Why do mothers refuse to admit it’s too late? they can’t cope untili t’s too late?

Alana told everyone she was fine as she struggled to care for her 3 children, husband AND gravely ill mum. Then, like more and more mums, she had a breakdown ...

MY Talent for acting only showed itself in my 40s. not, as you might think, through a sudden interest in a local am-dram society. no, it was when my world crumbled around me, and I found myself caring for my young children and ageing parents — the lethal ‘sandwich’ that increasingly afflicts my generation — that I realised I was an adept performer.

For many months, I pretended all was fine. That I was in control. That I could care for everyone — my newborn baby, my two toddlers, my seriously ill mother, my vulnerable father — with almost complete disregard for myself.

Then, eventually, perhaps inevitably, I suffered a complete breakdown, and was forced to seek medical help.

I’m not alone. Research shows that, like me, many more women of the so-called sandwich generation are faltering, collapsing under intense strain, unable to cope with the demands on our time.

And often, these pressurised women refuse to show just how near breaking point they are — until it’s too late.

‘We are seeing an increase in the rates of common mental disorders in middle-aged women, especially in the 45 to 55 age bracket,’ explains Kathryn Abel, a professor of psychological medicine at the centre for women’s mental health at the University of Manchester.

‘This is not the same for men, who seem to be keeping a steady rate. We are seeing the highest rates in decades and we need to understand what is happening.’

She adds: ‘The levels of common mental disorders, such as breakdowns, in middle-aged women are steadily increasing. In 1993 it was at 12 per cent, but has risen to 20 per cent and is still rising. We can put a lot of it down to lifestyle.’

For ‘lifestyle’ read the trend for giving birth later. This, combined with the growing life expectancy of older people, means more women are trapped in a tsunami of care giving, just as they enter middle age, with all the biological changes and stresses that accompany it. They find themselves right on the edge — as I can attest.

The circumstances that led to my breakdown were perhaps more dramatic than others.

I was already struggling when I went into hospital to have my third baby, Ruby, in 2010. But I consoled myself that my mum, Pat, who was then 76, would be there to help me after the agony of labour had concluded.

I had two beautiful daughters, Daisy and Poppy, then aged four and five. The road to conceiving my third child had been difficult.

After the two girls were born, I’d experienced fertility problems, including three miscarriages.

I was 40, juggling my work as a freelance writer with childcare, although it always felt more struggle than juggle.

My husband worked long hours as a doctor, so I relied on help from Mum, who often stayed with me to help. Dynamic, vibrant and with an energy that belied her years, she was my rock.

So much so she was at Ruby’s birth, before heading back to my house in Dublin to help care for my two eldest daughters, while I recovered in hospital from a caesarean. I was there for four days.

The night before I was discharged, she called to tell me she was putting the girls to bed and couldn’t wait for me to come home. She told me she loved me — words I would never hear from her again. By the time I walked past the pink bunting she had hung outside my door the next day, everything had changed.

Hours after our call, my glamorous mother, who loved aquaaerobics and who always wore lipstick, had a catastrophic stroke that left her brain damaged, paralysed, doubly incontinent and needing 24-hour care.

Overnight, I went from needing Mum to help care for me and my children, to being sandwiched between caring for them and her.

THe next year I spent changing both her and my baby’s nappies, spoon-feeding each of them, only able to guess what they wanted from the expression in their eyes.

For five years, my brother, Simon, and I supported my dad, David, to care for Mum, until she died last year. Despite being 75, he was deemed fit enough to care for her at their home in Belfast, with carers who helped to wash and change her.

As Mum was bedbound, Dad effectively became housebound. My brother and I came every weekend to give him a break.

It often meant me spending time away from my children — or bringing them along and trying to care for them and Mum at the same time.

Those years were impossibly hard. The stress of trying to cope with grief, care for so many people, and keep up with work and my career took a grinding toll on me.

In the year after Mum’s stroke, it became so overwhelming I reached breaking point. I just wanted everything to stop.

But my girls still needed dressing, feeding, hugging and for their mum to take them to school. And my own mum needed practical and physical care and support.

Meanwhile, my dad needed emotional support and a kind ear. My husband needed his wife to at least be present. I tried to put on a professional face for my clients.

everyone needed something from me — and I felt I couldn’t say no to any of them.

And so I performed. I acted the role of strong, unflappable daughter, mother and wife, ignoring the panic rising in me.

But I cried constantly, and found the simplest tasks impossible.

One day, I had an overwhelming urge to walk out into the road, in front of a stream of traffic. I didn’t want to commit suicide, but I did want everything to stop. I held Ruby in my arms and stared at the road, feeling an almost magnetic pull. It was terrifying. Thankfully, something stopped me taking that dreadful step.

My GP explained I was suffering post-traumatic stress and exhaustion, with some post-natal depression thrown in. For a year, I was on mild anti-depressants and sought counselling, which helped enormously. I’ll never forget the relief I felt when I finally admitted how I felt — and to hear my GP say: ‘You’re going to be OK.’

I was afraid the world would cave in if I admitted how incapable I felt. But my breakdown caught up with me, just like it’s catching up with so many other women of the sandwich generation.

Shelley Hunter is one. The 36-year-old teaching assistant was already struggling with a busy career and caring for her two daughters, Amelia, 12, and Isabelle, nine, when her mother Marian became seriously ill.

After being admitted to hospital with cellulitis (an infection of the deeper layers of skin), Marian, 64, fell and broke her arm on the ward. She then developed necrotising fasciitis — also known as the flesh- eating disease — and had to have a full mastectomy on her right side.

She was in intensive care, and spent seven months in hospital.

‘I was already working at full capacity,’ says Shelley from South Yorkshire. ‘My husband works