Until about a month ago, Kris and Carrie were more likely to give to a food pantry than to rely on one. But for the second time in a month, Kris isn’t getting a paycheck due to the government shutdown, leaving them no choice but to ask for help at a food bank.

With three kids to feed, Kris and Carrie aren’t just feeling strained financially — they feel the stress mentally, too.

Kris is an essential employee — he’s a K-9 handler with the TSA — so he has to report to work as usual. But he’s not getting paid. (We’re using their first names only due to security concerns because of Kris’s work at the Transportation Security Administration).

The mental toll they’re experiencing is one the American Psychological Association warned of when it called for an end to the shutdown on Jan. 11. The compounding stressors of making ends meet, anxiety over a situation outside of their control and uncertainty of when the next paycheck will arrive can have a negative impact on federal workers’ mental health, the APA noted.

It’s an issue that’s often ignored as most families focus on keeping food on the table and the lights on for as long as they can.

‘We Want To Be The Ones Helping. And Now We Need Help.’

Carrie considers herself a positive person. She says she always looks for the bright side of things. “Maybe annoyingly so sometimes,” she admits.

But as the first, fifth, and tenth day of the shutdown ticked by, even she began to let her positivity slip a little. Soon, what seemed like a “typical” short political shutdown over border wall funding turned into weeks of back-and-forth between President Trump and Congress. The gravity of the situation hit home when Kris and Carrie saw the $0 pay stub in mid-January.

“When you’re facing your first paycheck—without receiving it actually—the reality kind of sunk in that bills still needed to come out,” Carrie says.

Kris is the family’s sole provider; Carrie has considered picking up a job, but then their family would have to pay for childcare. It’s an added cost they wouldn’t be able to afford.

As the shutdown continued, the couple shifted into survival mode. Kris and Carrie wanted to make sure their family’s basic needs were met.

“When my kid lays his head on a pillow, he’s warm. You turn on the light switch, and it comes on,” Kris says.

They had some savings to fall back on. But Kris and Carrie weren’t sure how long the shutdown would last. With a mortgage and three young children ages 3, 5 and 7, dipping too far into their savings wasn’t a risk they were willing to take, especially without an end in sight.

Soon, Carrie found herself waiting outside the doors of Northern Virginia Family Service’s food pantry. It’s a position she never thought she’d find herself in, not because of her pride, Carrie says—but because she wasn’t sure if it was right to ask for help when so many people face a daily hunger struggle and hers was a temporary setback.

“I feel like I need to carry the burden more on my shoulders than anybody else here in this house. And that’s my big concern because… what if I run out of money?” -Kris

She wondered: “‘Is this going to last just a couple of days? Do I even belong here? Am I taking food from people that don’t have it every single day of their lives?’ To me, it just felt wrong.”

For Carrie and Kris, asking for help was difficult.

“We want to give more. And here we are — we are in need,” Kris says. “We want to be the ones helping. And now we’re like, ‘We need help.’”

Their son picked up on their stress.

“My 7-year-old has repeatedly asked me to take the money from his money jar so we have food,” Carrie says through tears. “We’re not we’re not in a place right now that I need to do that. I keep telling him that I will let him know if it comes down to that. But we will not let us go without food.”

That moment stuck with Kris.

“I’ve told him…’Boy. I’m proud of you. Yes. And I want you to do that not only here but outside the house.’”

An Invisible Toll

Carrie says going to the food bank left her “in a funk” for a few days. Her husband had what was supposed to be a stable government job. They both learned the value of living frugally and saving. His salary was enough to let them live comfortably, allowing their kids treats like eating Chick-fil-A, playing extracurricular sports, and taking family vacations. Carrie was able to stay at home and be there when the school bus picked up her eldest kids in the morning and dropped them off in the afternoon.

It’s a solidly middle-class life that both Kris and Carrie relish, and one they missed out on during their own childhoods. The couple works hard to make sure their kids can enjoy things their parents didn’t get to experience growing up.

But the shutdown has Kris wondering about his identity as the “breadwinner” and what he has to do to make sure his kids are fed and have a roof over their heads.

“Me, as a as a father and a husband, I’m the provider,” Kris says. “What if I have to hear my kid’s stomach growling? What if I can’t read a book because I can’t keep the lights on? I’m supposed to take care of my family, and if I can’t do that…that’s where it is mentally bothering me.”

“I feel like I need to carry the burden more on my shoulders than anybody else here in this house. And that’s my big concern because…what if I run out of money?” Kris says.

Social worker Meredith McKeen has heard from a lot of federal workers like Kris.

“What we want people to know is that there’s sort of a range of reactions that makes sense,” says McKeen, who works at the Northern Virginia Family Service.

Things like sleeplessness or some withdrawal from friends and family, changes in appetite or some short-term memory difficulty.

“All of those things are normal reactions to something that is this stressful. If they continue, however, for a longer period of time that’s when they could be problematic,” she says.

Questions of identity are also normal to a degree, according to McKeen.

“People who are used to being the person who takes care of their family, and the person who is the breadwinner for example…all of a sudden they are not seeing themselves that way. That sort of change in self-perception and not knowing how to fix it and not knowing where to go for help is exacerbating all of the uncertainty that people are feeling,” McKeen says.

What’s important is that people reach out for help, either through a professional or through social support systems like friends and family, McKeen says.

And, she adds, people who already deal with mental wellness issues are especially vulnerable during the shutdown.

“If anyone has unmet mental health needs, this type of stressor and crisis can certainly exacerbate those [issues] or affect their functioning in other ways.”

Reading The Mental Health Warning Signs

Counselor Shivonne Odom says there are warning signs for people to watch out for in their loved ones or in themselves during the shutdown.

“If you find that you are losing interest or pleasure in things that used to be of interest to you, if you’re losing sleep, feeling irritable… and this is happening for about about two weeks or more, you really want to think about talking to a licensed healthcare professional because those can be some signs and symptoms of depression,” Odom says.

Odom cautions people to look out for mood swings, unexplainable crying spells and/or the loss of self-worth because those could be signs of more serious mental wellness issues.

“If you feel like these feelings are just so unbearable, do not isolate. Please do not stay home by yourself and not tell somebody what you’re feeling,” Odom says. “That’s actually the worst thing that you can do.”

Odom recommends staying active and creating a routine to break up the monotony of staying at home for furloughed workers. Exercising regularly and eating healthy is also important—although she acknowledges that sometimes healthy food costs more. She stresses that disconnecting from technology—cellphones, tablets and TVs—at least 30 minutes before bed may help put people in the headspace for sleep and rest.

With roughly 800,000 federal workers affected by the shutdown, in addition to contractors and others feeling residual effects, Odom is hoping people will seek help when they need it—or at the very least, that government workers can form their own support groups to talk about how they’re feeling. It’s a conversation she believes is missing from the wider discussion about the shutdown.

She wants the mental well-being of federal workers to not be overlooked in the hierarchy of priorities as the shutdown stretches further. And while ensuring food is on the table is incredibly important, Odom says, so is taking care of the person who’s doing the work to put it there.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.