ADHD Mums
- Folgen
- 318
- Erscheint
- mehrmals pro Woche
- Letzte Folge
- 26. Okt. 2026
Über den Podcast
Being a mum is hard enough. Being a mum with ADHD — or raising neurodivergent kids — is a whole different level. ADHD Mums is the unfiltered, science-meets-reality podcast hosted by Jane McFadden — an Autistic and ADHD mum with a Master's in Neuroscience and Psychology and certification as an ADHD and Autism assessor. This isn't another polished parenting show with 'ten easy tips'. It's real stories, confessions we're not supposed to say out loud, and the research that explains why so many of us are running on empty. Every week you'll hear: 🎙️ Confessions — raw, anonymous truths from mums navigating rage, burnout, and survival. 🧠 Expert insights — from clinicians, researchers, and policy leaders on ADHD, autism, and mental health. 💬 Advocacy in action — exposing ADHD medication shortages, NDIS red tape, and the hidden costs mothers carry. With over 1 million downloads from around the world, the podcast has influenced ADHD reforms in Australia, been featured in national media, and pushed politicians to answer the questions mothers are asking. If you've ever screamed in the car, forgotten every form until the night before, or wondered if you're the only one falling apart — this podcast is your proof that you're not broken, you're just telling the truth. New episodes weekly. Join the Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
Folgen 318
45. Parenting ADHD Kids: You’ve Made a Rod for Your Own Back
Have you ever been to a friend’s house where the kids walk around like they’re in a library, and yours are running like it’s a race car track? And on the drive home you’re already doing the maths on what she’s …
Shownotes
Have you ever been to a friend’s house where the kids walk around like they’re in a library, and yours are running like it’s a race car track? And on the drive home you’re already doing the maths on what she’s doing that you’re not.
If you’re parenting ADHD kids, you know the list. You’ve read the books. You do the warnings, the timers, the snack in the car. And the noise in your house still doesn’t match the effort. So is any of it working, or have you made a rod for your own back?
A listener sent me this exact question as a voice memo, and so many of you have asked it in the group.
More on parenting ADHD kids: the parenting collection
Everything I’ve made for mums in the thick of this is in the shop.
References
Agnew-Blais, J. C. et al. (2022). Mother’s and children’s ADHD genetic risk, household chaos and children’s ADHD symptoms: a gene–environment correlation study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(10), 1153–1163.
Daley, D. et al. (2014). Behavioral interventions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials across multiple outcome domains. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 53(8), 835–847.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
44. Does Social Media Make ADHD Worse? You’ve Saved Hundreds of ‘That’s Me’ Reels and Nothing’s Changed
Only 5% of the most-watched ADHD videos tell you what to do next. The misleading ones get millions more views.You’ve saved hundreds of them. They all say the same thing: that’s me.So does social media make ADHD …
Shownotes
Only 5% of the most-watched ADHD videos tell you what to do next. The misleading ones get millions more views.
You’ve saved hundreds of them. They all say the same thing: that’s me.
So does social media make ADHD worse? A listener asked me exactly that, and halfway through asking, she lost her own train of thought. I get into the question underneath it. Not what the reels make you feel, but what they’ve actually changed. Plus a 10-minute sort for the saved folder on your phone that you can do tonight.
And why one piece of anonymous feedback changed the whole direction of this podcast.
New here? Start with these episodes
More on moving past ‘that’s me’: ADHD and Survival Mode: How to Stop Trying Harder and Actually Thrive (with Rachel Few)
The lipoedema surgery I mention: The Real Cost of Lipedema Surgery in Australia
References
Sieferle, K., Guidi, T., Dorr, F., & Bitzer, E. M. (2025). Quality and perception of ADHD content on TikTok. JMIR Infodemiology.
Yeung, A., Ng, E., & Abi-Jaoude, E. (2022). TikTok and ADHD: a cross-sectional study of social media content quality. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
43. ADHD Siblings: The Background Child Who Grew Up Beside a Brother Everyone Worried About (with Emily Jade O'Keeffe)
Have you ever looked at your two children — one whose needs are loud, out front, impossible to miss, and one who just gets on with it — and quietly told yourself the second one's fine? Have you ever not gone …
Shownotes
Have you ever looked at your two children — one whose needs are loud, out front, impossible to miss, and one who just gets on with it — and quietly told yourself the second one's fine? Have you ever not gone looking, because who goes hunting for a problem in the child who seems okay, when the other one is taking everything you've got?
The quiet one learns to need nothing at all. And it can cost her for years before anyone notices. Emily Jade O'Keeffe was that child — the good girl next to the brother everyone could see — and she didn't spot it in her own daughter until someone else did.
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
The Quiet Exclusion Kit — for the child who copes, complies, and slips under the radar — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/quiet-exclusion-kit/
After Your Diagnosis Kit — for the grown 'good girl' who's just realised it was her too — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mum-after-diagnosis-kit/
Paid Resources
ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — for the one who learned to need nothing, working out what she actually needs now — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
ADHD and Marriage: We Separated for 18 Months. Then He Got Diagnosed — with Emily Jade O'Keeffe — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/husband-adhd-diagnosis-saved-marriage/
Uncovering the Subtle Traits of Autistic Daughters — with Eliza Harris — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-62-uncovering-the-subtle-traits-of-autistic-daughters/
About the Guest
Emily Jade O'Keeffe is a Gold Coast broadcaster who's been number one on breakfast radio for years (102.9, weekdays 5–9am), and she hosts her own podcast, Move Over Mama, with her 14-year-old daughter Millie — interviewing people about who they were as teens and what shaped them. She grew up the eldest of five in a neurodivergent country-town family, and came to her own diagnosis as an adult, after her husband and children.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
42. You Decided It for Them: RSD, Mind-Reading and the Rejections That Never Happened
She mentioned a friend called Kel. That was it. That was the whole thing. Twelve seconds, and you'd filed her under no vacancy, decided your kids didn't match, and worked out she already had a Tuesday …
Shownotes
She mentioned a friend called Kel. That was it. That was the whole thing. Twelve seconds, and you'd filed her under no vacancy, decided your kids didn't match, and worked out she already had a Tuesday person.
Then the term ended and you didn't sign up again, and she probably has no idea any of it happened. This episode is about the forecast you make in the first few seconds, and whether it was ever true.
Related Episodes
Every RSD episode in one place → https://tr.ee/RSD
Navigating School Pick-Up & Social Settings — how ADHD and autistic mums read social situations, how neurotypical people do, and how to bridge the gap → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/surviving-school-pick-up/
References:
Erhardt & Hinshaw 1994; Blachman & Hinshaw 2002.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
41. RSD and Masking: Why Criticism Sticks and Praise Slides Straight Off
Nine good comments in the performance review. One 'area for growth'. Three days later you can still quote the one, word for word. You couldn't name a single one of the nine.That's ADHD rejection sensitivity …
Shownotes
Nine good comments in the performance review. One 'area for growth'. Three days later you can still quote the one, word for word. You couldn't name a single one of the nine.
That's ADHD rejection sensitivity, and the usual fixes don't touch it. Don't take it personally. Keep a praise folder. You've tried. There's a reason the nine never land, and it's not that you're too sensitive.
If this one hits, listen next: Why You Can't Accept Kindness: Masking, Surface Acting and the Wall That Blocks Love In
References
Mylett et al. (2026). Social camouflaging in adults with ADHD. Research in Neurodiversity.
McKinney et al. (2024). Camouflaging in neurodivergent and neurotypical girls. JCPP Advances.
Wicherkiewicz & Gambin (2024). Camouflaging, life satisfaction and depression in women with ADHD. J Autism Dev Disord.
Swann, De La Ronde & Hixon (1994). Authenticity and positivity in marriage and courtship. JPSP.
Kwang & Swann (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? PSPR.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
40. ADHD Hyperfocus or Real Passion? 3 x Tests to Tell the Difference (Before You Buy the Pilates Reformer)
You did Pilates every week for a year. Then you bought the reformer so you'd never have to drive there again. You haven't done Pilates since.Now there's a new idea that won't leave you alone, and it feels …
Shownotes
You did Pilates every week for a year. Then you bought the reformer so you'd never have to drive there again. You haven't done Pilates since.
Now there's a new idea that won't leave you alone, and it feels exactly like the last one did on day one. So how do you know if this one's real?
That's the ADHD hyperfocus question a listener sent in. She's been a teacher for 27 years. For the last few years something's been building in her: she wants to start a neurodivergent-affirming school. She's even gathered a small group who want in. But she's asking whether it's her real direction, or just another collection of ADHD ideas.
I didn't feel qualified to answer that. I've moved house more times than I'd like to admit, and I once had a magnificent pros and cons list for a move to acreage. Every reason on it was true. Two years later, we're moving back to the beach.
So I went looking for a better way to tell a hyperfocus from a real passion than checking how strongly you feel it. The feeling is where most of us go first. It's also the one thing that can't give you the answer.
There's the graveyard of hyperfocuses: the garden beds, the online course with no modules done, the podcast that got two episodes. Most of us read that pile as a verdict on our character. It might be the most useful data you've got. Then there's the advice ADHDers get about new ideas, like 'finish what you start before you start something new'. That one was never going to work for a brain that makes this many ideas.
And there are three tests to try before you quit the job, or buy the gear.
Related episodes:
- When You Keep Starting the Same Thing – And It Never Gets Finished
- Tis the Season to Overspend: ADHD Mum vs. Impulse Shopping
Free guides: I gave away 16 guides I used to charge for. Grab the one that fits at adhdmums.com.au/resources
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
References
- Hoogman M, Stolte M, Baas M, Kroesbergen E. Creativity and ADHD: a review of behavioral studies, the effect of psychostimulants and neural underpinnings. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2020.
- White HA, Shah P. Uninhibited imaginations: creativity in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 2006.
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
39. Mum Hacks: It Feels Like Cheating. It's Worked for Six Months.
You rolled forty identical socks into pairs the night before your mum arrived. Then unrolled them all on Monday.The hack works. It's worked for six months. So why does it feel like you're getting away with …
Shownotes
You rolled forty identical socks into pairs the night before your mum arrived. Then unrolled them all on Monday.
The hack works. It's worked for six months. So why does it feel like you're getting away with something?
This Mum Hacks starts with a voice memo about forty pairs of identical white socks and ends with a confession about mine. In between: the two piles every objection from your inner critic falls into, the one question that sorts them, and why a sociologist would say you might be running your whole house like the guest toilet.
More mum hacks: The Mum Hacks collection
Free guides and printables: ADHD Mums free resources
References
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
38. Mum Hacks: 'I Forgot My ADHD Medication Again.' The Pill Box Is Right There.
A nurse who gives out meds all day found May's script in her glove box in July. Still in the chemist bag.She bought the pill box with the days on the lid. Put it next to the toothbrush, like everyone says. It …
Shownotes
A nurse who gives out meds all day found May's script in her glove box in July. Still in the chemist bag.
She bought the pill box with the days on the lid. Put it next to the toothbrush, like everyone says. It worked for two weeks. Then one morning she looked straight at it, and she was already in the car.
The verdict she landed on: careless with the thing that matters most.
It might not be that. Your brain files anything that never moves as background. The fridge humming. The shirt on your back. The pill box that's sat by the toothbrush for a fortnight. The filter doesn't check how much something matters. It only checks whether it changed since yesterday.
This Mum Hacks episode is about why 'next to' fades, why 'in the way' doesn't, and a quick check for when a hack that was working quietly stops.
Related Episodes
QUICK RESET: The Hallway Hook That Saved My Sanity → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-38-quick-reset-the-hallway-hook-that-saved-my-sanity/
Mum Hacks: 'I Wasn't Consistent Enough.' It Lasted Eight Months. → https://tr.ee/baskets
All the QUICK RESET episodes → https://tr.ee/quickreset
All the ADHD medication episodes → https://tr.ee/medication
Resources
A Guide to ADHD Medication → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/a-guide-to-adhd-medication/
ADHD Mums free resources → https://adhdmums.com.au/product-category/free-resources/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
37. The Grief After the Diagnosis: Why You Felt Flat When You Expected Relief (with Erica Lee)
Have you ever fought for years — the waitlist, the referrals, the appointments where nobody believed you — finally got the diagnosis, and then sat in the aftermath feeling nothing? Have you ever had everyone …
Shownotes
Have you ever fought for years — the waitlist, the referrals, the appointments where nobody believed you — finally got the diagnosis, and then sat in the aftermath feeling nothing? Have you ever had everyone around you exhale and tell you how relieved you must be, while you felt flat, wrung out, and grieving something you couldn't even name — and then guilty, because didn't you get exactly what you asked for?
You're not ungrateful and you're not doing it wrong. There's a real thing that happens after the diagnosis you fought for, and almost nobody warns you it's coming. Erica Lee sat in it for nine years and wrote it down.
About the Guest
Erica Lee is a Western Australian educator and mother of two neurodivergent children. She's written a memoir about parenting through diagnosis, advocacy, and the emotional adjustment that follows — the flatness, the grief, and the fight that doesn't end at the answer. She speaks candidly about what motherhood actually looks like when the expectations shift and the support systems get tested.
Find Erica Lee’s memoir, The Bond Between Us - https://hawkeyebooks.com.au/products/the-bond-between-us-a-mother-s-journey-raising-two-neurodivergent-hearts
Website: https://www.ericalee.com.au/
Instagram: @ericalee_writes.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
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Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
36. Mum Hacks: 'I Wasn't Consistent Enough.' It Lasted Eight Months.
Have you ever found the old laundry basket in the garage, full of paint tins, and couldn't say when it stopped being the laundry basket? Have you ever said 'I fell off the wagon' about towels?You keep a list of …
Shownotes
Have you ever found the old laundry basket in the garage, full of paint tins, and couldn't say when it stopped being the laundry basket? Have you ever said 'I fell off the wagon' about towels?
You keep a list of every system that stopped. This short episode is about what that list is actually recording — and the one question to run on any hack before it goes on there.
Related Episodes
QUICK RESET: The Hallway Hook That Saved My Sanity → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-38-quick-reset-the-hallway-hook-that-saved-my-sanity/
All the QUICK RESET episodes → https://tr.ee/quickreset
Free resources
ADHD Mums free resources → https://adhdmums.com.au/product-category/free-resources/
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
35. ARFID and Lunchboxes: Why It Comes Home Untouched (with Dr Rachel Zabel)
You packed it at 7am. The safe food, the same as always, because the sandwich comes home untouched and it feels like putting money in the bin. At 3:30 you open the lunchbox and it's exactly as you packed …
Shownotes
You packed it at 7am. The safe food, the same as always, because the sandwich comes home untouched and it feels like putting money in the bin. At 3:30 you open the lunchbox and it's exactly as you packed it.
You've been told to hide the vegetables, stop making separate meals, she'll eat when she's hungry. None of it has worked. Dr Rachel Zabel says the question every parent walks in with — how do I get her to eat — is the wrong end of the problem.
Related Episodes
Could it be ARFID? Spotting the Signs + Why It's Not Just Fussy Eating — with Margo White → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-78-could-it-be-arfid-spotting-the-signs-why-its-not-just-fussy-eating-with-margo-white/
You've Tried Everything… They Still Won't Eat: Real Strategies for ARFID at Home → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-81-youve-tried-everything-they-still-wont-eat-real-strategies-for-arfid-at-home/
More from Dr Rachel
Dr Rachel is a PhD qualified paediatric dietitian on a mission to change the way feeding support is delivered for neurodivergent families. After struggling with feeding in her own family, she developed a responsive feeding therapy framework and resources built for the way neurodivergent kids are wired. She mentors and trains other allied health therapists in the approach, and supports families directly from her practice in Moreton Bay, Queensland, and by telehealth.
If you'd like to find out more about Rachel's Responsive Feeding approach — either for yourself or for your child's therapists — follow Rachel on social media or visit her website.
Dr Rachel's Kitchen → https://www.drrachelskitchen.com.au
Instagram → @dr.rachelskitchen → https://www.instagram.com/dr.rachelskitchen
Mentioned in this episode
Robyn Gobbel — the nervous-system approach that changed how Rachel understood feeding → https://robyngobbel.com/
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
34. ADHD and Team Sports: Why the Sideline Is Embarrassing for You, Not Just Hard for Him
The whistle's gone, they've lost by three, and he's standing in the middle of the pitch with his socks down and his shin pads on the grass, not moving. He walks off past the handshake line, straight to you …
Shownotes
The whistle's gone, they've lost by three, and he's standing in the middle of the pitch with his socks down and his shin pads on the grass, not moving. He walks off past the handshake line, straight to you, face like thunder — they didn't pass to me, I could have won that — and he shoves your arm. And the two mums behind you stop talking.
You already know what the sideline wants you to do. This episode is about what it costs when you do it, and what to do instead when you're standing there at 10am on a Saturday with everyone watching.
Related Episodes
Every parenting episode in one place → https://tr.ee/parenting
Every RSD episode in one place → https://tr.ee/RSD
Meltdown & Shutdown Guide — a printed guide for the meltdowns, the shutdowns, and the recovery this episode is about → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/navigating-meltdowns-strategies-for-parents/
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — this exact situation comes up constantly in there → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
Send in a listener question — this episode came from one. WhatsApp 0403 457 313 → https://wa.me/61403457313
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
33. Hormones and Neurodivergence: Why You Have a List of Random Symptoms and No Answers (with Dr Ceri Cashell)
You're bendy. You get dizzy when you stand up. Your periods are heavy, the headaches are worse the week before, you're constipated, you're exhausted, and your mood falls off a cliff for a few days a month …
Shownotes
You're bendy. You get dizzy when you stand up. Your periods are heavy, the headaches are worse the week before, you're constipated, you're exhausted, and your mood falls off a cliff for a few days a month. Every one of those has been looked at on its own and waved off. Your bloods came back normal, so that was that.
You probably don't have seven separate conditions. Dr Ceri Cashell is an Irish GP on Sydney's Northern Beaches who has spent her career on the part of medicine nobody was taught, and she starts this episode by explaining what fake nails have to do with any of it.
Related Episodes
Every Women's Health episode in one place → https://tr.ee/womenshealth
Mentioned in this episode
Healthy Hormones — the free national community Dr Cashell co-founded with Dr Emma Harvey. There's a medically moderated community for women, and a list of clinicians who've completed their extra menopause training → https://www.healthyhormones.au/welcome — Instagram @healthy_hormones
Australian POTS Foundation — download the active stand test, and find POTS-aware practitioners → https://potsfoundation.org.au/
The Ehlers-Danlos Society — including the Beighton score, the basic hypermobility self-check → https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/
Dysautonomia International → https://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/
Dr Cashell's own books have been closed for a couple of years — Healthy Hormones is where to find a clinician.
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — the listener questions in this episode came from there → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
All the top rated episodes sorted by topic
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
32. ADHD Overstimulation: Why You Snap at 4pm When You Were Fine at 9am
You were fine at 9am. Genuinely fine. Then it's school pickup, the gates open, there are dogs and toddlers and a teacher walking towards you, and one kid starts up with let's go to the park, let's go to the …
Shownotes
You were fine at 9am. Genuinely fine. Then it's school pickup, the gates open, there are dogs and toddlers and a teacher walking towards you, and one kid starts up with let's go to the park, let's go to the park. And you hear yourself snap at someone who did nothing wrong.
You didn't ignore the warning signs. You weren't getting them. That's a different problem, and it needs a different fix.
Related Episodes
Every Mum Rage episode in one place — the collection Jane mentions in this episode → https://tr.ee/adhdmumsmumrage
ADHD and Sensory Overwhelm: Identifying Triggers and Finding Relief — with Rebecca Torpie → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-13-adhd-sensory-overwhelm-identifying-triggers-and-finding-relief-with-rebecca-torpie/
Energy Accounting Guide (free) — the guide Jane mentions in this episode, for working out where your capacity actually goes → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — where Jane runs body doubling sessions for the dreaded tasks → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
Instagram — body doubling also runs in the broadcast channel → https://www.instagram.com/adhd_mums/
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
31. Why Am I Always Sick? ADHD, Burnout and the Boom-Bust Cycle (with Bianca Comfort)
Have you ever been told your bloods are fine, it's just busy mum life, and walked out still dizzy, still flat, still carrying a headache you've had for so long you forgot it wasn't normal? Have you ever watched …
Shownotes
Have you ever been told your bloods are fine, it's just busy mum life, and walked out still dizzy, still flat, still carrying a headache you've had for so long you forgot it wasn't normal? Have you ever watched a friend do eight-hour days like it's nothing and quietly decided the difference must be you — that you're just weaker, and you need to suck it up?
There's a reason your body keeps stopping after twenty years of pushing through. Bianca Comfort has lived it and treats it, and she says the crash isn't the failure. It's the last thing your body has left to tell you.
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit — for the burnout, the chronic symptoms, and the body-keeps-score part — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Energy Accounting Guide — the closest thing to the energy-mapping Bianca walks through — where your limit actually is — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Paid Resources
ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — for mapping what fills the tank and what drains it — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
Burnout, Pain & Weird Symptoms? The ADHD Link No One Told Us About — Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-62-burnout-pain-weird-symptoms-the-adhd-link-no-one-told-us-about/
ADHD and EDS/POTS: Vanessa's Journey Through Chronic Health Challenges — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-41-connection-between-adhd-eds-and-pots-vanessas-journey-through-chronic-health-challenges/
Preventing Burnout: The Power of Setting Boundaries — with Kara Lynch — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-adhd-autism-or-both-karas-story-of-burnout-and-sensory-overload/
When You Can't Relax Even When It's Quiet — What Your Body Is Doing and Why — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/why-adhd-mums-cant-relax/
Masking & ADHD — Jane — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/masking-adhd-s1-ep11/
Hypermobility, POTS and MCAS: The Conditions That Cluster With ADHD (with Dr Jason Lam) — https://adhdmums.com.au/episode/hypermobility-pots-mcas-adhd
About the Guest
Bianca Comfort is a clinical psychologist running a telehealth clinic dedicated to chronic illness and neurodivergence, and the former Vice President of the Australian Psychological Society. She's autistic and ADHD herself, and lives with EDS, POTS, MCAS and ME/CFS — she treats this from both sides of the desk.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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30. ADHD and Losing Things: Why You Get It Ready Early and Still Can't Find It
Have you ever bought the perfect birthday present weeks early, felt properly pleased with yourself, and then lost it before the birthday? Filled in the form, folded the flap, put it somewhere safe on the Sunday …
Shownotes
Have you ever bought the perfect birthday present weeks early, felt properly pleased with yourself, and then lost it before the birthday? Filled in the form, folded the flap, put it somewhere safe on the Sunday — and by Wednesday it had gone? Renewed the passports early, put them in the safe place, and then had no idea where the safe place was?
You've been told your problem is that you're disorganised. It isn't. There's a job that piece of paper was doing that nobody ever told you about, and every system you've ever bought only does half of it.
Episode's Jane mentioned:
ADHD Stress and Emotional Regulation: What Your Kids Noticed That You Didn't— the soccer photo envelope episode this one follows on from → https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/why-are-you-always-so-stressed-out-my-eight-year-old-asked-me-that-an-hour-after-i-called-myself-organised/
QUICK RESET: 'I'm Not Lazy — My House Just Doesn't Have a Memory' → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-49-quick-reset-im-not-lazy-my-house-just-doesnt-have-a-memory/
Free Resources:
Household Family Meeting Template (free) → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Send Jane a voice memo — what did you do early that still disappeared? WhatsApp 0403 457 313 → https://wa.me/61403457313
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
Mentioned in this episode
Barreau, D. & Nardi, B. (1995). Finding and reminding: File organization from the desktop. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 27(3), 39–43.
All episodes →
https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
29. Hypermobility, POTS and MCAS: The Conditions That Cluster With ADHD (with Dr Jason Lam)
You might be the bendy one. Or the dizzy one, the one with the headaches that never really stop, the one who reacts to food nobody else reacts to. Tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. And every time you get to a …
Shownotes
You might be the bendy one. Or the dizzy one, the one with the headaches that never really stop, the one who reacts to food nobody else reacts to. Tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. And every time you get to a GP, you can't quite land on the same page as them.
Dr Jason Lam is a GP and sports medicine registrar who spends his days on the things that get missed — hypermobility, Ehlers-Danlos, POTS, MCAS, and the way they tangle together in a neurodivergent body. This is the episode that joins the dots nobody has joined for you.
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit (free) → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Energy Accounting Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Paid Resources
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
ADHD and EDS/POTS: Vanessa's Journey Through Chronic Health Challenges → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-41-connection-between-adhd-eds-and-pots-vanessas-journey-through-chronic-health-challenges/
HORMONES: Histamine + Hormones — Why You Feel Like You're Falling Apart → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-hormones-histamine-and-adhd-why-you-feel-like-youre-falling-apart/
About the Guest
Looking for a practitioner? Dr Jason Lam points listeners to the practitioner registers at the Ehlers-Danlos Society and Connective Tissue Disorders Network Australia.
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
More from Dr Jason Lam — https://www.thedancedr.com.au — Instagram @_thedancedr
Dr Jason Lam — useful links and resources are on his website → https://www.thedancedr.com.au
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
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Mentioned in this episode:
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28. ADHD and Friendship: Why You Can't Send the Text (Even to People You Like)
There's a mum at pickup you really like. Ninety seconds every afternoon, one of those chats where you both go 'yeah, exactly' — and then the kids spill out, someone's swinging a backpack like a helicopter …
Shownotes
There's a mum at pickup you really like. Ninety seconds every afternoon, one of those chats where you both go 'yeah, exactly' — and then the kids spill out, someone's swinging a backpack like a helicopter, someone's demanding the petrol station, and you're pulled away before you can even say goodbye. And every day you get back to the car thinking: I should have her over. We should do a barbecue. I'd love to actually talk to her for more than ninety seconds.
You got her number in January. It's the end of July. And you've made no progress at all. You've probably already filed that as proof you're flaky, cold, a bad friend. This episode is Jane taking that story apart — because the silence between you and someone you genuinely like usually isn't 'I don't want this.' It's 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with.'
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Nat, the 90-second pickup chat, and the barbecue that never happens
02:29 — Got her number in January. It's July. No progress.
03:57 — 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' — the personality we build around it
05:33 — The executive-function tax on turning a pickup mum into a real friend
06:36 — It's not that you need to try harder. It might be the fuel tank.
07:13 — The mum with the same life who still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue
08:36 — Good girl conditioning: when friendship becomes your job to carry
10:45 — When you can't stand the silence — and what your brain files it as
12:09 — Why a late-diagnosed brain has had decades to build 'I ruin friendships'
14:31 — The flicker of energy, and the threat analysis that kills the text
15:54 — The heart-react as a hostage 'proof of life' photo
17:35 — Moving to acreage, and quietly deleting myself
18:43 — 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with'
20:16 — Why 'just put yourself out there' aims you straight at burnout
22:11 — What actually works: the low-fuel, no-apology text
23:42 — Drop the bar. Plug a friend into the worst 40 minutes of your week.
26:28 — Maybe the skill isn't the barbecue. It's letting friendship be uneven.
WHAT WE COVER
The pickup mum you really like, the barbecue you keep meaning to have, and the seven months that have quietly gone by
Why 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' becomes a personality — and what it's actually covering for
The hidden executive-function tax on turning a mum you like into a mum who's actually your friend: remembering, initiating, holding the plan, pushing through the 'what if it's awkward'
Why the friend with the same number of kids and the same Saturday sport still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue — and why it's not that she's better at friendship
Good girl conditioning, and what happens when you learned early that friendship is your job to carry, keep alive, and never drop
The other version — when you can't stand the silence, and your brain files 'haven't heard from them in ages' as danger
The flicker of energy to send the text, and the threat analysis your brain runs to talk you out of it
The heart-react on her story as a 'hostage proof of life' photo — I'm here, I'm fine, please don't give up on me
Why 'put yourself out there, just make more effort, have them over' is telling you to spend the exact thing you've run out of
What actually works with an empty tank: the low-fuel, no-apology text, dropping the bar, and letting the friendship be uneven and survive anyway
FREE RESOURCES
Energy Accounting Guide — mentioned in the episode — budget your energy for your real capacity, not what you think you should be doing — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Household Family Meeting Template — for the load underneath 'there are no leftovers' — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
PAID RESOURCES
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
RELATED EPISODES
School Pick-Up Can Be Draining! How to Stop Overthinking & Save Your Social Energy — S2 EP65, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-65-school-pick-up-can-be-draining-how-to-stop-overthinking-save-your-social-energy/
QUICK RESET: I Cancel Plans Because I Don't Have the Energy to Fake My Personality — S3 EP14, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-14-quick-reset-i-cancel-plans-because-i-dont-have-the-energy-to-fake-my-personality/
You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now. — S3 EP35, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
27. ADHD and Survival Mode: How to Stop Trying Harder and Actually Thrive (with Rachel Few)
From the outside, she's on top of it. Then something small happens — a cold, a bad night, one extra thing — and the whole thing collapses. And she decides the collapse is the problem. She needs to be better …
Shownotes
From the outside, she's on top of it. Then something small happens — a cold, a bad night, one extra thing — and the whole thing collapses. And she decides the collapse is the problem. She needs to be better. More disciplined. Try harder.
But the collapse isn't the problem. The collapse is information. The problem is that she's been running her whole life on a system that was never built for her brain — and every time it falls over, she reads it as proof that she's the thing that's broken. Rachel Few is back, and this one is about the loop underneath all of it: if I could just try harder. Why effort was rewarded your whole life, why it stopped working the moment you had kids, and what it actually takes to stop surviving and start thriving — not the influencer version with the one massage and the full cup, the real one.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — The collapse isn't the problem. The collapse is information.
02:07 — Why 'just try harder' worked for years — until it didn't
03:12 — Jane's two years out of school, and the effort trap hiding inside a success story
04:36 — Add kids, and the sprint you can't run as a marathon
05:42 — Fight or flight: why you can't get the drone view of your own life
06:41 — Why every mum deserves a coach, and nobody questions it for a marathon
06:56 — The homework trap — leaving every appointment with more to do
09:02 — Why women keep landing back on 'I'm the problem'
10:25 — Effort that's purposeful vs effort that's just doing, doing, doing
11:26 — 'I've done years of therapy but I still can't get the shopping done'
13:22 — When to go back and unpack, and when to stay in the here and now
15:27 — The Friday meltdown that actually started on Monday
16:48 — The map: why women stop feeling like they're winging it
17:45 — The wine-and-big-plans trap, and Jane's real conversation with her husband
20:15 — The rugby coaching question — is it the thing you want, or one of four?
23:38 — Doing the mapping for our kids but never for ourselves
26:35 — Her one takeaway: cancel half a day
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
For more on Rachel Few — https://rachelfew.com/
Free Resources
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit — for the burnout and the body-keeps-score part — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Paid Resources
ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — the closest thing to the 'what fills my cup, what goes, where are my spoons' mapping Rachel walks through — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
Overstimulated Before 7am — And No One Sees the Work — with Rachel Few — her first episode, one of the most-consumed on the show — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/rachel-few/
What Is Underneath the Mask? Uncovering Who You Are After Diagnosis — S2 EP17, with Tanya Hicks — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-17-underneath-the-mask-uncovering-who-you-are-after-diagnosis/
Burnout, Pain & Weird Symptoms? The ADHD Link No One Told Us About — S2 EP62, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-62-burnout-pain-weird-symptoms-the-adhd-link-no-one-told-us-about/
Preventing Burnout: The Power of Setting Boundaries — S2 EP37, with Kara Lynch — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-adhd-autism-or-both-karas-story-of-burnout-and-sensory-overload/
About the Guest
Rachel Few runs Neurodivergent Counselling and Mentoring on the Sunshine Coast — telehealth, available Australia-wide. As a social worker, former school counsellor, and neurodivergent mother herself, her approach is holistic and body-centred: working with the nervous system as much as the brain.
Website: https://rachelfew.com — free 15-minute connection calls available via her site.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
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Mentioned in this episode:
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26. Why You Can't Accept Kindness: Masking, Surface Acting and the Wall That Blocks Love In
Your best friend leaves a box of tampons on your doorstep on the worst day of your fortnight — no fuss, no waiting around, just quietly handling the piece of the nightmare nobody else saw. And you well up. Real …
Shownotes
Your best friend leaves a box of tampons on your doorstep on the worst day of your fortnight — no fuss, no waiting around, just quietly handling the piece of the nightmare nobody else saw. And you well up. Real tears. And then you wait ten minutes to make sure she's gone before you'll even open the door, delete the thank-you you started typing, and walk off. Because you could not have said it to her face if someone paid you.
If you're the woman who leaves a gift on a doorstep and runs, who dodges goodbyes with people she loves, who can't stand inside a thank you — you've probably filed that away as proof you're cold. Broken in the part where you're meant to feel things. This episode is Jane pulling that file back out and finding the opposite: it's not that the love is missing. It might be flooding. Masking, surface acting, and the wall that goes up right where other people let love in — and why every piece of advice you've been given points you the wrong way.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Twenty-one, on an Emirates training flight, and my face is the problem
01:34 — Learning the Barbie-princess smile in the mirror
02:32 — The box of tampons, and the door I couldn't open
04:45 — Ten minutes, a deleted text, and walking off in tears
05:31 — The filing cabinet: 'there's something wrong with me,' opened at 2am
06:22 — The goodbyes I swerve, the thank-yous I can't stand in
07:43 — 'I'm not cold. I cried over a box of tampons.'
08:33 — The real problem: a feeling with no volume control
08:56 — What was actually happening on those flights
13:46 — Surface acting: the sociologist who studied this in 1983
16:05 — Two settings — perform the okay face, or leave
18:49 — Why every piece of 'just be present' advice fails someone like me
20:55 — The therapy this is secretly built on — ACT, and acting on what you value
23:00 — The moment was never the love. The tampons mattering that much was.
25:04 — What I'd do differently: feel it, then send something real by text
26:50 — You get to love people in your own way
WHAT WE COVER
The Emirates training flight where Jane was told, over and over, that her technically-perfect service didn't matter — her face did
Learning to perform the 'Barbie princess' smile in the mirror, and what years of that installs in a nervous system
The box of tampons on the doorstep — one of the kindest things anyone's ever done for her — and why she waited for her friend to leave before she'd open the door
The 2am filing cabinet labelled 'there's something wrong with me,' and the subtheme she found inside it
The goodbyes she actively swerves, the gifts she leaves 'like a robber,' and the years of reading all of it as proof she's cold
The reframe: it was never a missing feeling — it's a feeling that arrives with no volume control, like a flood, with nowhere safe to show it
What was really happening on those flights — the workers, the conditions, the smiling over something that was not fine — and how surface acting burns you out
Why every piece of standard advice — slow down, be present, make eye contact, receive it properly — aims you straight at the exact thing your body evacuates for a reason
The evidence-based therapy this is secretly built on, and the one shift inside it that changes everything
What Jane would do differently now — and the real, texted, kitchen-bench version of 'thank you' that works for a nervous system like hers
FREE RESOURCES
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit — for the emotional-regulation and burnout side of years of masking — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Energy Accounting Guide — for the cost of surface acting, day after day — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
PAID RESOURCES
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
RELATED EPISODES
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/
An RSD Story. Taking My Own Advice — S1 EP9, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/an-rsd-story-taking-my-own-advice-s1-ep9/
You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now. — S3 EP35, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/
Masking & ADHD — S1 EP11, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/masking-adhd-s1-ep11/
REFERENCES & FURTHER READING
On 'surface acting' — the 1983 flight-attendant research: Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
On Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): an evidence-based therapy built on acting in line with your values rather than waiting to feel the 'right' feeling first. The most widely used plain-language ACT resource in Australia is Dr Russ Harris's The Happiness Trap.
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
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25. When You Say Too Much: ADHD, Oversharing and the Room Going Quiet
Have you ever answered a simple question with the whole real answer — and watched the room go a particular kind of quiet? Have you ever lain awake at 2am running back one thing you said in a group chat three …
Shownotes
Have you ever answered a simple question with the whole real answer — and watched the room go a particular kind of quiet? Have you ever lain awake at 2am running back one thing you said in a group chat three years ago, certain everyone clocked it the way you did? Have you ever walked out of a room having already decided you were the too-much one before anyone said a word?
There's a reason your brain gave the director's cut when everyone else gave three sentences. It's not the reason you've been telling yourself.
CHAPTERS
00:16 — The plastic chair, the room going quiet, and knowing before you know why
00:46 — Six weeks postpartum, new town, no family, no one to talk to but her husband
01:11 — The things about babies nobody says out loud because they're 'obvious'
02:33 — Why she joined a mother's group, and the morning it all went sideways
03:27 — Twenty minutes late, sweaty, in her husband's vomit-swapped T-shirt
04:13 — Bows, baptism outfits and homemade plates: the prep she didn't know about
05:29 — Three questions. Name, baby's name, the birth. Easy.
06:07 — What recent trauma does when someone kindly asks you to tell it
08:00 — The Wi-Fi freeze: watching the room drop out in real time
09:00 — Morning tea, the decaf, and 'where the f*ck are we?'
10:01 — Kate's three sentences, and the instruction Jane never heard
11:30 — The most embarrassing moment, and the one heading she filed it under for years
12:44 — Going back into the room with the lens she has now
12:55 — The two filters: the words she heard vs the contract underneath them
14:00 — The freeze wasn't a verdict — it was sorting happening in front of her
14:49 — Why it was actually the most efficient thing she's ever done
15:10 — The next week: the biscuits, the permanent marker, the friend for life
16:43 — The pram that rolled past the window on its own
17:24 — Watching the room split again — who moves away, who leans in
18:11 — Told to be less your whole life — and why she won't join that group
19:14 — Being an adult: let people move towards you or away, but let them choose
20:11 — Telling everyone who you are up front, and the door it leaves open
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
After Your Diagnosis Kit — for the 'oh, that's why I've always done that' realisation —
https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mum-after-diagnosis-kit/
Paid Resources
Navigating School Pick-Up & Social Settings — the guide Jane names in this episode: how ADHD and autistic mums read social situations, how neurotypical people do, and how to bridge the gap — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/surviving-school-pick-up/
ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — for the days the too-much shame has flattened you — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
Is It Social Anxiety — or Is It Autism — S3, with Amanda Moses — the 'said too much, read the room wrong' feeling — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-34-is-it-social-anxiety-or-is-it-autism-with-amanda-moses/
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & Emotional Intensity — Jane solo — the after-sting of 'too much' — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/
The Untold Struggles of Motherhood (Part 1) — Jane solo — new-baby isolation, no support —
https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-45-the-untold-struggles-of-motherhood-part-1/
Is It ADHD or Motherhood? — Jane solo — the invisible rulebook nobody hands you —
https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-22-is-it-adhd-or-motherhood-solo-episode/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group
👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
24. The 3 Types of ADHD in Women (And Why So Many of Us Go Undiagnosed)
For thirty years, ADHD has had one wanted poster. Loud, can't sit still, disrupting the class, talking back — a boy. And you weren't him. So you walked past every checkpoint in your life — the GP, the teachers …
Shownotes
For thirty years, ADHD has had one wanted poster. Loud, can't sit still, disrupting the class, talking back — a boy. And you weren't him. So you walked past every checkpoint in your life — the GP, the teachers, the report cards, the parent-teacher nights — and nobody stopped you. Maybe someone said you were bright, you just needed to apply yourself. Maybe you got 'conscientious' on every report card. And conscientious doesn't go with ADHD, does it?
Three different women can all have ADHD. All three can walk straight past that same poster on the wall, and not one of them gets stopped — because not one of them looks like the sketch. This episode is Jane putting three new posters up: the inattentive mum told to try harder, the 'too much' mum who apologises for her personality before she's said a word, and the 'fine' mum everyone leans on who's hanging off a cliff on the inside. See if you find your own face on the wall.
Take the self-test: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/768431/173992641938064622/share
Chapters00:00 — The one wanted poster ADHD has had for thirty years
01:25 — Three women, one poster, and why none of them get stopped
02:17 — Who drew the poster — and why the quiet ones were never in the sketch
03:54 — One Monday morning, one clock, four different mothers
04:32 — The neurotypical mum, and where the difference actually shows up
05:54 — Profile 1: the inattentive mum, told her whole life to try harder
07:36 — The planner graveyard — six apps, four planners, three years of fresh starts
08:17 — Profile 2: the mum who's always been 'too much'
09:12 — Apologising for your personality before the conversation starts
09:39 — The drive home, and the tape that runs every single time
11:00 — Profile 3: the mum everyone says is 'fine'
11:50 — 'I don't know how you do it' — and why it doesn't land as a compliment
12:54 — Why she only rests when her body reaches up and stops her
13:35 — The real reason so many of us slipped through — it didn't cost anyone else
15:07 — If you've just been diagnosed: the relief, the grief, and what you can put down
15:56 — How we actually redraw the poster
What We Cover- The single wanted poster ADHD has been diagnosed against for thirty years — and why your face was never on it
- Why 'conscientious' on every report card was a signal everyone read backwards
- One ordinary Monday school run, four mothers, one clock — and the four completely different mornings happening behind the same front doors
- Profile 1, the inattentive mum: the permission slip she looked at on four separate nights, and why no planner, app or alarm has ever held
- The difference between a neurotypical mum forgetting the form and an ADHD mum forgetting it — it's not the forgetting, it's what happens next
- Profile 2, the 'too much' mum: the verbal hyperactivity nobody put on a poster, and the tape that runs on every drive home
- Why apologising for your own personality before you've started talking should be a diagnostic tick in its own right
- Profile 3, the mum everyone calls 'fine': the one who looks the most together and is the closest to the edge, and why 'I don't know how you do it' makes her feel more alone
- The uncomfortable answer to why so many of us went undiagnosed — not because our ADHD was lighter, but because it only ever cost us
- What there is to feel if you've been diagnosed late — the relief, the grief for what might have been — and the part of it you're allowed to put down
- How the poster actually gets redrawn, and the one small thing that starts it
Free Resources- Preparing for Diagnosis — for the 'oh, that's me' moment, and what to do next — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/
- After Your Diagnosis Kit — for the relief-and-grief part, if you've already been diagnosed — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mum-after-diagnosis-kit/
Paid Resources- Pre-Diagnosis Workbook — the deeper 'get clear before you spend money on an assessment' version — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/prediagnosisworkbook/
- Assessment & Diagnosis Bundle — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/bundle-adhd-diagnosis-assessment-guides/
Related Episodes- Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — the deep dive on the 'too much' profile — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/
- ADHD or PTSD? Why So Many Women Are Misdiagnosed — S2 EP82, with Amanda Moses — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-82-adhd-or-ptsd-why-so-many-women-are-misdiagnosed-with-amanda-moses/
- ADHD Mum: What You Need to Know After Your Diagnosis — S2 EP55, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-55-adhd-mum-what-you-need-to-know-after-your-diagnosis-solo-episode-with-jane-mcfadden/
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23. ADHD and Marriage: We Separated for 18 Months. Then He Got Diagnosed. (with Emily Jade O'Keeffe)
In the Facebook group there's a pattern that comes up again and again: the mum grows. She gets the kids assessed, she starts to recognise herself, she does the reading and the therapy and the work — and the …
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In the Facebook group there's a pattern that comes up again and again: the mum grows. She gets the kids assessed, she starts to recognise herself, she does the reading and the therapy and the work — and the husband lags behind. He won't consider that he's neurodivergent, or the problem is always someone else. The kids. The school. Her. And underneath it all is the question so many women are actually asking: how do I get him to see it, and is it even worth staying?
Emily Jade O'Keeffe's story runs the whole thing backwards. Her husband got diagnosed first — but only after they'd separated for 18 months, after the mudslinging and the lawyers, after she'd rebuilt herself from the floor up. This is the rare positive one: what happened when the diagnosis finally came, why she chose to help him when almost nobody would have, and the single question a marriage counsellor gave her that changed everything — 'is it arsehole or ADHD?'
CHAPTERS00:00 — Meet Emily Jade O'Keeffe — 30 years in radio, and why she drove up from the Gold Coast
02:46 — The order most families discover it in — and why Emily's ran backwards
03:46 — 18 months apart: 'I was devastated, and he said can you just get over it'
06:07 — Rock bottom, and the call that started with 'you were right'
08:17 — 'I removed myself from the marriage and the problem was still there'
09:17 — The groceries, the tone, and the pressure that was never actually there
10:15 — PDA — a name for the thing Emily had been living without knowing
13:00 — The first six months: lawyers, mudslinging, and the awakening that stopped it
16:50 — 'I'll dance with my daughter's dad at her wedding' — the line that set the path
20:00 — 'I can't be the problem again' — why she wouldn't just take him back
23:30 — 'Is it arsehole or ADHD?' — the counsellor question that changed how they fight
26:00 — Woo back or woo up — how they actually communicate now
28:00 — The one thing she'd tell you to do first — and it isn't about him
What We Cover- The pattern Jane sees constantly in the group — the mum who grows while the partner stays certain the problem is everyone else — and how Emily's story ran the opposite way
- What 18 months of separation actually looked like: the lawyers, the grief, and the slow realisation that leaving didn't fix the thing that was wrong
- The moment her husband hit rock bottom and came back to the person he'd hurt most — and why she said yes
- How undiagnosed ADHD and autism had been quietly rewiring every conversation — the groceries, the 'I miss you,' the pressure that was only ever in his own head
- PDA — the framework Jane raises that gave a name to years of Emily's confusion (see the note below on the terminology)
- Why Emily refused to simply reunite — 'I can't be the problem again' — and what she required instead
- The Jennifer Garner line that reset her whole approach to co-parenting
- The marriage counsellor's question that changed how they argue — 'is it arsehole or ADHD?' — and why a reason isn't the same as an excuse
- What Emily says actually has to happen before a resistant partner will change — and the honest, uncomfortable truth about waiting for rock bottom
- The one thing she'd tell any woman to do first, and it has nothing to do with him
RELATED EPISODES:
Struggling to Understand ADHD? Here's What Your Partner Needs You to Know — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-58-struggling-to-understand-adhd-heres-what-your-partner-needs-you-to-know/
Is PDA Real and What Can We Do About It? (with Michelle Garnett) — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-30-could-it-be-pda-exploring-the-signs-and-why-its-different-from-odd/
Co-Parenting Amidst Diagnosis Disagreements (with Alana Manix) — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-1-co-parenting-amidst-diagnosis-disagreements/
FREE RESOURCES
Preparing for Diagnosis — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/
Emily Jade O’Keeffe is a much-loved Gold Coast media personality, and co-host of the number one breakfast show, Galey & Emily Jade, on 102.9 Hot Tomato. With more than 30 years in radio, television and media, Emily is also the co-creator and co-host of the Move Over Mama podcast alongside her teenage daughter, Millie. A wife and mother of two, Emily brings warmth, humour and honesty to all her audiences.
Move Over Mama and Emily Jade's IG here
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22. Mental Load: 'I'm Just Tired of Being the Only Adult.' When the Kids Start Paying For It.
The mental load starts as the thing you can laugh about — the admin, the medal for mowing the lawn. And then, somewhere underneath it, it stops being funny. It's the sentence that comes out of your mouth before …
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The mental load starts as the thing you can laugh about — the admin, the medal for mowing the lawn. And then, somewhere underneath it, it stops being funny. It's the sentence that comes out of your mouth before you can stop it: 'would you mind having the kids on Saturday so I can get a haircut' — asking the other parent for their own children like you're lodging annual leave with HR. It's 'they were so good while you were gone,' and knowing 'good' meant nobody got fed. It's being so tired of being the only adult in the building that you stop being angry and just go quiet.
This is Part 3, the last in the series, and it's the heavy one. It begins with a laugh and then it lets that laugh go. This one is for you, on your own, with your headphones in — and if you're right on the edge of exasperation today, Jane's honest recommendation is that you save this one for another day. Built entirely from what you wrote in. Support links are in the notes below.
CHAPTERS00:00 — The last one. It starts funny, then it doesn't.
00:44 — 'I shouldn't have to book my own kids in like it's annual leave'
01:37 — Watch where the school emails go — and the 11-day anaphylaxis email
03:37 — 'It was so easy while you were gone.' Was it though?
05:41 — The 7am text from Cassie, and what Jane wrote back without thinking
07:32 — 'I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just so tired of being the only adult.'
07:46 — The nine-year-old asked to regulate himself while the 39-year-old isn't
11:33 — The question underneath all of it: are these women still with them?
12:37 — 'Supportive of what?' — when the pat on the back keeps you carrying it
14:39 — The economy of gratitude — his effort is a gift, yours is the weather
15:03 — 'He's cheaper than hiring someone' — the accounting that holds women in place
16:58 — Why this lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the load that has no gender, and the one that does
20:52 — Why leaving isn't the easy answer, and the thing nobody says about single-mother poverty
22:38 — This series was never mine. It was yours.
What We Cover- The sentence so many women said comes out of their mouths and they don't know how they got there — asking the other parent to mind their own kids
- Where the pattern hides in plain sight — whose inbox the school actually emails, and the 11-day reply to an anaphylaxis email that says everything
- 'It was so easy while you were gone' — what 'good' actually meant, and where the bar for care got left
- The 7am text from a friend that Jane laughed at before she worried, and the moment it turned from a joke into something real
- The messages about children being asked to manage their emotions while a grown adult in the same house isn't — and what it costs the kid who gives up on a parent
- The question that started sitting under every message — are these women still with their partners, and if it's this hard, why do we stay?
- 'Supportive of what?' — the uncomfortable idea that the comfort itself might be the thing keeping you carrying all of it
- A sociologist's phrase you can't unhear — why his effort gets thanked and yours becomes the weather
- Why this exact load lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the part that has no gender, and the part that absolutely does
- The honest, un-tidy truth about why leaving isn't a clean answer — and the structural thing nobody wants to name
🆘 SupportIf anything in this episode landed close to home, you don't have to sit with it alone.
1800RESPECT — national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling — 1800 737 732, or 1800respect.org.au (24/7, free, confidential).
Lifeline — 13 11 14, or lifeline.org.au (24/7 crisis support).
If you're not sure whether what you're experiencing 'counts,' you can still call. They will talk it through with you.
Free ResourcesHousehold Family Meeting Template — for the 'hand over a whole job, not a favour' conversation this episode is really about — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Related EpisodesThe Admin Husband: 'Do We Have Parmesan?' — Part 1 —
The Gold Medal Husband: 'Did You See the Lawn?' — Part 2
I Love My Family… But I'm So F**king Angry (Mum Rage Part 1) — S2 EP84 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-84-i-love-my-family-but-im-so-fking-angry-mum-rage-part-1/
What We Wish Our Partners Knew About the Mental Load — And How to Truly Support Us — S2 EP75 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-75-what-we-wish-our-partners-knew-about-the-mental-load-and-how-to-truly-support-us/
References & Further ReadingHochschild, A. R. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Viking.
(The 'economy of gratitude' Jane cites — whose effort reads as a gift to be thanked, and whose reads as the background running of the house.)
Also relevant — the cognitive/mental load framework underpinning the whole series:
Daminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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21. ADHD Assessment: What Actually Happens in a Psychiatrist's Appointment (with Dr Brendan Daugherty)
**This episode is general information only and is not medical advice. If any of it applies to you, please talk it through with your own GP or psychiatrist**Have you ever walked out of a psychiatrist's office …
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**This episode is general information only and is not medical advice. If any of it applies to you, please talk it through with your own GP or psychiatrist**
Have you ever walked out of a psychiatrist's office more confused than when you walked in? Not sure what just happened, whether you got a diagnosis, what you were supposed to ask, or whether the thing you were terrified of — coming across like you were just there for the stimulants — is exactly what you did. For a lot of women getting an ADHD assessment at 40, the appointment itself is the black box. Nobody tells you the order to see a GP, psychologist and psychiatrist in, what happens if your school reports are gone and your parents have died, why they start you on one medication and not another, or what a drug holiday actually is.
So this week Jane sat a psychiatrist down and asked him to open the box. Dr Brendan Daugherty walks through the whole thing — the pathway, the assessment, how they choose your first medication, and the one thing that makes these appointments go better. Bring the questions you've been too embarrassed to ask.
CHAPTERS00:00 — Walking out more confused than when you walked in
02:36 — GP, psychologist, psychiatrist — the actual order, and when to skip a step
04:38 — Have the waitlists really improved? A straight answer
05:44 — The two kinds of women who book an assessment — which one are you?
09:50 — 'ADHD is a bit like a shield' — and what's underneath when the medication lifts it
13:19 — 'I'm scared I'll look like I'm drug seeking' — the post Jane sees every week
15:26 — How a psychiatrist spots the woman who's masked her whole life and looks fine
16:56 — No school reports, parents gone — how do you even get diagnosed? (evidence before 12)
19:15 — The squat-rack phone call that diagnosed Jane's ADHD in real time
23:23 — How they actually choose your first medication — first-line vs second-line
25:28 — Long-acting or short-acting, and why it's not one-size-fits-all
26:18 — Drug holidays: why they're prescribed, and why the evidence is weaker than you think
29:34 — What's changing in psychiatry for women — hormones, the cycle, and menopause
What We Cover- Why so many women walk out of the appointment with no idea what just happened — and the questions nobody tells you to bring
- The actual order to see a GP, psychologist and psychiatrist in, when you can skip a step, and when doubling up is a waste of your money
- The two completely different reasons women book an assessment — and why knowing which one you are changes where you should book
- What Brendan means when he says attention problems aren't always ADHD — the medical and hormonal things a rushed assessment misses
- 'ADHD is a bit like a shield' — the conversation about what surfaces when the medication lifts it, and why Jane went back to short-acting
- The post Jane sees in the Facebook group every single week — 'I'm terrified I'll look like I'm drug seeking' — and exactly how a psychiatrist actually hears that
- How a psychiatrist recognises the woman who's held it all together on the outside and is burnt out underneath
- What happens when you don't have school reports and your parents have died — how the 'evidence before 12' rule actually works in practice
- How they choose which medication to start you on, first-line versus second-line, long-acting versus short — in plain English
- Drug holidays — why they get prescribed, why the evidence is weaker than it sounds, and what that means for your Saturday sport chaos
- What's genuinely changing for women in ADHD care — the hormonal picture, the menstrual cycle, and menopause
Free ResourcesPreparing for Diagnosis — for the mum wondering if it's ADHD and what to do next — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/
Paid ResourcesPre-Diagnosis Workbook — the deeper version of 'get clear before you spend the money on an assessment' — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/prediagnosisworkbook/
Related EpisodesHow to Get a Diagnosis in Australia (Part 1) — S1 EP7, with Dr Jacinta Thomson — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/s1-ep7-how-to-get-a-diagnosis-in-australia-part-1/
ADHD Medication: Stimulants vs Non-Stimulants — S2 EP40, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-40-adhd-medication-stimulants-vs-non-stimulants-solo-episode-with-jane-mcfadden/
About the GuestDr Brendan Daugherty is a child, adolescent, adult and forensic psychiatrist and a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. He's the co-founder of Pandion Health, an Australian telehealth platform providing specialist-led ADHD assessment and ongoing care for adults and children.
You can find Brendan here:
Website: https://www.pandionhealth.com.au
Instagram: @itsdrbrendan (and the clinic, @pandionhealth)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandaugherty/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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References & Further ReadingOn dexamphetamine vs methylphenidate (Brendan's 'a little bit better' point, ~24:24):
Cortese, S. et al. (2018). Comparative efficacy and tolerability of medications for ADHD in children, adolescents, and adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. The Lancet Psychiatry, 5(9), 727–738. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30269-4
On stimulant 'drug holidays' and growth (~26:18):
Drug holidays and the ~2cm growth question are genuinely contested in the literature. The most-cited long-term data is the MTA follow-up (Swanson et al., 2017, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry), which found a small average height reduction associated with consistent stimulant use. Brendan's framing — that it's 'a bit overblown' and the adult evidence for weekend breaks is weak — matches the current consensus.
On combined medication + non-medication treatment (~23:23):
The MTA Cooperative Group studies remain the reference point for Brendan's 'they work best in combination' statement.
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Resources
20. Mental Load: He Mowed the Lawn Once and Wanted to Know If You Saw It.
The mental load is not the doing. Everyone thinks it's the doing. It's the buy now, pay later maths you run when your partner tells you to rest — the hour you lie down and spend the whole hour calculating what …
Shownotes
The mental load is not the doing. Everyone thinks it's the doing. It's the buy now, pay later maths you run when your partner tells you to rest — the hour you lie down and spend the whole hour calculating what this hour is costing you tomorrow. It's being the default parent, the one whose invisible labour only gets noticed the second it stops. And then, into that, walks the one who did the single most visible job in the house and needs you to see it. He mowed the lawn. He unpacked the dishwasher. Once. And he's standing in the middle of the kitchen, glowing, waiting for the medal.
CHAPTERS00:00 — 'You rest, take a load off' — and why every woman's shoulders just went up
01:35 — Buy now, pay later: what an hour of rest actually costs you
02:39 — Dani, patron saint of this episode, and her four voice memos
03:19 — Kat's dishwasher, the border collie, and the dead bird at your feet
04:06 — 'Did you see the lawn?' The line that named the whole episode
06:37 — The barbecue vasectomy story (you'll want to sit down)
08:31 — The 3am texts, where it stops being funny — the wet bed, his one turn
09:42 — 'I'm stressed about the mess. What are you going to do about it?'
11:04 — The head lice question that broke everyone: 'or did you just decide that?'
12:15 — Why is it always her? Susan Walzer, 1996, and thinking vs doing
12:38 — He doesn't just do less. He's reading a different ledger.
13:33 — Why this isn't gaslighting — and why that makes it harder to fix
15:31 — What doesn't work: the chart, the PowerPoint, the tagging him in articles
15:50 — What actually works: handing over whole domains, not tasks
17:20 — How same-sex couples split it, and why they had to do it out loud
19:55 — 'You're a bit of a perfectionist' — what he actually means when he says it
What We Cover- Why 'you rest, I've got it' makes every woman's shoulders climb up around her ears — and the brutal maths hiding inside that hour of 'rest'
- The border collie, the dead bird, and the exact face a partner makes when he's unpacked the dishwasher once and needs you to notice
- The listener line that named this whole episode — and what she really wanted to say back
- The barbecue vasectomy story, which has to be heard to be believed, and what six women two metres away were actually doing while he told it
- The 3am texts, where the funny runs out — the wet bed and the one night it was his turn, and what he suggested instead of changing the sheets
- The head lice question that undid everyone — three little words that turned a job she'd been doing for three months into something she'd apparently invented
- Why it's her doing the tracking, the meds, the mattress — a piece of 1996 research, and a newer one that's sharper and more unsettling
- Why he isn't lying and isn't gaslighting when he says the house is fine — he's genuinely reading a different ledger, and that's the bit that's hard to fix
- The three things that don't work (you've tried all three), and the one thing that does — and it isn't a better chore chart
- What a man actually means when he calls you a perfectionist — this one's going on a tea towel
Free ResourcesHousehold Family Meeting Template — the closest thing to the 'hand over whole domains' conversation this episode is really about — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Paid ResourcesPre-Diagnosis Workbook — for the mum who's listening to this and starting to wonder about herself — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/prediagnosisworkbook/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related EpisodesThe Admin Husband: 'Do We Have Parmesan?' — Part 1 of this series —
https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/adhd-invisible-load/
What We Wish Our Partners Knew About the Mental Load — And How to Truly Support Us — S2 EP75 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-75-what-we-wish-our-partners-knew-about-the-mental-load-and-how-to-truly-support-us/
Making the Invisible Mental Load Visible: How to Share the Load Without the Stress (Part 3) — S2 EP73 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-73-making-the-invisible-mental-load-visible-how-to-share-the-load-without-the-stress-part-3/
The Invisible Job: Being the One Who Holds Everything Together — S3 — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-invisible-job-being-the-one-who-holds-everything-together/
References & Further ReadingWalzer, S. (1996). Thinking About the Baby: Gender and Divisions of Infant Care. Social Problems, 43(2), 219–234. https://doi.org/10.2307/3096999
(The 1996 study Jane cites — women do the thinking, men do the doing.)
Daminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007
(The four stages: anticipate, identify, decide, monitor — decision-making is shared, everything else falls on women.)
On same-sex couples splitting cognitive labour more evenly:
Pinho, M. & Gaunt, R. (2023). The management of cognitive labour in same-gender couples. PLoS ONE. (Same-gender couples negotiate the division explicitly rather than defaulting.)
On the newer 'different perceptions of the same household' research:
Weeks, A. C. & Ruppanner, L. (2024). A typology of US parents' mental loads: Core and episodic cognitive labor. Journal of Marriage and Family. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13057
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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19. Is Daycare Causing ADHD? Debunking the Diary of a CEO Episode. (with Amanda Moses)
Someone sent you the clip. Or your friend messaged about it. Or your mother-in-law forwarded it without comment and you sat there for a minute knowing exactly what she meant by that. The Diary of a CEO episode …
Shownotes
Someone sent you the clip. Or your friend messaged about it. Or your mother-in-law forwarded it without comment and you sat there for a minute knowing exactly what she meant by that. The Diary of a CEO episode with Erica Komisar — the one saying ADHD isn't real, it's a stress response, and if your child has it the inconvenient truth is that you caused it. Two and a half hours long. Fifteen million subscribers. Ranked second on Spotify globally. So it doesn't stay in the episode — it gets clipped and reposted and lands in your DMs.
This is the debunk. Senior psychologist and ADHD assessor Amanda Moses is back — the actual person who spends her days doing the assessments. Fourteen years in the field, Australia and the UK. Amanda pulls the clips apart word by word. The genetics. The 'malpractice' claim about medication. The 1950s theory this whole episode is quietly rebuilding under a new name.
CHAPTERS00:00 — The email from a listener that made me pick up the phone to Amanda
01:00 — What Erica Komisar is, and what she isn't
02:30 — Clip 1: 'ADHD isn't a disorder. It's a stress response.'
03:20 — Why the drop-the-D movement isn't about stress — and the heritability she's leaving out
06:03 — Clip 2: 'There is no genetic precursor to ADHD.'
07:30 — One minute there's no gene. The next minute there is. Which is it?
13:37 — Clip 3: 'The way we treat ADHD is malpractice.'
14:35 — Amanda on her own medication, and 'what do you mean people walk around like this for free?'
23:37 — Clip 4: 'When your child gets an ADHD diagnosis, the first thing you should do is see a therapist.'
25:17 — Refrigerator mother. 1950s. Same architecture. New diagnosis.
29:07 — Where Erica raised her children. And what she could afford to sacrifice.
33:17 — The economics that make her advice a fantasy for anyone under fifty
36:31 — Amanda's take-home: you did not cause this
What We Cover- The email from a listener that made Jane stop what she was doing and pick up the phone to Amanda
- What Erica Komisar is not — three qualifications she doesn't hold, one of which will surprise you
- The exact quote from clip one that Amanda says has nothing to do with the actual conversation the field is having
- The number Steven Bartlett read out to Erica that she then argued didn't exist
- The 1950s theory about mothers that was dismantled decades ago — and the sentence in this podcast that revives it word for word
- What Amanda said about her own medication that Jane says she wishes someone had said to her three years earlier
- The scaffolding Erica had that made her parenting choices possible — and why no woman under fifty has that same scaffolding now
- The one sentence Jane wanted on the record because she couldn't say it professionally — Amanda's response is why you love her
- Amanda's one take-home if your stomach dropped listening to that clip and you don't know where to go with the guilt
Free ResourcesHousehold Family Meeting Template — for the load this episode is really talking about — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Explaining ADHD to Kids Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/explaining-adhd-to-kids-parents-guide/
Paid ResourcesADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related EpisodesADHD or PTSD? Why So Many Women Are Misdiagnosed — S2 EP82, with Amanda Moses — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-82-adhd-or-ptsd-why-so-many-women-are-misdiagnosed-with-amanda-moses/
Is It Social Anxiety — or Is It Autism? — S3 EP34, with Amanda Moses — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-34-is-it-social-anxiety-or-is-it-autism-with-amanda-moses/
References & Further ReadingOn ADHD heritability (the 74–80% figure):
Faraone, S. V. & Larsson, H. (2019). Genetics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Molecular Psychiatry, 24(4), 562–575. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-018-0070-0
On the polygenic architecture Amanda references (many genes, small individual effect):
Demontis, D. et al. (2019). Discovery of the first genome-wide significant risk loci for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Nature Genetics, 51(1), 63–75. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0269-7
On the 'refrigerator mother' theory Amanda names:
The term originated with Leo Kanner in the 1940s and was popularised through the 1950s and 60s (most notably by Bruno Bettelheim). It was dismantled from the 1960s onward as autism's biological and genetic basis was established.
About Amanda MosesAmanda Moses is a senior psychologist, board-approved supervisor, and ADHD and autism assessor with over 14 years of clinical experience across Australia and the UK. She specialises in complex assessments — the ones that don't fit neatly inside the box.
Amanda offers clinical training and accessible resources for community members looking to understand autism and ADHD more holistically. Amanda's 'Understanding Neurodivergence Series' combine research, lived experience and practical reflection tools in a way that is clear and easy to follow. In 2026, the series was fully redesigned in collaboration with a professional designer and accessibility expert to improve visual accessibility and overall usability, while maintaining clinical depth. They are written for both therapists and neurodivergent people who want to better understand autistic and ADHD experiences. Each guide includes structured explanations and worksheets that can be used in therapy or independently. The focus is on supporting learning, self-understanding and strengths-based reflection in a way that is respectful and genuinely neurodiversity-affirming.
Understanding Neurodivergence Series: https://www.amandamosespsychology.com.au/clinicalresources/?categories[]=understanding-neurodivergence-series#category-tiles
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18. Mental Load: 'Do We Have Parmesan Cheese?' He Was Standing at the Fridge. I Was Interstate
The mental load is the thing you couldn't name for years — the invisible mental load that means one adult in the house knows when library day is and one adult keeps asking. The one who anticipates, identifies …
Shownotes
The mental load is the thing you couldn't name for years — the invisible mental load that means one adult in the house knows when library day is and one adult keeps asking. The one who anticipates, identifies, decides, and monitors, and the one who stands next to the dishwasher and shouts through to the lounge room to ask if it's clean. You've known the pattern for years. You've done the therapy. You've read the book. You've made the 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner. And he still texts you from home, from within arm's reach of the fridge, to ask about the Parmesan.
This week the ADHD Mums Facebook group broke open. So many messages, voice notes, and 4am DMs from women hiding in their own ensuites that Jane's had to split it into three episodes. This is Part 1 — the Admin Husband. Part 2 is the Gold Medal Husband next week. Part 3 is coming.
CHAPTERS00:00 — The Facebook post that broke the internet
00:27 — Lisa. 4am. From inside her own ensuite. Husband asleep in the next room.
01:23 — Please stop asking us what time school pickup is
02:03 — Renee: 'I made the calendar. I bought the calendar. I put it up. I synced it to your phone.'
03:32 — Do men use Siri? A serious question.
04:59 — The 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner he walks past every single day
06:47 — He texts her the address of the program she set up, booked, paid for and drives to every week
09:26 — Parmesan. He's at the fridge. She's in Adelaide.
10:55 — The T-shirt drawer that hasn't moved in three years
12:20 — The 36-minute toilet holiday, and what he's actually doing in there
14:18 — Alison Daminger's four stages of the mental load — and which one he only turns up for
16:35 — Affordance perception: he isn't ignoring the crumbs. He genuinely can't see them.
19:16 — Same-sex couples don't do this. Which tells you something.
21:53 — 'Accidentally, lovingly raising the next man to look at a bench and just see a bench.'
22:36 — 'Just ask me if you need help.' Why that sentence is worse than no help.
What We Cover- The Facebook post that unleashed more DMs and voice notes than anything else on the show — including one from a woman messaging at 4am from inside her own ensuite while her husband slept in the next room
- What Renee has done to try and stop her husband asking her what's on today for the seventh time before 9am — and why none of it worked
- The 1.2-metre colour-coded family planner one member has installed on her wall. Her husband walks past it every single day. He hasn't looked at it once. She's been tracking.
- Why he can find the remote. Why he can conduct a full detective investigation into a missing beer. And why the billboard is invisible.
- The Parmesan text. From another state. Not a rhetorical device — a real message.
- A sociologist who broke the mental load into four stages, and the one stage he actually turns up for
- Two philosophers on why your partner isn't lying when he says he doesn't see the bench. He's not seeing it the way you're seeing it — and this is the bit that stopped Jane in her tracks
- What the research on same-sex households is actually telling us — and it's not that men's brains are different
- The 36-minute toilet holiday. The medical event. What he's really doing in there.
- Why answering him when he shouts through from the kitchen is the exact thing that keeps you Siri
- The sentence a Facebook group member said out loud that Jane hasn't been able to stop thinking about since — 'I'm accidentally, lovingly raising the next man to look at a bench and just see a bench'
Free ResourcesHousehold Family Meeting Template — for moving off stage-three-only and onto shared stages one and two — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
The ADHD Mums Facebook Group — where this whole episode came from, and where Part 2 and 3 are being built right now — https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
Paid ResourcesADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes (the mental load / invisible labour series)The Invisible Job: Being the One Who Holds Everything Together — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-invisible-job-being-the-one-who-holds-everything-together/
The Invisible Coordination Load: Why ADHD Mums Carry the Work Systems Won't — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-invisible-coordination-load-why-adhd-mums-carry-the-work-systems-wont/
The Hidden Cost of Being the Good Girl — How the Mental Load Became Ours — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-hidden-cost-of-being-the-good-girl-how-the-mental-load-became-ours/
References & Further ReadingDaminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007
Affordance perception — a framework from ecological philosophy (originating with James J. Gibson, developed further in gender and household-labour applications). This is a philosophical framework, not a clinical psychology finding. Cited as one lens that fits the pattern, not as a settled explanation.
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17. Good Girl Conditioning: Breaking the Pattern Before It Reaches Our Daughters — with Rachel Seiler
You know good girl conditioning because you've lived it. The self-editing. The 'whatever you want.' The 'I don't mind.' You spent your twenties in the wrong careers and your thirties in therapy, and you're …
Shownotes
You know good girl conditioning because you've lived it. The self-editing. The 'whatever you want.' The 'I don't mind.' You spent your twenties in the wrong careers and your thirties in therapy, and you're still catching yourself doing it in your forties. And now you're watching your neurodivergent daughter start — the compliant one, the helpful one — and you don't know how to name it, let alone stop it.
CHAPTERS00:00 — What the good girl actually loses (and nobody in the room notices)
02:16 — Interoception: the missing piece for a whole generation of mums
03:52 — Why you picked the worst careers and environments for you
06:35 — The nervous system cost nobody counts — going to the toilet on a bell
09:50 — The moment you edited yourself out before anyone even noticed
10:47 — Rachel's grade one birthday party, and what her mum saw
12:32 — The mum rage that arrived when it was her daughter's turn
15:14 — The four scripts that work better than any book or worksheet
19:17 — What we're actually reinforcing when we praise 'easy' behaviour
19:52 — The girls who look calm in the front row and panic on the inside
22:00 — The pool. The water slide. The moment Jane couldn't watch it anymore
28:03 — 'I don't mind' — the one thing every mum needs to understand about it
What We Cover- The one thing every good girl loses first, and it's not confidence — it's the ability to feel what's happening inside her own body
- Why you picked the worst possible jobs, cities and relationships in your twenties, and never once asked yourself the question that would have saved you
- What Rachel's mum watched her do at her own sixth birthday party — and the template it set for the next thirty years
- The moment Rachel had to physically walk out of her own daughter's bedroom before she said something she couldn't take back
- Why the kids who need therapy aren't always the ones throwing chairs — sometimes they're the ones with their hand up in the front row
- The scene at the pool that Jane couldn't unsee, and what she did about it that nobody in the group was going to like
- What we're actually rewarding when we praise the easy child, and what it costs her by fourteen
- The four short scripts Rachel uses with her own kids that work better than any worksheet — and why role play beats reading a book every time
- 'I don't mind.' The one thing you need to understand about what's happening inside her when she says it
Free ResourcesHousehold Family Meeting Template — the mental load, and getting things off one shoulder — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Explaining ADHD to Kids Guide — for the identity work with your daughter — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/explaining-adhd-to-kids-parents-guide/
Guest LinksRachel Seiler — Play therapist and counsellor, All Kids Counselling (Queensland). Sessions available Australia-wide via Zoom.
All Kids CounsellingRelated Episodes (start here if the good girl language is new to you)You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now. — S3 EP35 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/
The Hidden Cost of Being the Good Girl — How the Mental Load Became Ours — S3 — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-hidden-cost-of-being-the-good-girl-how-the-mental-load-became-ours/
Stop People-Pleasing: The ADHD Mum's Guide to Boundaries, Balance, and Breaking Free — S2 EP50 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-50-stop-people-pleasing-the-adhd-mums-guide-to-boundaries-balance-and-breaking-free/
The Emotional Load of Raising Neurodivergent Girls and How to Lighten It — S3, with Katie Koullas — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-25-the-emotional-load-of-raising-neurodivergent-girls-and-how-to-lighten-it/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
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Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
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16. Anxiety or ADHD? Understanding the Two Types of Racing Thoughts and what to do about them
It's 10:15 on a Sunday night. You've come out to the kitchen to rinse one pot. One. And now you're just standing there, not touching it — because the second you stopped moving, it started. The permission slip …
Shownotes
It's 10:15 on a Sunday night. You've come out to the kitchen to rinse one pot. One. And now you're just standing there, not touching it — because the second you stopped moving, it started. The permission slip. The referral. Was it orange day. The group chat you didn't answer. The dog bowl. And underneath all of it, the thought that always turns up: what's wrong with you, everyone else can do this.
So you do the breathing. Four in, hold four, four out. Name it. I'm feeling anxious.
And nothing happens.
What We Cover- The Sunday-night sink — 40 thoughts arriving at once, none of them actually dangerous
- Why the breathing didn't work, and why that isn't a you-problem — even I've been paid to teach this and still couldn't breathe it down
- The two kinds of racing thoughts, and how to tell them apart in about four seconds
- The shelf — why yours is smaller, why it won't file, and why the dog bowl and the electricity bill are screaming at exactly the same volume
- What the friend who 'just handles everything' actually has that you don't
- The fire blanket problem — what happens when the whole wellness industry hands you one tool and tells you it works on everything
- The one question to ask instead: is something actually wrong, or is it everything at once?
- Why the too-much kind doesn't want calming — it wants emptying
- What you're really doing when you keep the TV on, scroll till your eyes shut, and say you 'just can't switch your brain off'
Free ResourcesThe Energy Accounting Guide — mentioned in the episode — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Household Family Meeting Template — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Paid ResourcesADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related EpisodesQUICK RESET: No, I Can't Meditate. I'm Too Busy Disassociating. — S3 EP47 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-47-quick-reset-no-i-cant-meditate-im-too-busy-disassociating/
When You Can't Relax Even When It's Quiet — What Your Body Is Doing and Why — S3 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/why-adhd-mums-cant-relax/
Anxiety & ADHD — S1 EP37, with Jessica Burgess — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-anxiety-and-adhd-with-jessica-burgess/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice)
Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313
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Mentioned in this episode:
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