ADHD Mums

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.
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You might be the bendy one. Or the dizzy one, the one with the headaches that never really stop, the one who reacts to food nobody else reacts to. Tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. And every time you get to a GP, you can't quite land on the same page as them.
Dr Jason Lam is a GP and sports medicine registrar who spends his days on the things that get missed — hypermobility, Ehlers-Danlos, POTS, MCAS, and the way they tangle together in a neurodivergent body. This is the episode that joins the dots nobody has joined for you.
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit (free) → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Energy Accounting Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Paid Resources
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
ADHD and EDS/POTS: Vanessa's Journey Through Chronic Health Challenges → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-41-connection-between-adhd-eds-and-pots-vanessas-journey-through-chronic-health-challenges/
HORMONES: Histamine + Hormones — Why You Feel Like You're Falling Apart → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-hormones-histamine-and-adhd-why-you-feel-like-youre-falling-apart/
About the Guest
Looking for a practitioner? Dr Jason Lam points listeners to the practitioner registers at the Ehlers-Danlos Society and Connective Tissue Disorders Network Australia.
Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast
More from Dr Jason Lam — https://www.thedancedr.com.au — Instagram @_thedancedr
Dr Jason Lam — useful links and resources are on his website → https://www.thedancedr.com.au
All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
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There's a mum at pickup you really like. Ninety seconds every afternoon, one of those chats where you both go 'yeah, exactly' — and then the kids spill out, someone's swinging a backpack like a helicopter, someone's demanding the petrol station, and you're pulled away before you can even say goodbye. And every day you get back to the car thinking: I should have her over. We should do a barbecue. I'd love to actually talk to her for more than ninety seconds.
You got her number in January. It's the end of July. And you've made no progress at all. You've probably already filed that as proof you're flaky, cold, a bad friend. This episode is Jane taking that story apart — because the silence between you and someone you genuinely like usually isn't 'I don't want this.' It's 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with.'
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Nat, the 90-second pickup chat, and the barbecue that never happens
02:29 — Got her number in January. It's July. No progress.
03:57 — 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' — the personality we build around it
05:33 — The executive-function tax on turning a pickup mum into a real friend
06:36 — It's not that you need to try harder. It might be the fuel tank.
07:13 — The mum with the same life who still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue
08:36 — Good girl conditioning: when friendship becomes your job to carry
10:45 — When you can't stand the silence — and what your brain files it as
12:09 — Why a late-diagnosed brain has had decades to build 'I ruin friendships'
14:31 — The flicker of energy, and the threat analysis that kills the text
15:54 — The heart-react as a hostage 'proof of life' photo
17:35 — Moving to acreage, and quietly deleting myself
18:43 — 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with'
20:16 — Why 'just put yourself out there' aims you straight at burnout
22:11 — What actually works: the low-fuel, no-apology text
23:42 — Drop the bar. Plug a friend into the worst 40 minutes of your week.
26:28 — Maybe the skill isn't the barbecue. It's letting friendship be uneven.
WHAT WE COVER
The pickup mum you really like, the barbecue you keep meaning to have, and the seven months that have quietly gone by
Why 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' becomes a personality — and what it's actually covering for
The hidden executive-function tax on turning a mum you like into a mum who's actually your friend: remembering, initiating, holding the plan, pushing through the 'what if it's awkward'
Why the friend with the same number of kids and the same Saturday sport still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue — and why it's not that she's better at friendship
Good girl conditioning, and what happens when you learned early that friendship is your job to carry, keep alive, and never drop
The other version — when you can't stand the silence, and your brain files 'haven't heard from them in ages' as danger
The flicker of energy to send the text, and the threat analysis your brain runs to talk you out of it
The heart-react on her story as a 'hostage proof of life' photo — I'm here, I'm fine, please don't give up on me
Why 'put yourself out there, just make more effort, have them over' is telling you to spend the exact thing you've run out of
What actually works with an empty tank: the low-fuel, no-apology text, dropping the bar, and letting the friendship be uneven and survive anyway
FREE RESOURCES
Energy Accounting Guide — mentioned in the episode — budget your energy for your real capacity, not what you think you should be doing — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
Household Family Meeting Template — for the load underneath 'there are no leftovers' — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
PAID RESOURCES
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
RELATED EPISODES
School Pick-Up Can Be Draining! How to Stop Overthinking & Save Your Social Energy — S2 EP65, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-65-school-pick-up-can-be-draining-how-to-stop-overthinking-save-your-social-energy/
QUICK RESET: I Cancel Plans Because I Don't Have the Energy to Fake My Personality — S3 EP14, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-14-quick-reset-i-cancel-plans-because-i-dont-have-the-energy-to-fake-my-personality/
You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now. — S3 EP35, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/

📬 Listener Questions & Community
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Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead.
Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
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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

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