Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome to the ADHD Mums podcast. It’s Jane here and we have the beautiful Jasmine that I’ve been talking to in the Facebook ADHD Mums chat. Welcome Jasmine, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jasmine Meek:

Thanks Jane. So my name is Jasmine Meek. I am a mum of two living in Brisbane’s Bayside area. So I am also a postpartum doula.

So my job is to support mothers after they’ve had a baby up to 12 months postpartum with whatever they need support with. So sometimes it’s help ‘with baby, sometimes it’s help around the house, sometimes it’s emotional support and yeah I do that part-time and then part-time caring for my toddler and my other one is in school. Yeah I guess that’s about it.

So it’s kind of I always say I think part-time mums, like sorry part-time working mums are the busiest. Although I mean if I had like, if I was a stay-at-home mum it would also be pretty busy. So hard to know.

Jane McFadden:

So welcome and thanks for making the time.

Jasmine Meek:

No worries, I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah so what we are going to talk about today is Jasmine is on the way to a diagnosis and if I had to think of a topic that gets most requested, most people inbox me about, it’s about how to get a diagnosis, how to go about it and you know I suppose all of the things surrounding that.

Do you want to give us a bit of an overview around why you’re, you know what symptoms do you feel, how long has it been, you know give us kind of an overview of how you got here today and when the appointment is.

Jasmine Meek:

So it hasn’t been that long since I thought gee I wonder if I have ADHD. So I’m terrible with timelines but if I trace back, so probably earlier in the year I was posting on Instagram and this, I guess because of things I post for my business about the struggles we had, I thought the algorithm, the Instagram Facebook algorithm was linking me up with all of the ADHD and neurodivergent content creator posts.

And so I made a post a little earlier in the year that said something like the Instagram keeps diagnosing me with ADHD but I’m pretty sure I just have motherhood and you know a lot of people related but one woman just answered, commented on my post and said oh you might just have ADHD.

And yeah and I just kind of, I crushed it off but it planted the seed and then my parents were away overseas for nine weeks and within that time frame something prompted me to start actually looking into the ADHD symptoms like ADHD in women and very quickly I was like oh my gosh okay this is all really relating to me and this is starting to explain a lot.

And so within a nine-week period I went from not having a clue to finding your podcast, finding a couple of other podcasts, looking for other people online who I could relate to, seeing a counsellor, going to the GP and getting the referral to the psychologist and so by the time my parents got back from Europe I said surprise I think I have ADHD and then the conversation started.

The reason that it’s significant about my parents going overseas and in terms of that timeline is because I was waiting to talk to my mum about it when she got home and I’ve told you this story so my mum I thought used to just joke that she had ADHD when I was a teenager.

And so when she finally got back from Europe and I was busting to talk to her about all of this and find out what I was like as a kid and get some kind of confirmation there and I said hey mum you know how you used to joke that you had ADD back in the day well here’s what I’ve been going through for the last couple of months and I launched into telling her all about it.

And then as it turns out she it wasn’t just a joke and my mum had tried to seek a diagnosis about 20 years ago as well and so when I kind of found that out I was like oh okay the puzzle pieces are all falling into place here so yeah.

And in terms of symptoms I guess pretty typical like when I type in how ADHD presents in mothers in postpartum I kind of I tick all of the boxes for inattention and all of those kind of telltale signs and why it shows up postpartum and misdiagnosed as anxiety and and all of those kind of things.

So I tick all of the boxes for inattention and it is definitely starting to make sense as to why adding a child into the mix really brought all the symptoms like up and made it quite difficult to function and then on top of that like my studying goals and my business goals and the self-talk that happens in my head about like beating myself up for being late to every single appointment ever yeah it’s all starting to kind of click into place and make sense.

Jane McFadden:

How did you feel when you like first started thinking about it, did you feel relieved or like pissed off that you didn’t know earlier or I don’t know you haven’t been diagnosed yet but that’s the thought pattern that you’ve got. What were your initial like feelings and thoughts behind it?

Jasmine Meek:

Do you know what, initially I was a bit scared to even say it out loud because I felt like I was so scared about sounding like someone trying to sound more interesting than I am. Because you know I probably judged people in the past for calling themselves neurodivergent when I thought you know no you’re fine, like you’re an ordinary human being.

And then in hindsight I think to myself oh the reason I thought that they were completely typical was I thought I was typical and I thought that I was going through life just the same as everybody else just not as good at it or something like that. So I probably brushed other people off in my head.

And then when I started yeah to have these kind of thoughts of oh there might be something to this, yeah I didn’t want to sound like I was making it all up or just trying to be the center of attention or trying to make an excuse. And so I took a little while to bring it up and I first told my husband and then the first couple of people I told were people that were not close friends.

They were people I thought you might get this and I thought the repercussions, that it wouldn’t feel as big to tell someone that I wasn’t extremely close with who hadn’t known me for a very long time. Because if I told someone who’d known me for a long time I was so scared they would be like what are you talking about and I just didn’t want to be told I was being silly or ridiculous.

And yeah so that’s what really was going through my head initially.

And then I was watching a TED Talk by her Instagram handle is Struggle Care and she is an American woman who has ADHD and she had postpartum depression and she wrote a book called How to Keep House While Drowning. And so I ordered that book.

Jane McFadden:

Yes.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah and I… yeah there was a whole bunch of different little ways, like little pathways that led me to her book and her TED Talk. And I was watching the TED Talk and I was just crying the whole time and then I got the book in the mail like two days later and I just, in tears every couple of chapters.

And so then it started to really feel real and feel like oh my gosh I have never felt so seen in my life.

And the relief—well actually not at that stage relief, I guess I’ll get relief when I get a diagnosis from the psychiatrist. But the hope, the feeling, the hopeful feeling of it could be easier than it has been, that was just yeah.

And so many like yeah so many different—even Instagrammers when I’d watch their reels even and just being like oh my gosh, oh my gosh this could be better. Yeah the hope.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think the awareness is really powerful too you know. I always, pretty much every episode we talk about awareness and you know it’s hard to be compassionate but to be a bit more compassionate to yourself.

You know when you are late, I think I’ve talked in a couple of episodes about a specialist that I like literally continue to cancel, I get charged cancellation fees for not turning up late and then the kind of the receptionist has a bit of an old lady look at me and you know a bit of shame.

And I’m like oh. But I think you’re a little bit more compassionate to yourself or you try to be if there is a reason, as opposed to a lot of people say am I just shit at life, which is really depressing that people can feel like that for such a long time.

So where are you going, where’s your psychiatrist? Is it telehealth, is it in person, what is it?

Jasmine Meek:

I’ve got an in-person psychiatrist appointment on the 10th of August so coming up soon. And I got the referral from the GP. So I’d had a session with a counsellor when I very first thought I think this might be a thing and I’d already booked the session with her just based on you know needing some support.

And so then this came up and she was my first kind of bouncing board basically to say am I on the right track with this? And she said yeah I mean it sounds like it and she said and it also sounds like you’re gonna need an answer either way.

So I went to the GP and the same thing, the GP said everything you’re describing sounds like there’s definitely something to this so here’s your referral. And luckily it was pretty quick.

Jane McFadden:

And since listening to your podcast I find out that I’m very lucky because some people can wait six months, 12 months, two years. So I think you’ve had, I mean look you don’t want to, you know anyone that’s come to an adult with ADHD hasn’t had an easy run, but I think going to a counsellor that validated the experience and a GP, which is not always the case, then to get a quick referral like was it did he just write down the nearest person that he knew of?

Like how do you even get in with a psychiatrist so quick? Because in what time period is like two months?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah yeah. She knew of a couple in the area that understood ADHD in adults and yeah I do believe I probably got quite lucky that they just happened to have availability because yeah.

And I nearly like, I missed the call because I don’t answer calls from unknown numbers because I freak out. And luckily I called back straight away because I would so often remember it a few weeks later. And yeah.

And then when I found out how hard it is for so many people I thought oh my god I could have like missed that opportunity, maybe that was one appointment they had in the next six months and I just happened to get it.

 

Jane McFadden:

God yeah because sometimes they do say as well a lot of them they don’t want ADHD patients. And I think it’s to do with… yeah well probably turn up right, who knows what that’s really about. But they say it’s to do with having a controlled substance and you know having a lot of maintenance to do with people and yeah a lot of medication trialing and they don’t really like to have those patients.

Or whether it’s just a turning up thing, who knows. But a lot of psychiatrists that I tried were not keen on having, they said we’re not opening books for ADHD. So what a miracle.

So do you know anything about this psychiatrist? Like have you checked them out, how do they, you know about ADHD women is different as well?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I have not looked deeply into it out of I guess fear. I don’t want to be disheartened and I don’t want bumps in the road. And so yeah, I think I’ve definitely, I don’t know, become in many areas of my life, it’s that whole like when you’re trying to follow a recipe but it’s all too hard so you just go I’m just gonna guess and just hope for the best.

And so at the moment I just feel so lucky that I have an appointment that I don’t even want to like think about it any deeper. I’ve gone as far as I actually checked her prices after listening to your podcast and I went oh shivers I need to actually make sure I can afford this.

And yeah it’s, they’re good. And so who knows, and it may be she may want to see me five times before giving me a diagnosis, like you know I don’t know about her specific process but I just want to get in front of it.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I agree. Do you know, you know what like my working memory is horrific so I don’t even… was my Brisbane pricing that I listed similar to the one that you saw?

Jasmine Meek:

It was just in the podcast and I don’t remember if you listed Brisbane specifically but—

Jane McFadden:

I think I said in person, I was basing it off a Brisbane psychiatrist. Right. How much were we talking again? Was it like $500 an appointment?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I remember you saying something like you know this can be up to five to seven hundred dollars. But my appointment is, it’s full price maybe is three hundred and something but with the rebate I’ll just, I’ll be out of pocket about two hundred and something.

Jane McFadden:

Oh yes I was expecting that. Yeah that’s good, well not good but that’s okay. But then maybe the full diagnosis might take more than one appointment. That’ll be interesting to see how many appointments they charge for, how long.

I know some of them like want to go into school reports, they want to like talk to an adult—sorry you’re an adult—but a parent you know, someone. I wonder if that’s part of their process and whether they’ll ask you for that.

Jasmine Meek:

They have asked for—so they sent a whole bunch of questionnaires and asked me to go into school reports which I tried but because my mum likely has ADHD as well, the box of all of my photos and school reports has gone missing. So yeah they don’t exist anymore.

And so this is the weird thing and the scary thing about this process for me, which is why I like, I think I just really want to get face to face with this psychiatrist, is because my mum, I’m the youngest of five kids, and she… there’s a few little things that I did growing up but for the most part she’s like sorry you were perfect.

And I’m like come on mum, we need, we need signs, we need symptoms. And she’s like you were just, you were, you’re great sorry. And really like it’s really hard to tease out things that could have been signs for me because I was a good student and yeah, and I think bubbly personality so I kind of sailed through.

So yeah it’d be interesting but I was definitely extremely talkative and my nickname in the family was Bossy Flossy.

I used to—this is a fun quirk—I used to sing a lot and now my daughter does it. But I used to sing in the car the moment the car was turned on and I would sing until the car was turned off. And it was like the car turning on was, and I remember doing this, it was like turn on the car and that’s my band or something.

And I would make up songs. We used to a lot of the time drive to my grandparents’ place half an hour away so that was half an hour of just full-on singing. And my mum thought it was adorable, just the way that I up until recently have thought my daughter’s singing was adorable and wonderful.

And I think mum remembers a trip to Sydney where she changed her mind on that because it was a whole driving down to Sydney, it’s a long way to be listening to singing. And now I’m like reliving that a generation later and my daughter’s singing has become less sweetly singing, making up her own songs in the corner, and more like in your face, repetitive, like the wrong time while we’re trying to eat dinner and it’s become irritating. And I’m like oh history repeats.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah yeah it’s good how you birth, like you kind of, it comes back at you doesn’t it. It’s beautiful how that happens. I’m raising my own mini me and I’m like oh my god and you just yeah, it’s the best.

But you know one thing I was going to say when, just going back a bit, you know how you’re talking about being at school and how there was nothing like that your mum could really list, whether that’s a symptom of her having ADHD in five kids, you know like who knows, or whether that’s you know maybe that’s completely true as well.

Have you looked up much to do with masking and ADHD in women?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I mean it, like not a lot, but I know what was going on in my head from say high school because I don’t remember much—I don’t remember much of primary school—but I know what was going on in my head basically after puberty.

So I know that I had that same, the same like self-depreciating that a lot of ADHDers talk about, that kind of… and the perfectionism that is strangely tied in. And it does start to make sense as to why my anxiety would have started kind of building probably in high school.

A lot of like mysteries, like my mum and I talk a lot now about the anxiety I had at university and my mum was like I just don’t know where this anxiety came from. Like in her mind just like I just, I don’t get it. And because my siblings, things that like ended up with them make sense to her but it didn’t make sense to her why I would end up with anxiety.

And now it’s like okay now I’m starting to get it because I would have been masking very well. I have, yeah, I would have. I worked very, very hard on the whole not talking too much thing, like to the point where like recently as I’ve been explaining some of my symptoms I say to people like I have worked painstakingly hard, and I mean that word pain, to get to this point where I don’t talk too much.

And imagine like I’m still, I still talk a lot, I’m still extremely chatty, and it is a conscious deliberate like taking-my-energy choice when I do stop talking. And I know I was working on that from at least high school after being told I’ve talked too much probably for the first 12 years.

Jane McFadden:

I was going to say, when you say you worked on that painstakingly and that’s kind of you know the essence of who you are. You know ADHDers talk a lot. I’ve always, with my daughter, I’m like never—I’ve, no one has said in front of me to her not to talk too much. If they did I would just roast them to be honest, leave her alone there.

But I think you know that conscious effort to talk less, that’s actually really sad. That someone, that message at a young age and you’ve gone I need to be less than and hold it in.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah oh yeah, and less bossy. And even to this point sometimes when I’m engaging with people who knew me in my childhood, I’m very self-analytical. I think about, I reflect a lot, and even now I kind of can see how, where my insecurities pop up is things like I don’t want to be seen as too like taking—sometimes like taking something too seriously or being, because of that whole Bossy Flossy thing.

It was like I can’t overrule people too much, I can’t kind of go no no no guys this is how it’s got to be because jazz lighten up. Like I can imagine someone saying that to me. And sometimes it takes like a good friend recently who said you know like this is your thing, you can actually, you can say that.

And it’s like oh yeah I’m a grown woman and I can do my own thing when it’s my domain and I don’t need to worry that someone’s just gonna say like no no don’t worry about it. But that’s what I expect. So I think that would have happened a lot and I would have, yeah just, I would have just held myself back.

It used to frustrate me so much when people would call me Bossy Flossy and eventually I got to the point where I would get annoyed and I remember saying, and I was probably high school by the time I could articulate, but I used to say I’m not bossy, I’m just a leader without the title.

Jane McFadden:

Oh my god I’m gonna tell my daughter that one. That’s beautiful actually. That’s like on a t-shirt. That should be on a t-shirt.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah absolutely. And you know even just like my weird relationship with writing on a resume that I have leadership skills or something like oh I can’t write that.

Jane McFadden:

Do you think now though like if you were around, and is it your partner or your husband did you say, sorry?

Jasmine Meek:

Yep husband.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, so if you’re around your husband, your kids, or your best friends or people you know really well, would you still kind of like—not diminish yourself is not right—but hold yourself back? Or do you let it run with them?

Jasmine Meek:

Do you know what, it depends on the… mostly, mostly I think I hold myself back yeah. But some people I feel more comfortable with but it takes a lot of reassurance.

So I’ve got a friend who I have known since I was born, more family than friend, but she thinks she has ADHD as well. And I didn’t know that until, yeah until recently and until I actually said the sentence out loud hey I think I have ADHD. And then through the conversation she was like I’ve always thought I had ADHD but no one believed me.

But like over the last few years, and we get deep into conversation, and I would talk about how in like going on in my head whilst we’re having the conversation is like stop, let her talk, you know oh my gosh she’s saying all the wrong things, that kind of thing.

And she’s absolutely shocked by that but she reassures me and she says like oh I never think you talk too much. But it takes her saying that multiple times and like really actually saying I enjoy your company Jasmine, you do not talk too much for me, I love hanging out with you. And I’m like okay okay no yeah she genuinely wants to hang out with me, she doesn’t, I’m not a burden.

And yeah so it takes a lot for me to finally ease into that. I think for most people there’s a voice in my head constantly—not a literal one—but a you know my own voice during every conversation running like a little commentary and saying ease off, okay now talk, I think you’ve talked too much about yourself, have you asked her anything about herself lately, like and it’s exhausting.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah it’s interesting you’ve been doing that for so long though because probably the only negative I think for me hearing oh I think you have ADHD from a psychologist—which you know I thought was ridiculous, I was way too successful and you know those people, you know not me—but I’ve only kind of had that running commentary since then.

And it’s probably been the only negative that has been that I’m so aware now socially. Because I think I was so unaware socially. My attitude was always like this is who I am, you can be friends with me or not, I don’t care. Like that was always my attitude, like you should be so lucky to be my friend.

I always thought I was great, like if you don’t, if I’m too much for you then that’s okay, I don’t really care. But it’s only since diagnosis I’m actually really aware of me taking over conversations, interrupting, and also like just having a complete lack of awareness on small talk, right?

Yeah like people will say oh you know and how are you and how are you feeling now after you were sick last week? Whereas I’m like yeah so do you want to pick you up for the movies or not? Like I can’t do a lot of that small talk stuff.

But it’s like I would never have thought about it before. So the awareness has almost kind of worked against me because I think I was blissfully unaware. But you learned that early on you know and I think that probably would have affected your confidence more so than mine because I probably went through unaware and you were actually aware the whole time.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah. And that’s like the other thing that my mum doesn’t understand is how I ended up with such low self-esteem. And I didn’t, I didn’t get it either.

It was like yeah it doesn’t actually make sense. I was like a straight-A student. Sure I had terrible teeth till like year 11 so that didn’t help. But like come on, I mean people deal with a lot less than bad teeth.

But other than that I was still popular with the boys, not the most popular, but you know I had boyfriends, I had lots of girlfriends, I was always in yeah, I was in the popular group, I did well at school, I was sporty enough, you know that I wasn’t like completely unco.

And I was like why do I, like yeah why do I… I didn’t, I didn’t hate myself, it wasn’t that kind of low self-esteem, it was just assuming everybody else was better. And that didn’t make sense.

But now it does. Because whatever like you know whatever I was like in primary school I definitely was told I was too much and that, that stuck. So yeah I was I guess masking and holding back for dear life from a very early age.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I’m glad we circled back to masking, this is why I asked. Because when you described yourself in primary school I felt like a very similar way. If you looked at my school reports you wouldn’t really see ADHD glaringly.

Luckily the teller I went to wasn’t that thorough at all. You wouldn’t have seen anything. You would have seen an overachieving, you know, quite smart, sporty, you know I had a lot going on, like I had a lot going for me in some areas.

But actually the cost to the masking came later. And I always had a feeling like I didn’t belong or quite right or I was trying really hard. And I would put this face on like it was all perfect but underneath I’d be like stressed to the max at a young age.

And always looked like over-analyzing, you know, having my bag packed extra early because I would kind of catch myself not having the right things. So I would arrive perfect but no one would see a lot of the stuff that went on in my head before that.

So the cost to the masking in my opinion sometimes can be, you know, low self-esteem because you’re almost putting on a facade that’s not real. And also a lot of anxiety because you’ve got so much going on in your mind to be what everybody else is, so you know what I mean.

So just because—I mean it’s the same when you’re a mum, you know, you can arrive to school with your kids dressed perfectly, you look okay, you’ve got your… from the outside your car looks clean. The inside, who knows. But people would have no idea of what’s actually happening.

But they don’t know that you’ve gotten up at five to do that, or you’ve packed the night before, or you just get the facade of it all being okay. And that’s where I wonder where that anxiety is interlinked with you. Like you know like where did it come from? That may possibly—again I’m not speaking as an expert—but from that level of masking and being quite, quite clever and quite successful at school, that you know could possibly come from that.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I did listen to one, you know, ADHD expert—just an American old guy, no idea what his name is—but I saw a short snippet and he said yeah people with ADHD, and I think he might have been referring specifically to women, or I might have assumed, but people with ADHD can still have high intellect and they can sail through school because they rely on that hyperfocus.

So they procrastinate, procrastinate, and then they’ve got enough intelligence and enough focus at the 11th hour and they get good grades. And he said it’s when they get to uni and it requires a lot more like time management that they can suffer. And I do see that.

Like I sailed through school and then uni I still—it’s funny because I didn’t connect the dots until recently—that yeah I was a straight-A student in school and then an average uni student.

But because everybody falls open doors, threes get degrees and all this kind of talk, you know it’s kind of like oh okay well I can’t complain about a five GPA.

But my first degree straight out of school, that was when my anxiety seriously peaked and I had some really hard times I didn’t, I didn’t tell anyone about. And yeah, and a lot of it and you know there were so many things happening at that time too, so many big changes, that it’s really hard to like be able to pinpoint at the time what’s going on. But in hindsight I think hmm that would have been a component of it, that I couldn’t rely on last-minute assignments anymore.

And then the other part was I always, another reason I did well in school was I always asked my mum for help. So I got her to proofread things and I had a mum that was like, she’s dedicated.

And if it was the night before an assignment was due and I asked her to proofread it, she proofread it for me. And she probably stayed up late with me as well or got up, I probably landed it on her bedside table the morning it was due because I’d been up till 3am and went oh please go through it.

And she just, she would have, like she was not the type of parent that would go you should have been more organized, she would just help. So I reached out for help from her a lot.

And then come uni and she couldn’t proofread a scientific report on some specific silly topic. And yeah, there was like okay I don’t, I’m not living at home with my little security blanket anymore. And I struggled. So yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and uni can be a lot harder you know because it’s got less scaffolding. And you know we talk about scaffolding so if you know you’re not good at certain things you would scaffold.

Like I never remember to take the hats with me so you know you have hats in the car and hats in the door, reminders about the hats.

But yeah uni can be completely different in that way, in that you just don’t have a lot of that small regular goals. They just got, you know, one assignment for the whole semester, that’s an absolute deal for someone with ADHD.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah. So yeah I think that’s when it’s like, I think from high school onwards it’s kind of just the, with each additional stressor in life I guess it probably was I was working harder and harder to meet normal requirements and to show up as organized or yeah neurotypical-like I am.

And I think the harder I had to work the more anxiety came out. And yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Correct. And I think that having an unpacking like this is really important before your appointment because you’ll be able to—I mean a lot of people say with ADHD that it really has to impact your life.

If someone looked at you from the outside, you know, they could judge that you know you’re successful, you’ve got a partner, you’ve got kids, you know you’re running a successful business, you know how has it impacted your life?

But on the flip side there’s been a lot more work that you’ve had to do to achieve those goals. It’s not—you’re right, it’s not that we can’t achieve them, it’s just that it’s that much harder or you know we have to be naturally that much smarter to pick it up.

I think not reaching full potential is a theme that I’m seeing in the women I talk to.

Would you like me to keep going into Jasmine’s reflections on her mum, career side-steps, and comparing herself to peers?

And that was my mum’s biggest thing. She just, she knew—and I have described my mum as the smartest woman I know for my whole life—and I always felt like she could have, she could have been anything. But she knows, undiagnosed, but she feels that ADHD held her back. And I think so too.

And then my own kind of career progression and life and seeing the like, the side steps I make, half-finished degrees. And it was a miracle I finished my first one too, like when I really think back. But you know I was young and it was a lot easier back then.

Yeah and kind of going ah like yeah I can see why I’ve always felt like, how come I have ended up where I am when all of my peer group at school finished school, went and did their degree, got their graduate jobs, are professionals with 15 years’ experience now, and I’m like what the heck.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. So ADHD I think does create a really interesting life. When you speak to someone who has ADHD, holy moly they’ve got some good stories. They’re usually great chatters, they love a great story, and they’ve also got a lot of—yeah.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah my friends would always say I love listening to you tell stories and in my head I am like really, oh my god. But I talked the whole time, I’m not allowed to do that.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah yeah definitely. And I know, and it’s crazy to look back and think that this is like, that it can totally be a superpower but it’s been taking from me this whole time because I didn’t know what it was.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah absolutely.

Jane McFadden:

Let’s, let’s talk relationships briefly because I think the psychiatrist will talk about that. How do you think ADHD has affected you like with a romantic relationship? Like have you noticed any patterns throughout the years or anything like that?

Jasmine Meek:

I think hmm, the low self-esteem plays a part for sure. Picking people that probably weren’t entirely right for me but kind of feeling like well there’s something wrong with me so I can’t expect the best.

And then I’ve actually been, you know, ever since kind of figuring all this out, I’ve been looking at where I feel—because thinking about the psychiatrist asking about the questions on how does it impact your life, is there day-to-day struggle—and I look in my relationship and I’m starting to go huh okay I can see little things.

When I remember when my husband and I first moved in together, so you know pre-kids, both working full-time, but if we’d have an important event to go to like a wedding, I knew I had—so I had no sense of time, but I didn’t have any language around that back then.

And I didn’t even, I wouldn’t have even been able to say I have no sense of time, I just, I can’t remember what I would have said. But I said you need to be my timekeeper. Because I’m going to be getting ready, I’m going to be doing my makeup and stuff, and I’m not going to know how long we have left before we need to leave.

And he is the type of person that says, he was just kind of trained I guess early on that if you’re not early, you’re late. So in he—it would bring him so much anxiety. He’s not highly anxious person too, highly anxious. And I’m the chill one which is like so.

So he would need to be early and I’m like that ain’t gonna happen unless you help me. So you need to be my timekeeper. And so I would be getting ready and then my like Bossy Flossy hat would come on and I’d go timekeeper and I just like get into the mode.

And I overtook, like over weeks or whatever of me trying this new fun thing thinking yeah this will totally help, he was just getting more and more irritated.

And that like dynamic is quite, I can see how that dynamic has then played out for the rest of our relationship. Where this frustration, where he’s like or just be on time Jasmine, and me or just help me.

And then me getting into that kind of bossy mode of like if I could just tell everybody what to do everything would work out really well. He doesn’t want to be told what to do, like that’s really awful. And I would be really abrupt about it because I was kind of leaning into that vibe and it would cause tension.

And I look back and I’m like geez that was pre-kids, you know, that was pre-kids. And I was already aware that there was no way we were getting somewhere on time unless I had help.

But when you don’t have an awareness about what that is and the language around it and the awareness that it may be a neurodivergence, then it’s just irritating.

And we have a lot of those things in our relationship where they’ve been just like points of contention and irritation and frustration, like why can’t you just do it? And now I’m looking at it in a whole new light and seeing do you know what, it’s not like you know I’m not the person that’s never been able to maintain a relationship for example.

But I am a person who has daily stresses because in my relationship, because of these symptoms. So yeah, it’s not like this—I studied psychology right, that was my first degree in undergrad in psychology—and I always saw that the requirement for it to heavily impact daily life, I saw that as like an extreme.

Which is why I never would have in a million years considered myself able to be diagnosed with anything. Because I was looking for an extreme impact of daily functioning, like becoming homeless.

And now I realize I’m like okay it may not look like an extreme impact, but I’m stressed out every single day in all these different areas of my life. And I think that over time yeah is considered pretty extreme in my books.

Jane McFadden:

Oh I think so too, I think so too. But then if you were to be diagnosed you might have the awareness to explain some of them.

I think I did an episode on Is ADHD an Excuse? And it’s obviously not an excuse, it’s about taking responsibility but also naming what it is, being aware, and then you know trying your best to put things in place to improve on areas that you need to improve on.

But you can’t just act as if you don’t have it and go oh well I’m just going to be on time. Yeah you know that’s not going to happen either.

 

Jane McFadden:

How else—I love that time example, I’ve actually wanted to do a whole episode on time. What about in terms of like being a mum? Because obviously you were in a relationship, you’re working full-time, you’ve had a journey with anxiety. What do you think, oh sorry, what do you think it was about motherhood that pushed you over the edge?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I thought a lot about this, because of that whole absent, you know, apparent absence of symptoms in early life. I have thought a lot about why now, why has it become so obvious, apart from also just the awareness in the kind of mainstream media now.

But I think I was able to control my environment when I did not have kids in a way where I coped better. So I look back and think at that same kind of time when I was yelling timekeeper, I also was waking up on Saturday or Sunday mornings naturally waking up at 5am because it’s the weekend.

And like a kid, like suddenly I’m, you know, suddenly I’m waking up at 5am and I would have the house, well the unit because we were in a small unit, I would have it clean, like thoroughly clean by 7am and be running vacuum.

And then motherhood hit and I was absolutely incapable of keeping a house clean or tidy and it created so much anxiety. And yeah, and I just, I guess it was just the pressures and the not being able to control my environment, not being able to just go like right I am in hyperfocus mode and I am cleaning this house, because you cannot.

So the stop-start was just like crazy. And then I would also beat myself up way more than I needed to and I still do. Like what is wrong with me, why can’t I just you know tidy up, why can’t I just blah.

Sleep deprivation—so my first baby did not sleep, that would have made a huge difference. And I think I already had yeah real hard time with working memory, hard time with long-term memory too, like I don’t retain like general knowledge stuff well.

And then I think with sleep deprivation, getting distracted way more with the baby, yeah it was like my brain was… and then postpartum as well, like just what happens with your brain when you have a baby anyway, it was like my brain just stopped.

And that’s when, 12 months postpartum, I was diagnosed with anxiety and given anxiety medication, which helped a little bit but yeah it wasn’t like a miracle drug or anything.

And then so I think not being able to control things was really hard for me. The competing demands, kind of the very, like the variation in your life, that each day is different is like—I think it was fun for my brain but it also started to stack up in terms of not being able to remember things, not being able to get to like getting appointments and stuff like that.

And I look back and I think it just, this was a steady increase over the year of parenthood and then adding a second child. And now I am just—I had yesterday, I had 487 unread emails in my inbox and yeah like cannot for the life of me remember that my daughter’s library day is on Thursday and that kind of thing.

So it’s like just this, it was like it’s just stacked up to the point where now I’m just like I cannot, I cannot manage.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think some of those tasks that you’ve listed as well are also like boring. Like what day is your daughter’s library—like who cares? I just can’t, like I care for them but I don’t care really.

So the small silly detail, it just has no way of sticking in my brain. You think, you know, we’re in August now, you should know what day your kid’s library is. I don’t.

And this term I’ve forgotten to write it up so I don’t even know. I said to my daughter this morning where’s your homework book, I don’t know. It’s just, I think if you’re not educationally like passionate, if you’re not passionate about schooling, you’re not passionate about homework, and it’s not an area of interest, geez it’s hard to get motivated when it’s not even yours.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah and you know what, like I can, I remember I guess in my head that library day is Thursday but I won’t know it’s Thursday on Thursday. And I’ve often said, and in fact my mum can relate to this as well, that there’s like, it’s almost like there’s compartments in my brain.

And this compartment can know this and this compartment can know this but they don’t speak to each other. And so yeah like part of me, my brain will be ticking over some appointment that I’ve got, you know, don’t forget to go to the GP, don’t forget to go to the GP.

And then my husband says like you know I need the car on Friday. Yep Julie needs the car on Friday, Julie needs the car on Friday. They don’t connect that that was on the same bloody day until the day comes and I go far out like I need the, I’ve got the GP appointment. And that’s where it all becomes unstuck.

And yeah and like my husband looks at me and goes but I told you I needed the car on Friday and you knew you had your GP appointment on Friday. And I said yeah but those were in different parts of my brain.

 

Jane McFadden:

What—I actually haven’t heard anyone describe it like that. I wonder if there’s an expert term for what you just described, because that’s like me and my husband all the time. I’ll go to him, we’ve got to go talk to the builder on Thursday, and then we’ll also book something else on Thursday, and then on Thursday we’ll realise that we have—we cannot do any of it.

Yeah, for this to put it together, but yet we know intellectually that it’s all on Thursday, and then but we don’t seem to still know that it’s Thursday. But I do know it’s Thursday. It’s a really great way of describing that.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah and it is, it’s like, it’s trippy. And that’s how I feel when my daughter comes home and goes oh I didn’t have my library book and I’m like oh yeah. And she’s, and I cried just for a little bit because I couldn’t borrow a book.

I was like oh my god. But I’m like I knew, like this morning we said what day is it, Thursday, and then the other part of my brain knows that library day is Thursday but why didn’t they connect?

And yeah. And I don’t know if that’s just because my brain is working so hard and that it’s just, it’s tired, or if there are neurons that just are not firing together, not sure. But it’s definitely something that’s happened a lot in my adult life, those kind of—and you know, and here’s the thing: when I was working full-time pre-kids, I had to get to work at the same time every day so that was doable, that’s fine.

And it was the same place, I worked in the same place every single day so there wasn’t too many competing factors. Weekends were for socialising, so that was really easy, you knew when the weekend was and you might only have like—I wasn’t a real big party animal, so probably had one thing to do on Saturday night and the days were open. Shall we go to the markets this morning? Sure, let’s do that.

Yeah and then adding kids opens up the calendar and then if you’ve got total time blindness like days just roll into each other. Before you know it you’re finding out you missed your dad’s birthday a week ago, like is it really October already? Oh my god, I didn’t, you know. There’s just—yeah, there was no awareness there.

Jane McFadden:

Are you exhausted? My exhausting brain sounds very similar to my life and I’m like, it’s—I was just like at this moment of it is hard isn’t it.

Okay so we are going into your diagnosis appointment and you are seeing a psychiatrist, is that correct? You are, okay. So are you looking for medication? Is that an option for you, is that what you’re open to?

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I would love to try medication. I feel like I would—I would love to know what it feels like to be able to decide on a task, start the task, finish the task like it was nothing. You know, that elusive feeling.

I would love to yeah experience what potentially other people are experiencing and for life to be easier. And as you said like earlier, how it was only post your diagnosis that you started to be aware of that kind of like voice in your head—remind, stop talking—yes.

I definitely feel like there’s, the more awareness, ever since I thought oh my gosh I think I have ADHD, I am definitely more aware now. Like when I switch between tasks I’m like oh god, there you go again. And so I’m conscious of each of them now, whereas in the past I probably would have just got to the end of the day and gone why didn’t I do the thing that I needed to do.

Whereas now I go oh I know why I didn’t do the thing, because I flicked between five different things, I know all of those five different things I did, and I remember the feeling where I just couldn’t control myself stopping and starting something new.

So there is much more of an awareness of it now. And I think, look, if none of the medications worked or the psychiatrist said no they’re not right for you or something, I’ve already—just the awareness of it and the self-compassion has already helped a little bit.

So I think I could probably keep going with that—having compassion, being aware, scaffolding around me, getting some more practical supports in place. But I would love to know what it’s like to not have that kind of distraction all day every day. So yeah.

But I also am aware that the first session that’s not going to happen. So I keep reminding myself this could be a process.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and then you’ve always got that impatient vibe you know, ADHD, it’s like oh I know what I have now, well I think I know, you know, so now I want to get better because I’ve waited you know 30 plus years so I’d like to try something please, like I’m busting, I haven’t had it for 30 years but now I need it immediately.

 

Jasmine Meek:

Yes!

Jane McFadden:

But the other thing I was going to say to you, because you’re preparing for your appointment, I think it’s great for anyone listening to really deep dive with someone or a journal if you just want to yourself, all the different ways that we’ve unpacked today how this has impacted Jasmine’s life right from beginning through to uni.

But also being aware that with females we do mask a lot. So if we were to look at Jasmine from an outsider point of view we might not—we might see her as a successful person. And she still is a successful person, but we don’t necessarily see everything underneath that it goes in for Jasmine to be Jasmine and for her to get through everyday life. And that struggle within might not be something that’s seen.

So I think before you go to an appointment it’s really important to have some clarity, sit down and have a think about it. Because in this, they can’t—in their psychiatrist appointment—I feel like the onus is on the patient to really bring to light where they’re at. Whereas sometimes I feel like people go in and they’re waiting for the psychiatrist to uncover what it is.

Whereas I think we’ve kind of got to lay it out pretty clearly, especially if you’re someone who has been you know highly masking or camouflaging—which is what, you know, you can Google that if you don’t know what that means, but basically it means where you’ve been covering it up. Or maybe you’re particularly smart, you’ve done a couple of degrees, you’re successful, you know, kind of what’s wrong with you but you’ve also been possibly you know battling anxiety and depression for a long time as well.

So I think you want to be really clear. And I think Jasmine’s done a great job of being aware and really insightful into her life.

I think it’s always great to ask other people too and reflect on, you know, intimate relationships, best friends or friendships you’ve lost, you know because of perhaps ADHD. I think there seems like everyone’s got a story about you know possibly some conflict they didn’t handle well, perhaps possibly some rejection sensitivity around, which I think we’ve all experienced, or you know high levels of anxiety and then you you know accidentally on purpose push people away.

So I think there’s lots of things to think about.

The other thing—I know I’m talking a lot—is the prompting. So Jasmine, if this psychiatrist goes through the DSM which is the, you know, obviously the framework, then I think you’ve got to be aware that when they ask you those questions you can’t be relying on prompting. Do you know what I mean by that?

Jasmine Meek:

Mm.

Jane McFadden:

So like with them giving you kind of part of the answer and saying, or an example, to help you realise what you’re—yeah. The reason I mention it is because when the psychologist put me through it I was just like all of it.

And because he knew me pretty well he’d like a bar of it. But if I hadn’t have known him so well I wouldn’t have made the criteria, which would have really changed my life.

So for example, he said to me do you know where you need to be next Tuesday? And I was like yeah, I’m not intellectually disabled. And he goes no no no no, G-cow, you’ve got three phones on the table, you’ve got—they’re all ringing, they’ve all got alarms, I’ve seen you with your notepad, with your notes and your thing. He goes I’ve never seen anything like the complex system you’ve got.

Take all of that away—where are you going to be next Tuesday? And I was completely floored.

Yeah. So what I mean by prompting—like for example you know leaving stuff next to the door, leaving stuff near the car, putting your keys on top of your hat. And that’s not just a convenience thing, that’s like literally I won’t find them.

So yeah. So with that prompting, look at the scaffolding, anything that you’ve got sitting around you to help you, and imagine that’s not there when you’re answering the questions.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah I’ve had this thought in my head of like yeah that’s the—if the psychiatrist asks okay so how do you get places on time when you do. And what I realised the answer is, is I rush.

I actually have no way of pacing my time. I can have two hours before we need to leave the house and I will rush and then I’ll sit down and then I’ll have no concept of like how long I need.

But then when I stand up again I’ll just rush. I just know that when I’m getting ready I just have to go fast and I have to rush if I have any chance of getting there on time. And so yeah, like I’m starting to think about well how have I managed? Okay well here’s some of the things I do, which—yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Right. So that’s prompting absolutely. And the other way of looking at it, which is masking, would be I’m not someone who turns up places late. So I’ve—well I say that, within that specialist appointment I do turn up late, so maybe this is my own thoughts of myself.

But I generally tend to be pretty good. So for example, with the kids in the morning I never get them there late, touch wood. I am, I’m like, but is that out of me managing time well or is that out of just anxiety?

So for me, when I have somewhere to go or I have lots of things on, I get highly anxious and I’m there early. When my daughter started prep every single week for the first six weeks I was the first person in that prep yard.

Right, a highly organised person or is that someone who’s highly anxious? So when you talk about time, it’s also about the way that you manage time.

So you’re talking about like, honestly it sounds like just complete time blindness to me. So you’re just like I don’t know but I know I’m always late so I’m going to just rush and go the fastest I possibly can and not actually keep time well.

I’m just going to, and then I’m there thinking I’m tracking to be an hour early at this point, I can’t take my foot off the accelerator even though I know I could because I will then be late.

Yeah, it’s sheer anxiety, I get there just so I can relax and take the pressure off because I know I’m there. So yeah, there’s lots of different ways it looks and none of it’s right or wrong, but it’s not managing time well.

Jane McFadden:

I always see that meme, or it’s like something on social media, it’s about—I know it’s unrelated—it’s about alcoholism. So it says like two sons have both got an alcoholic father, one of them doesn’t touch alcohol at all and one of them is an alcoholic. Which one is healthier?

And it’s like actually neither of them is that healthy, because neither of them can do moderation. One of them is probably terrified that he might become an alcoholic or he’s, you know, he’s seen, he’s been traumatised, who knows, and he’s made a decision not to drink at all. And then there’s someone who can’t stop drinking.

So which is healthy, you know? And I think it’s that unhealthy relationship with like boundaries and balance and time, that you can swing from one to the other super quick.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah.

Jane McFadden:

But yes, there’s a lot. Exciting yeah, overcompensating, masking. So I think if you look at some of those things as well, and look at the prompting, look at the masking, and be really ready with examples, then I think it should—you know, I mean I’m hoping you’ll go well. Fingers crossed for you.

But I was very lucky, I had someone who helped me through that. Whereas I would have, if someone had sat me down, I would have denied, no, that’s ridiculous.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah. And the other—I think the big part that I need to focus on as well because of my memory issues, that when I’m asked a question, even if I have thought about a million examples over the course of the weeks, she might ask me, you know, have you got some examples of this and I’ll be like yes, maybe, I don’t know.

So I absolutely need to write it all down. But yeah. But I have, there’s, you know, there’s three months till 10th of August isn’t there? That’s what my brain’s—

Jane McFadden:

I should like to know, I’m on my phone, leave now Jasmine, leave now.

Jasmine Meek:

But you know I think there’s nothing wrong with an ADHD person bringing in some notes to an appointment. Like if they’ve got a great working memory and got a great long-term memory, they probably don’t have ADHD. So I mean taking notes is pretty standard I would imagine. But I don’t know, I’m not a psychiatrist.

Jane McFadden:

But did you have anything else to add before we finish up?

Jasmine Meek:

Do you know what I was just thinking when you were talking about like yeah how we mask and how we look on the outside and I guess for other kind of mums listening, like I wanted to say that so often on the outside my friends think I am doing it all.

You know like dunno how you do it. I’ll occasionally, you know, get the bread maker out and bake someone some bread because I’m about to go see them and I think that’ll be nice. And the image I think they paint in their head is of Jasmine who must have everything else sorted and then have extra time and she’s made me bread.

And I don’t want a single woman feeling like even an ounce of lower self-esteem because of me because holy moly if you went back into my house with that bread maker, the rest of the house is absolute chaos. I’ve screamed at my kids that morning, the night before they had two minute noodles for dinner, my husband and I are having a hard time, my head is filled with all of the I’m doing everything wrong.

But I got the urge to make bread and I made bread. And like yeah I just, you know, I think that’s why I ended up in the job that I’m in caring for mothers because I just need mothers to know that they are most—like even completely neurotypical mothers—you are most likely so similar to everybody else.

But because you are on your own in your house you think you’re doing it wrong. Someone rocks up at your doorstep with a meal, that doesn’t mean they did everything they needed to do for their life and then had spare time to make you a meal. They probably just ditched a whole bunch of other stuff that they needed to do because that day they prioritised you.

And that doesn’t make them better—better at life, better at motherhood. You know they walk into your house and your house is a schmuzzle, theirs probably is too.

And I just yeah, honestly from the outside oftentimes even my closest friends think I am totally nailing it. And when they say it I go what, how could you possibly think that? And I try really hard to be real and tell people what I’m dealing with and tell people the hard time I’m having with my kids and yeah and be really open and honest.

But I guess it’s so easy for women especially to kind of ignore that and just look at, say, what’s being produced, like the production. Like—and you know, I am not studying right now but I’m usually studying one subject and running the business and mothering. And it just looks on the outside to my friends like I must have more capacity than them.

And but it’s just really not, it’s actually that I probably start a lot of things out of impulsiveness and let a lot of other things burn. So yeah, that’s—I guess I really just wanted to get that across so that any mums listening that are like me, struggle with low self-esteem, just to remind you that literally nobody is doing it all.

We’re all prioritising, and for people I think with brains that work a little differently maybe our prioritising happens on a minute by minute basis. You know right now I absolutely cannot shower but I can, you know, pack the school lunches so that I’ll do. That has more of an impact.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah absolutely. And I think you’ve hit a—you’ve made a great point too. And I think you said that earlier about how when you thought you might have ADHD you went and told a few people that you didn’t know as well who you thought might be open to it first.

And I think if you’re on the path where you’re thinking I maybe do have this, the communication to others, that can be really tricky. Because often we are painting that perfectionism picture and there’s that society pressure to be really good and you know maybe we’ve camouflaged.

If you don’t know what camouflaging is, Google it, it’s so interesting. Where you just blend in, you make it seem like everything’s okay. If you do that enough times to enough people, then if you do decide to disclose that you might have ADHD, you think you could be—you might find that everyone around you goes that can’t be right, you’re better than I am. If you think you might have ADHD, what’s wrong with me?

But they don’t really see what’s underneath either. So I think you’ve made a really good point that it’s interesting that people have that perception of you when that’s not how you feel about yourself and that may not be actually your reality either.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah definitely. And people say it all the time too and they say it to me, oh Jazz, you don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors. And even I go yeah look I know I don’t but I bet it’s better than this.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. It’s that impression, that just sheer—I always say to people you know the internal struggle of someone, a female with ADHD who’s trying to put it all together and come across that they’re all together, yeah, indescribable.

And if you sit down, you know, for a psychiatrist it’s a difficult job for them as well. If you’ve got the lookings like someone who’s outwardly successful but yet you know you’re asking for a controlled substance, that can be a really tricky ask for them as well.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah absolutely. Please, please give me some drugs, I swear I’m struggling.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, I’m struggling underneath but look I’ve got a great job, I’ve got two kids, great marriage, I live in my own house with a mortgage, I’m— you know I don’t even know. If you think about it from their point of view, although really, would someone really go there that’s got it all together? Wouldn’t they have other stuff to do, why would they be chasing you know a controlled substance? I don’t know.

But it’s just been such a pleasure to talk to you Jasmine, thank you for being so honest and open. I really appreciate it.

Jasmine Meek:

Oh no thank you for inviting me on. I went looking for your podcast by typing in like Australian ADHD women because I was desperate to hear from somebody who like, who I could relate to. Because even just the—even just like ADHD, like ADHD Adults and ADHD AF podcasts and they’re in the UK, I was just like not feeling that same sense of like yes I can see myself in this person, I’m reassured.

And yeah and so I was so, so grateful for your podcast that it existed and there it was, ADHD Mums. And every episode I’m just nodding along just like yes, yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Oh thank you, I appreciate that. I felt the same way, I was listening—I like ADHD AF as well but yes, some of the UK terminology, it can be a bit off-putting. They talk about NHS a lot and you’re like that’s not really relevant. And even sometimes you just want to listen to an Australian accent, I don’t know what it is, it’s a bit of home.

But it’s been such a blessing—I hate the word blessing, I just said it, grateful either—it’s been so great to have you on Jasmine.

What I think we might do is we might follow up with you after the 10th. We’ll see how the appointment goes, whether it went great or not, who knows. Let’s follow it up, let’s see what you experienced it was like. And I think if you can go through in detail, let’s see if you remember, how for people that have never visited a psychiatrist before, that might be something that they really want to hear.

What question did they open with? A lot of us have got anxiety and we’re like what are they going to ask me, what—you know, let’s I think we go through it all step by step whether it goes or not.

So if you’re keen let’s book that in and you know we can follow your journey with medication as well if you’re open. And I think that would be a really positive thing to do because a lot of people message me and say that they cancelled their appointment because they got so anxious just before it.

Jasmine Meek:

Yeah yeah. Oh and I’ve had moments of like—I think if my psychiatrist hadn’t have been as reasonably priced as she is I would have had way more moments of like should I be doing this? Because I think that—and from what I’ve read that’s quite a typical, you know, ADHD in adult women, is that whole feeling like you’re totally like a fraud and no, no maybe I’m just bad at life.

And the idea of spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars and the idea of somebody saying like no sweetie, you’re just bad at life is very anxiety provoking. And I think given the price of my psychiatrist I’m like okay I can cope with that. If that’s the worst that can happen, she says I’m just bad at life but I was out of pocket say $250, I can cope.

But yeah I mean that’s not the case for so many women and some women have been waiting for yeah like you said 12 months. Could you imagine the anxiety leading up to that, thinking you were just going to be told to look out the door. So yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think you know my—I had a clinical psych diagnose my son and I think he’s looking down a medication route at some point. So I’ve had him on a wait list for 10 months with a pre-pediatrician.

And when that appointment comes up I know I’m going to be a bit of a mess because I’m gonna be like I’ve waited like nearly a year for this appointment and I really know what he needs.

And then pediatricians and psychiatrists are both the people in my experience—not everybody—that will pick up a psych report and decide to make their own opinion. They’re not going to go off what someone else has said.

And I understand that because they’re handing out the controlled substance, so like they’re not going to go off some report they don’t know anything, they need to start from the beginning. I understand that. But you’re also like I’ve actually been down this road and I feel like, you know, you don’t want to feel invalidated as mum or it could be your parenting, you know, it’s such an anxious time.

So I think for people waiting, but you either do one or two things: I think you either heavily research their person, which is sometimes to your detriment, sometimes it’s relieving, sometimes it isn’t, although you can always find something negative about someone online you know. Or you don’t do either and you’re pleasantly surprised or disappointed. Hard to know which one’s better or worse.

But yeah I really wish you well and I know we’re going to follow up. Thank you so much for coming and thank you for your time Jasmine.

Jasmine Meek:

Thank you so much.