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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

🎙️ 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

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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

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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

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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

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Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313

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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

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