Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome to the ADHD Mums podcast. So the overwhelmed mum syndrome, is it real? Consider the job description for a typical mum role in a house. You are required to provide all the organisation and structure for two, three, four more people than yourself.

Tasks are poorly defined, filled with distractions, constant multitasking. The work is often really boring. There’s laundry, dishes, cleaning. You need to be able to function without high levels of interest or stimulation. Often the people that you are looking after will display absolutely no gratitude and even tell you all the things that you have done wrong that day.

It’s unpaid and you’re expected to work wherever or whenever is needed, which could be any hour of the day and there is absolutely no holidays. When you’re on holidays, you take all the work with you. Appearance is actually really important as well. You must create an attractive household, attend to the details around the house, your clothing and your appearance and your children’s.

You need to maintain a calm exterior and demeanour at all times, whilst caring for these children, who by definition have problems with their own attention and behaviour. You’ll need to carefully structure their lives in order to give them a calm, supportive, organised home environment that they need to succeed in at school with friends. Excellent calendar and scheduling skills are absolutely critical as well.

You are required to prioritise without guidance and work without incentives, without raises, bonuses, promotions, or even the support and company of co-workers. Would anyone with ADHD or without for that matter apply for an impossible job like this? Of course not.

I saw a quote the other day, I thought it was really interesting to pop in here. An ordinary day for a woman can be a nightmare for a woman with ADHD. Women with ADHD, no matter how successful they are in other areas of life, still struggle on the household front. They can ponder on how to be a good mum and experience stress and a feeling of failure to measure up.

Managing the home is one of the most unfriendly lines of work for anyone with attention deficit disorder or ADHD could take. The multiple task coordination required to have a household functioning smoothly is completely directly against the executive functional difficulties that are inherent to ADHD. Also, there’s a gender division on housework where women are still expected to manage the household.

This can make for absolute crisis for overwhelmed mums with ADHD. I’m very excited to have Jacinta Thomson back. She doesn’t know it yet, but I was about to let her know that her How to Get a Diagnosis in Australia is by far our most popular episode.

If you haven’t checked it out, go and check it out, but I’m so excited to have you back. Jacinta, welcome.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, thanks, Jane. It’s great to be back. It was a lot of fun recording the first two and it’s awesome to join you again today.

 

Jane McFadden:

Excellent. So quick overview of Jacinta. Of course, everyone’s listened to her first episode, but if you haven’t, Jacinta is neurodiverse herself. She has two kids. She lives on the Sunshine Coast.

She is a, is that a doctor? You’re a doctor, Jacinta, and you’re a neuropsychologist. Is that correct?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, so I’m a clinical psychologist and I have a PhD in clinical neuropsychology. So I sort of get the doctor title by default from that.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yes, well, I’m sure you’ve worked really hard for it. So let’s make sure we get that in because that is a massive feat to get a title like that. So welcome again.

Jacinta has gone out on her own. I’ll put in her business details in the episode notes just like last time. How’s it going? I know when we spoke to you last, you were just launching your own business. How is it?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, it’s going really well. New premises that I have for face-to-face work is absolutely gorgeous here on the Sunshine Coast and yeah, telehealth work assessments. Yeah, going really steady. It’s amazing work. I’m so lucky to be in this space.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I would imagine the work would be pretty rewarding. I think I’ve sent you a few people myself and they’re just such great people to work with. It’s always good to work with a neurokin.

I think, you know, when sometimes we have our funny little, you know, abstract sort of jokes and the differences in communication, it’s nice to just feel like you’re amongst other people who have a similar, you know, view of life and themselves.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, absolutely. There’s something, yeah, I think about working with people or even just spending time with people who totally get you. That’s so important.

 

Jane McFadden:

So yeah, congratulations on going out on your own and I’m sure it’s going really well. Jacinta, I’ve been holding a cracker topic for a while because I’ve been waiting to get you back in and that is the overwhelmed mum syndrome.

And it’s such a difficult topic and I really wanted to get someone who’s just got so much experience in this area because a lot of people that I’m interviewing are still playing this game of, you know, imposter syndrome, which we spoke about last time. Everyone’s stressed and even some of the people that I’ve interviewed that don’t have ADHD say things like, oh, but everyone has a bad day, everyone’s stressed, everyone’s got lots on.

You know, what do you think the difference between actual clinical ADHD diagnosed versus a stressed out mum?

 

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

I don’t get love it. I said, I’m going to open this Word document and then I just went off script. I’m so sorry. But just that I am dying to ask you that one.

Yeah, I agree. I think most people do, you know, they’d say that they feel stressed out or overwhelmed just with how busy life is and, you know, juggling kids and potentially work and their own health and extended family and all that sort of stuff.

I think when it comes to having diagnosed ADHD, it’s almost like trying to do those, you know, those things, but in a language, in another language, like a language you don’t speak or you’ve just got a very sort of rudimentary understanding of, it just feels like, I think everything is that much harder or that much more complicated.

And when you’re sort of fumbling around and those symptoms of like inattention or restlessness and they, you know, almost like making you more vulnerable to those careless errors and having difficulties planning and so forth. It’s really that executive dysfunction, I think, that makes it more of a, you know, a psychological and cognitive challenge for ADHD mums.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So in regards to the topic, as I was trying to state a theme, which is the overwhelmed mum syndrome, what would be your overall kind of thoughts on whether that’s a real syndrome? What is it? You know, what would be kind of your take on that?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, look, it’s not a syndrome per se, as in it’s not a psychiatric diagnosis or a medical condition. But I think, as I said, most caregivers can relate to feeling overwhelmed at times, if not multiple times every day. There’s just so much to juggle all the time.

I think if you’re a mother who’s just recovering or going, you know, pregnant or breastfeeding or weaning, all of these things deplete us physically and psychologically. We’re project managers, we’re playmates, we’re counsellors, we’re cleaners, we’re dog walkers, we’re shoppers, we’re cookers, we’re bookkeepers, we’re lovers, we’re so much more.

We often do all this work. That’s so much of it is unpaid and it’s 24/7. So being on call around the clock without an easy sort of way to take a break, it’s a recipe for being an overwhelmed mum, isn’t it?

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, and you know, if you think about, you know, you dream for your life when you’re like 18, if there was a job description, that wouldn’t be a job I would apply for from what you’ve just described. It sounds awful.

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

It’s me either. Oh my God. I’m glad that no one actually like gives you a job description in black and white before you become a mum because I think many of us probably wouldn’t sign up for it, right?

 

Jane McFadden:

No way, I also didn’t research childbirth either. So I didn’t really think about how it was gonna come out, which I think is probably best.

But I think as well, what would be your thoughts on the key areas that create it? Like, what do you think is the recipe here for this mix of just life as a mum, which is really hard?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

When we become parents, there’s an exponential increase in the demands on us. We might’ve felt like mere children ourselves before having a baby. I, you know, I know I did. All of a sudden we’re forced to grow up really quickly and be a steady, responsible and attuned caregiver.

There’s always something that needs doing that list just absolutely never ends. So at the same time, there’s a whole bunch of our previous resources or coping mechanisms that we can’t use anymore. They get ripped away often quite unexpectedly.

So before kids, you might’ve been someone who, if you’re feeling stressed or a bit down, you might organise a night to go out drinking and dancing with friends or smash out a gym session, run a spontaneous day trip. You know, you might spend hours in the surf.

You might be able to like lose yourself at the office, you know, working overtime and really trying to sort of block out other life stresses in that way. Or it’s like binge watching your favourite TV show, shows for hours on end. A lot of these things are really, really hard to do, if not impossible, once you’ve got a little baby.

And especially if you’re in that sort of phase where you’re breastfeeding, you really can’t go too far. Or if you do want that weekend away or a night out with friends, for example, it might actually take weeks of planning ahead, even potentially paying for a babysitter. It might be like pumping and freezing breast milk.

And then by the time, you know, that opportunity to get away or do something fun comes around, you might feel so guilty and stressed and overwhelmed that even taking that time out doesn’t even really feel worth it in the end. So we have this huge increase in the demands on us and we lose many of our existing coping resources. So our body and minds, they just get stretched to their limits.

You know, it’s no wonder we feel fragile. It’s sort of like a ship that feels lost at sea without an anchor. It’s just, you’re really vulnerable to just whatever weather comes your way.

It just leaves us, I think, feeling stressed out, often sick, isolated from our friends. And I think it’s when we can’t really do those things for ourselves to cope, that it’s like our central nervous system, our brain, our spine, our whole body gets trapped into that like fight-flight state of stress. And I think all our worries get magnified.

What’s wrong with my child? You know, will our lives always be this hard? What if something really bad happens? And then all our disappointments, shame and anger, they just churn underneath. You know, I thought this would be easier. Everyone else can do this. Why can’t I? What’s wrong with me?

And then I think there’s sort of all these waves of even grief that come with our transition to parenthood as well. We realize all the things that seem to be lost or forever changed. Our bodies, our professional status, you know, our friendships, even the spontaneity and fun in our marriages. It’s, yeah, it’s just like life gets flipped on its head really.

 

Jane McFadden:

Wow, I’m so glad we’re recording that because I’m like, that is so just, wow. You’ve got an incredible way of communicating how people, you know what I mean? Like you’re obviously so experienced. I’m just like sitting here like, but that is literally like motherhood.

So just into transitioning with your first baby and just the sheer shock that that was, how did that go for you?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

It was hard. I think I was talking about this in my episode on my sort of personal story towards getting an ADHD diagnosis, but that, my first child, it was such a rollercoaster.

In those early days, I just, you know, I remember crying so much. I’d just be in a puddle on the ground because the white noise machine to put her to sleep, you know, ran out of batteries and I could only find two instead of the three that it needed or I’d order some Uber Eats and, you know, it wouldn’t come with all the things that I’d ordered. And that at the time just felt like it was enough just to make me, you know, sort of feel like I was falling apart.

I’d cry because my nipples were bleeding, because I couldn’t escape, you know, the smell of off milk and because I wanted to go outside, but because of my ADHD, you know, I couldn’t figure out the steps required to dress myself and my baby. It all just seemed too complex and too hard. I would cry because my baby’s nap was too short or too long.

And if it wasn’t pretty much to the minute that my sleep training program said it should be, would be then I didn’t really know how to like adjust my plans for the rest of the day around that. I’d often just cry because my baby was crying.

I think a lot of mums, you know, we get like that. Obviously there’s the sleep deprivation and sometimes when I’m eating enough and getting enough water and sometimes it’s just that crying of the baby that’s overwhelming and we just don’t know what else to do. So for me, I felt like everything had changed. I just didn’t know how to adapt and I couldn’t regulate myself using any of the strategies that I used to lean on. So it’s a pretty hopeless feeling.

 

Jane McFadden:

I love what you’re saying because then as mothers, right? Or let’s say people say, I’ll go to a mother’s group that will solve it or talk to your husband or talk to your family and then maybe someone actually says to you, hey, you know what? It actually seems like you’re not okay. Maybe you should go to a GP.

Then sometimes a GP can say, yeah, but you’re just really tired. This is mum life, newborn. And I don’t wanna use the word gaslit because I love GPs and I’ve got some great GP friends, but it’s a very difficult in a 10-minute appointment to make an assessment on knowing whether someone’s having an awful day and they’re okay or they’re not okay.

And I just think what you’re describing is just sounds awful. And I’m thinking for all the new mums out there, how do you even know if you’re okay or not? Like it’s awful.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

It is hard to figure out where that like parameter sits in terms of what to expect and what is normal in at least the newborn phase and then what warrants more of a specialized sort of follow-up or source of support.

I think just keeping track of your own levels of stress and anxiety and overwhelm is really important. Even just making a few notes, if it’s a little journal entry or just adding some observations into your phone each day, just to help you keep track of what’s going on.

And I think if it’s been a period of two weeks or longer where you’ve either felt really depressed or consistently overwhelmed and like nothing is really helping, that’s a good point to just make an appointment with your GP and organize to maybe get some help.

I think it’s important too, because our bodies, they change so much in the course of conception to pregnancy, to post-birth, to breastfeeding and even beyond that. So it’s a good idea anyway, just to talk to your GP about whether there might be biochemical factors influencing your mental health symptoms.

Would you like me to keep going through the rest in this same detailed structure (speaker-labeled, broken into readable sections) until the very last line of the transcript?

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I think sometimes a naturopath can be a little bit out there. However, there’s a real space for naturopaths, I think, in that post-baby area. If anyone knows a naturopath who’d like to come on, I’d love to get one on about some of the genes and the supplements that we can do on ADHD. I think it’d be brilliant to get that.

If anyone knows anyone, I’d love to do that. What about in terms of executive dysfunction and working memories? You’ve got, there’s actually a lot of brainpower involved in having a baby in terms of bottle feeding. Naps, nappies, what you’ve got to take. Even toddlers, same. And older kids, how do you think that executive function, what is that and how do you think that plays a part?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

I think for anyone with ADHD, it’s helpful to understand what we mean by executive functioning. Using an analogy, I like to imagine our executive functioning is like the control tower of our bodies, which sits at the front of our brains in a space called the prefrontal cortex.

So if you think of the control tower at an airport, there’s a bunch of highly trained specialists that sit up there. They monitor the planes coming in and coming out. They manage the timing of events to avoid critical incidents. They keep an eye on the weather. They track data. They liaise with all the towers around the world to anticipate, respond to changing plans and so forth.

There’s a reason why those professionals up there aren’t allowed to have personal mobile phones and certainly can’t be under the influence of drug or alcohol during those shifts because distractions could be disastrous. Now, imagine that for an ADHD brain, this control center is manned by a bunch of drunk monkeys smashing symbols together and playing Candy Crush. I mean, look, that might seem a little bit harsh, but often that’s what my brain feels like.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh my God, I want to write that down. That’s awesome.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Sometimes when I just visualize that for myself, it does make me laugh. And I mean, even just having a little bit of laugh about how hard it is sometimes can just help us, you know, catch a breath and sort of, you know, move forwards rather than sinking in it.

But, you know, I imagine in my head it’s sort of like these drunk monkeys and their symbols there. They’re trying to work, but there’s a whole lot of noise and chaos going on. And so for the, you know, at that airport, we’re thinking that the schedules are always going to run late. There’s a lot of misses and somehow there’s a plane or two flying backwards.

So there’s a number of theories about what skills constitute executive functioning, but the research shows us that ADHD has often struggled with impulse control, with emotion regulation and with working memory.

So working memory is a really important thing to understand. It’s a skill that allows us to hold like small snippets of information sort of in live time without losing track of what we’re doing. So if we think of working memory as like a temporary sticky note in the brain, it holds new information in place so the brain can work with it briefly and connect it with other information or then sort of file it into longer-term memory stores.

But ADHD problems with inattention, it pretty much boils down to, we have trouble paying attention to the thing we want to remember, keeping our attention on the thing whilst filtering out distractions and then being able to do something with the thing that we’re holding in mind.

 

I’m sure most listeners can relate to having problems with working memory. Jane, I loved your episode talking about trying to remember to get the tampons.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh my God, how embarrassingly listened to that one. That was actually, you know what, if there was one episode that I wanted to take down as soon as I put it up, it was like that one.

And it’s so funny because lots of people have messaged me about that tampon episode. Like, that’s totally who I am. It’s so real, it’s so real.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, I think for anyone who menstruates, who also lives with ADHD, you know, that just seems like an extra complicated week of every month. And it’s just another thing to try and hold in that limited working memory, you know, in our heads, in our control tower.

Like, so for me, I guess an example of how my working memory challenges might play out. It’s like, if I’ve got to duck down to Woolies, it’s just down the road, I might need just a few everyday essentials, like say, bread, milk, and nappies.

So I think in my mind, easy, you know, it’s just three things, no worries. Everyone else could remember that, so why can’t I? So I might repeat it in my head a few times, you know, bread, milk, nappies, bread, milk, nappies, which is a strategy to try and, you know, stamp it more securely into our working memory store.

But then I get in the car, and the podcast I was, you know, halfway through starts playing again, which for me, often that, you know, special interest is true crime. It’s fascinating. And then I’m, you know, straight into it again. I’m like, was it the butler or the stripper? But my vote’s on the stripper. So, you know, after all, he was strangled with fishnet stockings.

And then I sort of got that unrelated or semi-related association of fish. Okay, right. I think we were going to get fish for dinner tonight. Cool, I’ll add that to my mental list. So it’s fish and bread. Yep, fish and bread. Got it.

So I pull up to the shops, race inside, realize I left my wallet in the car, as you do, race back out, get it back in. And then I see a big sort of specials display of Cadbury chocolate. Amazing, drawn to that, you know, throw in a couple of family blocks.

That’s awesome. And then I realized like how much my underwire bra is annoying me after, you know, 10 hours of sitting in that today. And I’m just, I’m so over irritating bras. So I figure that I have to solve that problem right there, right then. So I’ll stop in the middle of an aisle for like 20 minutes and just Google all the reviews on the best wire-free bras. You know, I think I figured it out.

So possibly I’m standing there and I impulse purchase like six of them. Awesome. And then I realized, maybe we don’t have any toilet paper left at home. So I’ll go grab some. And then someone calls me, it’s quick chat. I’m gonna hang up. And I feel like ice cream in my chocolate. So I throw that in. Great, I’ve got three things now. That seems right.

So I get home, realize I didn’t remember any of the three essentials that I actually went to the shops for, nor the fish for dinner. And now I can’t shut the linen press because we’ve got too much bloody toilet paper overflowing.

 

Jane McFadden:

It’s like your tampons. You get, you’ve got none or you’ve got 150. It’s just so frustrating.

But then at the time, like I’d, sorry, at the time when you’re actually doing that, right. I actually think to myself, how good am I? Because I’ve got those six bras and I’ve solved that problem. I’ve spoken to that person on the phone and that’s what I would have denied I had ADHD. I would have gone, no, I’m actually a really high-powered individual.

But when you break it down in that example, which I love to be honest, it’s like, actually, if you look at that, you haven’t really achieved, like you have, but you haven’t really, but your brain tricks you because you think you have.

 

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, so my brain decided that the most important things in that moment were dealing with the bra situation and then were of a short-term gratification that I was drawn to with the chocolate and the ice cream, which were great, by the way, no regrets there. But I hadn’t, my working memory hadn’t held on to the three items that were my initial goal, the things that, you know, the essentials that I needed for myself and my children.

So I think, yes, there’s a couple of like wins in that, but my time was not efficient because I didn’t achieve my goal.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, oh, I think we can all identify to that. Okay, so at this time, at the point, what is the control tower doing when you’re supposed to be, what should you have done better there?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, look, my control tower, it’s doing its best. It was trying to plan ahead. It was trying to break the task down into manageable steps and, you know, keep track of my progress. But it’s that sort of inability to recognise and hold on to what feels most important in a top-down way, in a goal-directed way. I just sort of get swept around by what feels most interesting or exciting or, you know, gratifying in that particular moment.

So really, I should have written the three things on a list or at least on my hand or maybe even on my forehead. So when I was driving to the shops, I would just see it in the revision mirror. I shouldn’t have kept the podcast going. I should have kept that off and really just focused on the job at hand, the task at hand.

I probably should have just left my bra in the car and not worried about that. Well, on the Sunshine Coast, that’s no big deal. It’s sort of bras and shoes optional up here, which is great. Or if I felt like that was really critical to solve the problem of getting some new bras, I should have actually just put a reminder in my phone to research those and buy some later rather than trying to do it in the moment, in the middle of another activity.

 

Jane McFadden:

So do you think that’s how, because I actually don’t think I know many neurotypical people. Do you think that’s how neurotypical people shop? Do you think they would have actually made those choices? Turn the podcast off, not worry about the bra, just got the three things and left? Is that what they do?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

I mean, it’s hard to speak for neurotypical people. I don’t know what it’s like to be in their brains, but I imagine that they, you know, because they will generally have a better working memory and maybe have stronger metacognitive skills like that planning and remembering and organizing and problem solving and sort of tracking their progress with the activity that they’re in the middle of.

I think they probably can handle a few more of those extra sort of inputs, whether that’s, you know, the podcast or if that’s just being able to hold those three things in mind rather than needing a note.

But nonetheless, I think everyone does get distracted like that, everyone, you know, sort of, I don’t know if you shop in Aldi, but that’s a pretty dangerous place for an ADHD to shop because of all those exciting, interesting things. We didn’t even realize we needed until we’re walking down that center aisle and, you know, sort of pulling half the specials into our shopping trolley.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh, totally. It’s like, if a Kmart opens up anywhere near me, I’m gonna be in trouble financially. It’s not good. It’s very good for me to be away from Kmart.

So when you’re talking about sensory, like basically having more inputs, like having the podcast running and still managing to remember the three things and feeling quite calm, how do you think sensory overload impacts this kind of recipe of disaster?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Lots of people have sensory sensitivities, but they’re often more pronounced in neurodivergent people. You know, our brains work differently. We process sensory information in unique ways.

For ADHDers, our brains struggle to filter in and filter out what sensory stimuli is most relevant or most important in any given moment. So every second, all of our brains are soaking up billions of bits of sensory stimuli from our environments. It’s like a sponge. But for us, it’s soaking up and trying to hold onto all these irrelevant pieces of information or sort of data from the outside world that neurotypical people can choose to ignore.

So our ADHD brains get flooded with details. And this is actually quite a stressful experience for our central nervous system, because we just don’t know what we should be focusing on. Or maybe we do know what we should be focusing on, but we just can’t filter out the other stuff.

So it keeps us in a bit of, you know, that fight or flight mode. So as a result, we might feel overwhelmed, overloaded, when others might not seem bothered at all. People with sensory processing differences can be overwhelmed by any of the five senses that we’re all most familiar with, whether that’s taste or touch or sound, sight or smell, which, you know, that’s where we often think of shopping centers and even just like your Woolies and Coles, they can be an immediately like overwhelming environment.

Because for all of those senses, there’s just so much, you know, stuff going on around us that our brain is just like taking it all in and is really finding it hard to like process it and figure out what’s the most important thing to lock onto. But we could also have trouble processing or be overwhelmed in other senses, like our vestibular senses, which is head movements or our proprioception, which is like the movement of our muscles and joints. And also intraception, which is all the sensory stimuli and cues that come from inside our bodies, like sort of messages relating to like hunger or thirst or feeling too hot or cold or stressed, sick, tired, that sort of thing.

 

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, okay, okay. Cause yeah, that’s all, I suppose, part of it. And, you know, I haven’t had a chance, but I’m going to hit you up at some point for the neuroaffirming, you know, that assessment where, you know, you kind of go through your life and better understand yourself. I’m still keen to do that because I think the sensory overload and being aware of it plays a massive impact because you don’t realize why you’re getting so stressed until you realize what it is it’s actually getting to you.

And then acknowledging that that’s happening and then trying to, you know, like I bought some earplugs, which has been life-changing for me, but I never would have allowed myself to wear earplugs if I hadn’t realized I had sensory processing disorder or, you know, whatever you want to call it. What about for you? So I would imagine, I mean, you’ve got younger kids than I do. You’ve got preschool kids. Have you got, you’ve got two, was that four and two year old?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, almost four and almost two. Yeah, really little.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, so how does that go with like sensory overload with having such small children?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

It’s such a tough phase of life. And again, I think most parents and caregivers can empathize with how stressful and overwhelming it can be having really little people that you’re taking care of 24/7, but especially as a neurodivergent person, I think my sensory sensitivities are basically just like constantly being activated. I feel like those buttons are always being pushed in lots of ways that I can’t control, which is tough.

So for me, I’ve always been highly sensitive to hair touching my face, to feeling sweaty, hearing people chew or sniff, noticing like grit on the floor underneath my bare feet and visually things like smudgy handprints on reflective surfaces. I also get pretty much immediately triggered or overwhelmed if there’s like multiple sources of auditory input going at the same time. So that could be like trying to focus on one conversation when other people are talking in the background or if there’s like TV or radio in the background.

Yeah, I’ve always been like that. So as you can imagine with little kids and I show a lot of the listeners might even be sort of grappling with this right this second, but you’ve often got one kid that’s sort of screaming at you for one thing and there’s another kid that’s yelling in another room about something else. And then maybe the TV is going or the radio is going what you’ve got. You’re trying to take a phone call.

Oh, that’s something I’ve really, really, really struggled with when I’ve got people at home or around me. And just like, it’s just the normal mess and the normal chaos that kids bring in their sort of dirty shoes and their bags and their clothes as they should, that’s just part of being a kid and having kids.

But for me, it can be, have this sort of like accumulating effect of all these sort of sensory sensitivities that can really implicitly sort of boil me up into a place of feeling quite overloaded and overwhelmed.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely. But I think there’s so much benefit in the awareness that you can, I think listing it out and creating realistic examples that you’ve just listed really help people identify that, oh, actually I feel like that. And maybe I do need to take a break after that or maybe I need to turn my phone off and just not even attempt to take that phone call even though I think that other people should.

I think that other people can do that or I think I should be doing that. So what would be some tips or strategies that listeners could try that you think could be worth having a go at?

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Following on from what you just said, Jane, I think that’s first and foremost is just acknowledging it and owning it. If we can recognise our early warning signs when the demands on us or like the sensory sensitivities are really starting to build up and exceed our capacity.

To simplify it, sometimes I like just to think of almost like a traffic light in my head if I’m in the green zone and it means my sort of central nervous system is like humming along in a relatively like regulated state. I’m able to focus a bit better or stay calm when I’m sort of interacting, pulling my kids apart when they’re brawling or I’m sort of able to do a couple of high executive load tasks like preparing shopping lesson or planning for a client or something like that.

If I’m in the green zone, I’m feeling okay, I’m feeling regulated. If I notice that I’m starting to get in like an orange zone, then those triggers are sort of creeping in and magnifying my sense of stress. And then as I’m obviously getting into the red zone, that’s usually I’ll be raising my voice with the kids or sort of swearing or feeling like I want to run away.

So just being able to like mindfully check in with ourselves, noticing when those early warning signs are kicking in and then ask for help, say no, you know, turn the phone off like you said. It might be just trying to find ways to like remove or reduce some of the pressure if you can. So don’t just push through, like you said, because you think you should be able to or because others can or they make it look easy.

It’s about making accommodations. So if you were planning to meet a friend with your kids at, you know, big busy playground, but trying to juggle the kids and hold a conversation just feels like that control tower is not gonna be up to the task today, then maybe offer to meet at a quieter coffee shop or invite the friend over. So you don’t have to go through all those steps of like packing the bags and, you know, leaving the house and getting somewhere on time.

Or maybe taking the pressure off for you might be like taking, you know, a week off or the kids’ extracurricular activities after school or getting a meal delivery service for a week or a month or a cleaner or something like that, where you can just pull back a little bit, scale back and just focus on regulating yourself to manage that stress and overwhelm.

I think another really important thing is just check your expectations. Are you trying to be a perfect parent, a perfect wife, a perfect mom friend? So catch those shoulds and shouldn’ts.

So if your thoughts are, I shouldn’t be able to do this or I shouldn’t be doing that, or, you know, this must get done this way, catch that and just sort of step back a second and ask yourself, you know, is this expectation reasonable? Is it sustainable? And how can I possibly be kinder and more flexible with myself in this situation? So a solid dose of self-compassion we all need, but sometimes that is really hard to do.

Then there’s the sensory, the sensory strategies. So if you know what your triggers are and what sort of situations or sensory environments are gonna blow a foo-foo valve, as my dad likes to say, either avoid them or use tools to tolerate them better.

So I also use those loopy buds, usually in the witching hour of an evening, preparing dinner, juggling the kids, that’s where my brain often goes into that orange to red zone, or even noise-canceling headphones. You know, cut tags off your clothes, dim the lights, and do a click and collect rather than going to the grocery store if you know that your ADHD brain is just not gonna be able to handle it on that day or that week.

The last suggestion I just wanted to put out there was make sure that you create time for your special interests or ADHD, like hyper fixations. Sometimes it feels like there’s a bit of a stigma around that or it’s, you know, it’s like a privilege to be able to do things that are beyond just the daily grind, but it shouldn’t be that way.

We all need time to relax or have fun or do something that really stimulates us in a unique but rewarding way. For me, it might be gardening or gaming or painting or systemizing a My Little Pony collection like I did a few times yesterday when I was home with my sick little boy. So this just helps soothe our nervous system and then we can hopefully feel more focused and calmer.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, beautiful. And then, I mean, as you said, why should we feel this way? And I think the overwhelmed mom syndrome, you know, that’s what mom life is. You shouldn’t expect to be happy for 10 years. You shouldn’t, you know, you should expect to go to the GP with iron deficiencies and stress. And that’s just mom life.

And, you know, at what point is that, are we gonna start saying as women, well, that’s actually just not okay for me. And I’m not actually gonna be living like that. And I don’t think we should accept our lives being like that.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, I think we all deserve health and we all deserve to find ways to help us thrive into motherhood and beyond rather than just feeling like every day is pure survival.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But I think you’ve given some really great tips in there to move forward. I think some of the tips have been excellent because, you know, it’s not always medication and a lot of people don’t want to or can’t find the right medication, but you don’t need to take medication to start to implement strategies and make changes. And I think you’ve really said that really well.

So thank you so much for your time Jacinta. You’ve been an absolute legend. I love having you on here because you’ve got such great tips and advice and also relatable stories from you, which is so special.

 

Dr. Jacinta Thomson:

Yeah, it’s a pleasure, Jane. I’m sure we’ll chat again.