ADHD Mums

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.

00:00 — 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.

• 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

If 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.

Household 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/

The Admin Husband: 'Do We Have Parmesan?' — Part 1 —

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mental-load-do-we-have-parmesan-cheese-he-was-standing/id1686843092?i=1000777917338

The Gold Medal Husband: 'Did You See the Lawn?' — Part 2

https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/mental-load-he-mowed-the-lawn-once-and-wanted-to-know-if-you-saw-it/

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/

Hochschild, 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

🎙️ 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

**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.

00:00 — 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

• 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

Preparing for Diagnosis — for the mum wondering if it's ADHD and what to do next — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/

Pre-Diagnosis Workbook — the deeper version of 'get clear before you spend the money on an assessment' — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/prediagnosisworkbook/

How 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/

Dr 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

🎙️ 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

On 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:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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.

00:00 — '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

• 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

Household 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/

Pre-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/

The 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/

Walzer, 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

🎙️ 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

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.

00:00 — 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

• 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

Household 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/

ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/

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/

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/

On 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.

Amanda 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

Amanda's Instagram

📬 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

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.

00:00 — 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.

• 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'

Household 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

ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/

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/

Daminger, 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.

📬 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

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.

00:00 — 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

• 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

Household 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/

Rachel Seiler — Play therapist and counsellor, All Kids Counselling (Queensland). Sessions available Australia-wide via Zoom.

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)

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

For community, shared language, and conversations with other mums who get it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

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.

• 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'

The 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/

ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/

QUICK 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

👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group

For community, shared language, and conversations with other mums who get it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

Have you ever stood at the sink at nine o'clock at night, kids asleep, house finally quiet, and had a friend text you how are you going? — and found nothing there? Not sad. Not fine. Just nothing. You could have told her exactly how the kids were, what's on tomorrow, what your hubby's up to, what's happening with the school term. But you, the actual person underneath running all of it — you went looking for her and she wasn't in.

There's a name for that. It's not the exhaustion everyone talks about. It's the other one.

• What I found on my phone when I watched the video back — and why my first thought was who let me out like that
• Why standing at the edge of the handball court at seven and standing at the edge of the room at thirty-eight are the same thing wearing a different outfit
• The reason nobody taught you to mask, and nobody had to
• What it actually costs you — not the tiredness, the other thing, the one that has a researcher's name on it
• Why 'good girl' was the best deal you were ever offered, and the worst one
• What's actually happening the moment you say go on, give your auntie a hug — and why you say it even though you'd fight anyone who tried it on you
• The two things that decide what a mask really costs you — and why most neurotypical mums are paying almost nothing for theirs
• Why staying in burnout can feel safer than being looked after, and what that has to do with lunchtime at school
• Where I'm starting, given that taking it off for myself is still too hard

Energy Accounting Guide —

https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/

Meltdown & Shutdown Guide

https://adhdmums.com.au/product/navigating-meltdowns-strategies-for-parents/

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/

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/

Cage, E. & Troxell-Whitman, Z. (2019). Understanding the Reasons, Contexts and Costs of Camouflaging for Autistic Adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49(5), 1899–1911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-03878-x

Cage, E., Di Monaco, J. & Newell, V. (2018). Experiences of Autism Acceptance and Mental Health in Autistic Adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48(2), 473–484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3342-7

📬 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

For community, shared language, and conversations with other mums who get it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

You did the envelope early. You had the cash inside. You booked the babysitter. You had three adults on deck for one soccer game. And by the time you got to the car park, you were at 3% battery, panting, holding someone else's dog, and your son had his shirt over his head pretending to be a turtle.

You'd done everything right. And it still looked like you hadn't done anything at all.

What We Cover

• The pride that hits when you do something early — and what happens the second you let yourself relax because of it
• What your eight-year-old is actually asking when he says 'why are you always so stressed out' — and why the real answer isn't one you can give him in a car park
• The thing that runs quietly in the background for neurotypical brains that yours is doing by hand, every day, and why no one can see the cost
• Why 'me too, I lost my keys once' will never land the way they think it does — and what makes theirs a story and yours a Saturday
• What happens when two ADHD parents are both losing things in the same house on the same morning — and neither of them knows the other one has
• Why the woman who filled out the form a week early is the same woman who wrote the wrong email address — and which one people remember

Free Resources

• Household Family Meeting Template — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
• Energy Accounting Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/

Paid Resources

• Navigating School Pick-Up & Social Settings — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/surviving-school-pick-up/

Related Episodes

• S3: 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//
• S2: Executive Function Challenges in ADHD (with Claire Britton) — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-31-executive-function-challenges-in-adhd-strategies-for-success-with-claire-britton/
• S3: The Advanced ADHD + Neurodivergence Myths Busted — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-4-the-advanced-adhd-neurodivergence-myths-busted/

📬 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

For community, shared language, and conversations with other mums who get it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces

Have you ever made a deal with yourself at the end of a really bad week — that's it, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm only doing what he does — and then washed up three times by Tuesday without noticing? Have you ever bought him something mid-fight when you were supposed to be on strike? Have you ever lost it because your nine-year-old defended his dad by pointing out he did one load of washing, as if that was the bar?

I couldn't stop thinking about a listener who did all three in one week. I texted a friend about her. I went for coffee and talked about her. I followed up to find out what happened. What she said next, I genuinely did not see coming.

What we cover

• Have you ever declared you're done, you're not doing it anymore, and then found yourself doing it anyway — and genuinely not noticed until it was done
• The thing your body does mid-fight that looks like making up but isn't — and why it fires even when you're the one who's angry
• Why your hands win the war three times before lunch — and the one-second move that interrupts it
• Why the guilt fires when you stop, not when you're drowning — and what guilt is actually doing in your house
• What your daughter learns watching a 40-year trained adult put something down — no speech needed
• The slam tour — passive-aggressive cleaning, the self-cleaning oven moment, and what we're really hoping he'll see
• Why your body won't sleep even when everything is fine — and the scientific name for it
• The question to ask yourself the next time your hands move before your brain does: am I doing this because I want to, or am I scared of what'll happen if I don't

Free resources

• Household Family Meeting Template — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
• Energy Accounting Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/

Paid resources

• ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-planner-and-values/

Related episodes

• EP81 — The Hidden Cost of Being the 'Good Girl' — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/the-hidden-cost-of-being-the-good-girl-how-the-mental-load-became-ours/
• S2 EP84 — Mum Rage Part 1 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-84-i-love-my-family-but-im-so-fking-angry-mum-rage-part-1/
• S2 EP85 — Mum Rage Part 2 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-85-real-tools-for-real-rage-mum-rage-part-2real-tools-for-real-rage-mum-rage-part-2/
• S4 EP1 — Who Am I If I Stop Being in Service — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/1-season-4-launch-who-am-i-if-i-stop-being-in-service-to-everyone-in-my-life/
• S3 EP35 — You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/
• S3 — Can't Sit Down Until Kitchen's Done — https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/cant-sit-down-ktichen/

📬 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

For community, shared language, and conversations with other mums who get it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast

References:

Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). Guilt: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243–267.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2007). A new look at habits and the habit–goal interface. Psychological Review, 114(4), 843–863.

Mentioned in this episode:

Give away bad for biz - free resources

Free Resouces