ADHD Mums

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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

👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group

👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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

👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group

👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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

00:00 — 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

• 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

• 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/

• 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/

• 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/

📬 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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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?'

00:00 — 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

• 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

📬 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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces