Have you ever been told your child is stubborn, strong-willed, or defiant?

So was mine.

In this episode of The Weighted Blanket, I share our family's journey into understanding the PDA Profile (Pervasive Drive for Autonomy)—what it really is, why traditional parenting advice often makes things worse, and the small changes that completely transformed the way we support our son.

I'm not a PDA specialist. I'm simply a mum sharing what we've learned so far, in the hope that it helps another family feel a little less alone.

If you've ever wondered why your child: • Refuses things they actually want to do • Melts down over everyday requests • Seems to need control over everything • Is labelled "difficult" despite being wonderful

...this episode is for you.

💚 If this episode resonates, please like, subscribe and share it with another family. It genuinely helps more than you know.

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The Weighted Blanket is a podcast exploring ADHD, autism, burnout, parenting neurodivergent children, late diagnosis, masking, education, mental health and everything in between.

Because none of us should have to figure this out alone.

I want to tell you about my birthday.

My youngest had just been given a recorder. My middle son wanted one too and wasn't okay about that. My eldest wanted to play battleships. I was cooking dinner, doing the cake, welcoming family — and being hit and pushed by a child who had been completely overwhelmed since that morning.

And in the middle of all of it I was trying to hold my own nervous system together at exactly the same time as his.

This is the episode nobody makes. Not the one about what to do when your child is dysregulated. The one about what happens when your child is dysregulated and so are you — at exactly the same time — and there is nobody in the room who is not.

This episode is about being a late-diagnosed neurodivergent parent of neurodivergent children. The moment you look at your child and recognise yourself. The guilt of what you did before you had the right language. The science of co-regulation — and why it's harder when both nervous systems are running at capacity. The parental burnout nobody talks about. The EMDR that's helping. And the complicated, painful, beautiful experience of seeing yourself in your child.

ADHD heritability is estimated at 70-80%. Up to half of children with ADHD have a parent with ADHD. 65% of parents of neurodivergent children are at higher risk of burnout. This is bigger than your family. And you are not failing.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hbR3h5qo6TD3WxWF8FL
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👥 Join our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000143112417292/
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You are not alone. 🤍

When my son was two years old, I gave him a book about dinosaurs — one of those Usborne lift-the-flap books with really obscure species in it. By the time he was two and three months old, he knew every single one.

During COVID, he'd run full pelt down the road on our daily walks. Roaring. Not making noise — roaring. Because he wasn't a two-year-old on a walk. He was a dinosaur.

At age five he was getting up before everyone else in the house to play Mozart on guitar. Nobody had ever taught him. He'd worked it out entirely by ear.

At age six he got a distinction in his Grade 4 classical guitar exam.

And then he stopped playing entirely.

This episode is about what happens when the world notices a gift in a neurodivergent child — and then accidentally takes it away. About the genius label and the pressure it creates. About the strategies we found to keep the love alive without the expectation. About music time with daddy, which has no grades and no rules and no agenda.

And it's about who he actually is underneath all of it. The boy who picks up bottles on forest walks because he wants to help. The boy whose goal in life is to make millions — not for himself, but to give to homeless and cancer charities.

This is for every parent who has watched the world try to point their child toward outcomes. Keep their eyes on the love. The love is the whole point.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hbR3h5qo6TD3WxWF8FL 🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weighted-blanket 👥 Join our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000143112417292/ 🔗 Everything else: https://linktr.ee/theweightedblanket 📧 [email protected]

You are not alone. 🤍

I was 36 years old when someone finally told me my brain was different. Not broken. Not difficult. Not strange — even though strange was the word I'd quietly carried about myself for as long as I could remember.

Just different.

And I cried. Not because I was sad. Because I'd spent 36 years working twice as hard as everyone around me just to appear like I was keeping up. And it turned out there had always been a reason.

In this episode I talk about what the late ADHD diagnosis actually felt like — the process, the appointment, the moment the doctor said "you're not broken." The elation that came first. And the significant low that came after — the one nobody warns you about.

I talk about the identity question I'm still sitting with: what is my actual self, and what did I build because I felt like I had to? About the Ellie Middleton book that's helping me figure that out. About the guilt on the days when I can't get into anything. About titration. About what's actually changed — and what hasn't.

And about the particular experience of feeling like the odd one in every room — long before I had any idea why.

This one is for the late-diagnosed. For the people who always felt slightly off the frequency. For the ones who are sitting with a piece of paper that explains everything — and still trying to figure out what to do with it.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hbR3h5qo6TD3WxWF8FL 🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weighted-blanket 👥 Join our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000143112417292/ 🔗 Everything else: https://linktr.ee/theweightedblanket 📧 [email protected]

You are not alone. 🤍

I lost fourteen kilograms in six months. Not because I was trying to. Because my body was the only part of me willing to say something was wrong.

I was being called Superwoman. And every single time someone said it, I felt the weight of it land. Because that's what compliments do when you're performing. They raise the floor. They tell you that this — this exhausted, crumbling, hollow version of keeping it together — is what people expect now.

This episode is about what ADHD burnout actually looks like. Not the falling apart version. The Superwoman version. The one nobody sees coming because it looks, from the outside, like thriving.

I talk about the fourteen kilograms. The IBS. The chronic headaches I convinced myself were a brain tumour. The moment I ended up in tears with my director after a meeting. The coach who asked me whether I was teaching my children that hard work gets you far — or that burnout is the price we pay.

And where I am now. Which is in recovery. Signed off. In CBT. Still figuring it out.

This one is for anyone who has ever been called Superwoman and felt worse for it.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hbR3h5qo6TD3WxWF8FL 🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weighted-blanket 👥 Join our community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000143112417292/ 🔗 Everything else: https://linktr.ee/theweightedblanket 📧 [email protected]

You are not alone. 🤍

If you have ADHD and you've ever been called too sensitive, too emotional, too much — this episode is for you.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. RSD. It's one of the most common and least talked about parts of ADHD — and for around 30% of people with ADHD, it's the most impairing symptom of all. Not the focus issues. Not the time blindness. The emotional pain.

I've just come back from seeing Alex Partridge talk about RSD live. And I've been thinking about it ever since. Because RSD shaped so much of my life before I even knew it had a name.

In this episode I talk about what RSD actually is, what it cost me — the relationships I cut, the work meetings I cried after, the guitar my husband played for twenty minutes longer than he said he would — and what actually helps.

Because knowing the name changes everything.

You are not too sensitive. You never were. 🤍

🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033hbR3h5qo6TD3WxWF8FL 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weighted-blanket 👥 Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1000143112417292/ 🔗 Everything else: https://linktr.ee/theweightedblanket 📧 [email protected]

I was thirty-six years old when someone finally told me my brain was different. Not broken. Just different.

In this first episode I want to tell you who I am and why I built The Weighted Blanket — not the polished version, the real one. Because if we're going to build something honest together, it has to start here.

I talk about my ADHD diagnosis at 36, what thirty-six years without knowing actually cost me, my children's neurodivergent journeys — autism, AuDHD, SPD and a PDA profile — the school meetings, the suspensions, the waiting lists. And the moment I sat in a school meeting and thought: I have to build this.

This is my story. I hope it sounds a little like yours.

🎙️ Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 👥 Join our community: https://the-weighted-blanket.kit.com/a94e837f2d 💬 Facebook: The Weighted Blanket Community 📧 [email protected]

You are not broken. You are not alone. The blanket is wide enough. 🤍

Welcome to The Weighted Blanket. 🤍

This is a podcast and community for neurodivergent people and the families who love them.

I'm Claire — a mum of three, diagnosed with ADHD at 36, navigating autism, AuDHD, sensory processing disorder and a PDA profile across my family. I built this because I couldn't find a space that felt warm enough to be honest in — and honest enough to actually help.

Here we talk about all of it. Diagnoses and waiting lists. EHCP battles. The NHS. Masking and burnout. What it feels like to be a neurodivergent adult who spent decades not knowing. The hard days and the funny days and the moments that floor you completely.

And we talk about change. Because warmth without action only takes us so far.

You are not broken. You are not alone. The blanket is wide enough.

🎙️ Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. 👥 Join our community: https://the-weighted-blanket.kit.com/a94e837f2d 💬 Find us on Facebook: The Weighted Blanket Community 📧 [email protected]