressure and ask a different question. Rather than simply asking, “How do I become more organised?”, we can begin asking, “Why does all of this feel so heavy for me?”
When Overwhelm Is Trying to Tell You Something
We often respond to overwhelm by trying to become more efficient. We write another list, reorganise the diary, buy a new planner or promise ourselves that tomorrow we will be more disciplined. Sometimes those practical changes are useful. But if the same feeling keeps returning, it can be worth becoming curious about what the overwhelm might be communicating.
Perhaps you genuinely do have too much to manage. But perhaps you are also carrying responsibilities that do not all belong to you. You may find it difficult to say no because somebody else’s disappointment feels more uncomfortable than your own exhaustion. You might have become used to being the dependable person who keeps everything going, and over time that role may have become something you feel unable to step away from.
For other people, overwhelm can be closely connected with perfectionism. A task may not simply need completing; it may feel as though it has to be done exceptionally well. An email may need rereading several times. A decision may need analysing from every possible angle. A piece of work may be delayed because you are waiting until you feel completely ready to do it properly.
Therapy can help you distinguish between the practical problem in front of you and the emotional meaning attached to it. Instead of interpreting overwhelm as proof that you are failing, you can begin to understand it as information about what you need, what you fear and what you may have been carrying for too long.
The Patterns Beneath the Pressure
When we feel overwhelmed, we naturally develop ways of coping with the discomfort. Sometimes this involves avoidance. You may postpone opening an email, delay a difficult conversation or struggle to begin a task because you are uncertain about how to approach it or worried that the result will not be good enough.
At other times, we cope in almost the opposite way. We work harder, stay later, take responsibility for other people’s problems or keep checking things long after they are good enough. We may agree to another request despite already feeling stretched because saying no creates guilt or anxiety.
These patterns can look very different on the surface, but psychologically they may be trying to solve a similar problem. Procrastination can sometimes protect us temporarily from the possibility of failure, criticism or uncertainty. Overworking can sometimes protect us from the very same fears by creating the sense that if we just try hard enough, prepare enough or control enough, nothing can go wrong.
This is one reason simply telling yourself to become more organised or disciplined may not be enough. If the behaviour serves an emotional purpose, changing it often requires understanding what it is protecting you from. Therapy can help uncover that function, making it possible to respond differently rather than simply repeating the same cycle with more self-criticism.
When the Voice in Your Head Makes Everything Heavier
For many people, the hardest part of feeling overwhelmed is not simply the number of things they have to do. It is the way they speak to themselves while trying to manage them.
You may have an internal voice telling you that you should have finished something already, that other people manage far more than you, or that you simply need to try harder. Perhaps you rarely allow yourself to acknowledge how much you have done because your attention immediately moves towards what remains unfinished.
Over time, these messages can become so familiar that they stop sounding like opinions and begin to feel like facts. You may genuinely believe that being hard on yourself is necessary to stay productive or successful. The fear can be that if you stopped criticising yourself, you would become lazy, complacent or fall behind.
In Schema Therapy, we often become curious about where these demanding messages originated. Perhaps achievement was highly valued while you were growing up, or mistakes attracted criticism. Maybe you learned that being responsible, helpful or independent gained approval, or that asking for help was something to avoid. Experiences such as these can gradually contribute to powerful internal rules: I must get things right. I should be able to cope. I cannot let people down. I should not need help.
These rules may once have served an important purpose. They may have helped you succeed, avoid criticism or feel more secure. But when life becomes demanding, they can also leave you carrying far more than is sustainable.
Therapy does not aim to remove ambition or responsibility. Instead, it can help you develop a more balanced internal voice, one that allows you to care about doing things well without believing that every mistake says something about your worth.
When Being Busy Becomes a Way of Not Feeling
Sometimes overwhelm is not only about doing too much. Busyness can also protect us from noticing difficult emotions.
When there is always another task, another message or another deadline, there is very little space to pay attention to what is happening internally. You may keep moving all day and then notice that the moment you stop, your mind becomes much louder. You start thinking about tomorrow, replaying conversations or remembering everything you still need to do.
You might feel irritable, restless or unexpectedly low without immediately understanding why. Perhaps there are worries about work, a difficult relationship, loneliness, uncertainty about the future or simply exhaustion that you have not had space to acknowledge.
Therapy can help you develop a different relationship with those emotions. Rather than viewing anxiety, sadness, frustration or guilt as problems that need to disappear immediately, you can begin asking what they might be communicating. Anxiety may be signalling uncertainty or perceived threat. Anger may point towards a boundary that has been crossed. Sadness may be connected to disappointment or loss. Exhaustion may simply be telling you that the way you have been coping cannot continue indefinitely.
Compassion Focused Therapy can be especially useful when you find it much easier to respond sympathetically to somebody else’s difficulties than to your own. Learning to approach your own distress with greater curiosity and compassion can reduce the need to escape it through relentless busyness, avoidance or self-criticism.
When “I’m Overwhelmed” Really Means “I’m Carrying Too Much”
For some people, overwhelm is temporary. Several stressful things happen at once and eventually life settles again. For others, it can become so familiar that they barely recognise it as unusual.
You may wake up already thinking about what needs to be done. Even when you complete something, your attention moves immediately to the next responsibility. There is rarely a feeling of being properly finished because there is always another task waiting.
Interestingly, people who live this way can appear extremely capable from the outside. You may be the organised one, the reliable one or the person everybody turns to when something needs sorting. Other people may see somebody who copes exceptionally well, while internally you feel as though you are permanently trying to stay one step ahead of everything.
But being capable does not mean having unlimited capacity.
From a Schema Therapy perspective, patterns such as Unrelenting Standards and Self-Sacrifice may sometimes help explain why somebody repeatedly takes on too much. Unrelenting Standards can create the belief that there is always more you should be achieving, improving or completing. Self-Sacrifice can make it easier to recognise and respond to other people’s needs than your own.
A fear of failure may add another layer. Struggling with a task can then feel like more than a temporary difficulty; it can begin to feel like evidence that you are less capable than other people believe you to be.
These patterns often developed for understandable reasons. Perhaps being useful helped you feel valued. Maybe achievement brought approval or protected you from criticism. Perhaps being independent reduced the risk of relying on somebody who might disappoint you.
Therapy provides an opportunity to understand why these patterns developed without judging them. Once we understand why a particular way of coping became necessary, we can also begin asking whether it is still necessary now.
Creating a Life That Actually Works for You
One of the most important ways therapy can help is by shifting the focus away from the person you believe you should be and towards the life that actually works for you.
Sometimes that means creating more structure. At other times, it means recognising that the problem is not a lack of organisation but simply trying to fit too much into your life. You may need clearer boundaries at work, fewer commitments or more willingness to let somebody else carry some responsibility.
Perhaps you need to practise completing something to a “good enough” standard rather than endlessly trying to improve it. That can feel surprisingly uncomfortable when perfectionism has become closely linked to your sense of safety or self-worth, but it can also create space for other parts of life.
What Might Your Healthy Adult Say?
One of the concepts I particularly value in Schema Therapy is the Healthy Adult mode. The Healthy Adult is not a perfect version of you who never becomes anxious, tired or overwhelmed. It is the part of you that can step back, understand what is happening and respond in a way that considers both your responsibilities and your emotional needs.
A Healthy Adult perspective might recognise that there is a great deal happening without concluding that everything must be solved today. It can care about doing something well without demanding perfection, and it can recognise that another person may feel disappointed when you set a boundary without automatically deciding that the boundary was wrong.
It can also acknowledge mistakes without turning them into statements about who you are. Forgetting something does not automatically mean you are unreliable. Struggling with a difficult week does not mean you are incapable. Needing help does not erase the things you are able to do independently.
For somebody who has spent years being driven by anxiety, demanding standards or self-criticism, this voice can initially feel unfamiliar. You may even worry that treating yourself more compassionately will make you less motivated. But compassion and accountability are not opposites. It is possible to care deeply about your work, your relationships and your responsibilities without needing to frighten or criticise yourself into functioning.
You Don’t Have to Earn the Right to Slow Down
September can be a useful opportunity to reconnect with routine and think about what you want from the remaining months of the year. But it does not need to become another deadline for transforming yourself.
You do not need to have everything organised simply because summer has ended, and you do not need to catch up with everything you did not manage to do in August. There will always be another email, another household job, another piece of work or another part of life that could be improved.
If you only allow yourself to rest once everything is finished, you may spend a very long time waiting for permission to stop.
Sometimes the most meaningful change begins not by asking how you can become more productive, but by becoming curious about why you have felt so much pressure to keep going. Therapy can help you understand the beliefs, emotional needs and coping strategies beneath overwhelm, recognise when you are carrying too much and develop healthier ways of balancing achievement, responsibility and rest.
The aim is not to remove every stressful or demanding day from your life. It is to develop a different relationship with yourself when those difficult days arrive.
How Therapy Can Help When You Feel Overwhelmed
Psychological therapy can help you move beyond simply managing the latest crisis and begin understanding why certain situations repeatedly leave you feeling overloaded. For some people, that involves recognising perfectionistic standards or learning to set boundaries without overwhelming guilt. For others, it may involve understanding procrastination, anxiety, ADHD-related difficulties or the role of a harsh internal critic.
Therapy can also help you make sense of the emotional patterns underneath your responses. Rather than seeing avoidance, overworking or people-pleasing as personal weaknesses, we can explore how these ways of coping developed, what they have been protecting you from and whether there are now more helpful alternatives.
Over time, this can support a more sustainable way of living. You can remain ambitious and responsible while developing greater flexibility, respond to difficult emotions without immediately trying to escape them, and recognise that slowing down or asking for support does not mean you have failed.
Support for Overwhelm, Anxiety and Perfectionism
As a Chartered and HCPC-registered Clinical Psychologist and ISST Certified Advanced Schema Therapist, I work with adults experiencing anxiety, overwhelm, perfectionism, self-criticism, procrastination, low self-esteem and ADHD-related difficulties.
My approach is formulation-led, which means that rather than focusing only on symptoms, we develop an individual understanding of why particular difficulties may have developed and what continues to maintain them. Depending on your needs, I may draw on Schema Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy, EMDR and DBT-informed approaches. These are also the therapeutic approaches currently described across my practice website.
If you have been wondering whether ADHD may be contributing to difficulties with overwhelm, organisation, attention, procrastination or feeling as though you are constantly trying to catch up, I also provide comprehensive adult ADHD assessments. My assessments take a detailed, clinically grounded approach, considering your developmental history, current experiences and other possible explanations alongside ADHD symptoms.
I offer psychological therapy and adult ADHD assessments from my private practice in Petersfield, Hampshire, as well as online across the UK.
If you recognise yourself in some of the patterns discussed in this article and would like to understand what may be driving your own feelings of overwhelm, you are welcome to get in touch to book a complimentary 15-minute consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can therapy help if I feel overwhelmed but do not have a mental health diagnosis?
Yes. You do not need to have a diagnosed mental health condition to benefit from psychological therapy. Feeling overwhelmed may be connected to anxiety, perfectionism, self-criticism, difficulty setting boundaries, stressful life circumstances or long-standing ways of coping. Therapy can help you understand what is contributing to the pressure and develop ways of responding that feel more manageable and sustainable.
How do I know if feeling overwhelmed has become a problem?
Everyone feels overwhelmed from time to time, particularly during busy or stressful periods. It may be worth seeking support if the feeling is persistent, affects your sleep or concentration, makes it difficult to switch off, leads to avoidance or procrastination, or leaves you feeling as though you are constantly trying to catch up. Therapy can help you explore whether the pressure is mainly coming from your current circumstances or whether deeper emotional patterns are also contributing.
Can therapy help with perfectionism and self-criticism?
Yes. Therapy can help you understand where perfectionistic standards and self-critical thinking may have developed and how they continue to affect you. Rather than simply trying to lower your standards, therapy can help you develop a healthier relationship with achievement, mistakes and your own expectations, so that motivation does not have to depend on fear or self-criticism.
Can ADHD make feelings of overwhelm worse?
For some adults, ADHD can contribute to feeling overwhelmed because difficulties with attention, organisation, time management, remembering tasks and completing things can make everyday demands require more effort. Therapy can help you understand these patterns and develop strategies that work more effectively with the way you think and function.
What type of therapy can help with feeling overwhelmed?
The most appropriate approach depends on what is contributing to the overwhelm. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help explore patterns of thinking and behaviour, while Schema Therapy may be useful when difficulties are linked to long-standing patterns such as perfectionism, self-sacrifice or harsh self-criticism. Compassion Focused Therapy can also help when shame or a highly critical inner voice makes it difficult to respond kindly to yourself. Therapy should be tailored to your individual needs rather than applying the same approach to everyone.
When should I consider speaking to a psychologist?
You may want to consider psychological support if feeling overwhelmed has become persistent, is affecting your work, relationships, sleep or wellbeing, or if the same patterns seem to keep repeating despite your efforts to change them. You do not have to wait until things reach crisis point before asking for support.
If you would like to explore what may be contributing to your own feelings of overwhelm, you are welcome to get in touch to arrange a complimentary 15-minute consultation.