Episode 62 – Uncovering the Subtle Traits of Autistic Daughters with Eliza Harris

Jane McFadden

Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. Eliza actually wrote in and said to me that she wanted to do an episode on girls being ignored throughout the diagnosis assessment process. And I tell you, I thought that is such a cracker. So we have organised this interview. Eliza, would you like to give us a bit of an overview about who you are to start off with?

Eliza

I’m a 36-year-old mum of two. I was formally diagnosed in October last year with ADHD after a performance review at work with my boss, who is a diagnosed female ADHDer. And her advice in this performance review was just go and get tested because I’m not mad that you’re not doing these things, but I want you to receive the full potential. And that was the first time in my whole entire adult life that a boss had done that in a performance review.

My husband is very neurotypical and I have two beautiful children, one ADHDer, the other is a typical, very hyperactive little boy.

Jane McFadden

Okay, so you’ve got some energy in your household.

Eliza

Yes. Yes.

Jane McFadden

Okay, great. And sometimes we start off these episodes with a mum fail story. I believe that you have one to share.

Eliza

Yes. And I’m going to admit it’s probably not the first and last time I’ve done this. Last year, my daughter decided that she would start packing her own lunch and I thought she’d packed her lunch. She thought I’d packed her lunch. Turns out no one had packed her lunch. And then the school rang me and said, she’s got no lunch box.

So my brother-in-law had to quickly run out her lunchbox to school. Can’t say it’s not the first time it’s happened because it happened again this year where she did have a lunchbox. She packed the lunchbox herself and still forgot that she had a lunchbox. So I’m blaming her for that one, but it was also me not reminding her that the lunchbox was in her bag. So it’s not going to be the last time that we do it. But I think it’s pretty funny that it’s a common occurrence in the outhouse that lunch is something we forget.

Jane McFadden

Absolutely. I usually share a funny one, but I always like to declare early what my real mood is on this podcast. I haven’t had a great week.

I think the Vyvanse shortage has really affected me. I have had some Vyvanse today, but I managed to get some, but my mum fail this week would be probably sitting in my walk-in robe crying for a lot of the weekend because I couldn’t get any Vyvanse and the amount of overwhelm that I was feeling around that. And I would hear my kids fighting and just go into the walk-in robe and cry.

Complete fail, not my usual funny style, but I don’t like to say things that are funny and then not genuinely feel it because I think it just comes across as a bit fake. So I always try to be authentic.

Eliza

Oh, a hundred percent.

Jane McFadden

Rather than go, oh yeah, let me tell you about this funny story, but actually that’s not real for how I’m feeling right now. Tell me a little bit about your own journey and your diagnosis and how that’s worked out for you.

Would you like me to continue formatting the entire transcript in this structured style (speaker headers, broken into readable segments) until the end of the episode? It’s quite a long transcript, so I can deliver it in sections for clarity.

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Eliza

As I said in my little intro, I had my performance review at work and it was all stuff around obviously concentration, starting tasks, all stuff that I’ve always struggled with.

My daughter had gone through the process with a psychologist of getting an autism diagnosis a couple of years ago and I got all the forms and the one thing I hated was filling out those forms. And my psychiatrist said to me at our first appointment, shouldn’t that have been a good indication that you had ADHD? You were reading those forms and you were going, hey, I do that, but that’s normal. And then I put the forms in a cupboard and forgot about them and was like, these are all too hard. I can’t do it.

I think for me, the process was quite quick in the sense of my psychiatrist had a cancellation for a new appointment. So my first appointment was meant to be February this year, but her cancellation list ended up being two days after she got my referral. And that meant for me traveling two and a half hours, paying $550 at that phone call to make sure I was definitely coming to the appointment and then hopefully getting a diagnosis.

And I sat there for an hour and told her everything that I had in my performance review and what happened in childhood. And she’s like, how long do you think you’ve had ADHD for? I was like, I’m not hyperactive. Like my brother presents very differently. He’s very hyperactive and anger outbursts and stuff like that. Whereas I am more reserved and I never thought that was a big thing until obviously we sat down and spoke about the different presentations of ADHD.

So she diagnosed me with ADHD combined, which surprised me because I don’t feel I have the hyperactive side, but she said, it’s not more the hyperactiveness in the sense of you’re always on the go. It’s the getting really excited about things that you like. So I would get in these little moods where if I tried any food, I’d say to my husband, oh my God, you’ve got to try this. And I would keep pestering him until he stopped doing what he was doing and try it.

And she said, that’s your hyperactive side coming out because you get so excited by something and you can’t wait to share that excitement. Whereas my brother would just be dancing off the walls. My son jumps off furniture and the doctors go, he’s just a typical little boy.

Whereas if my daughter did that, they’d go, oh, why is she a naughty little girl? It’s very different in my world with comparing because I’ve got one of each. And then it’s, you need to look at your parenting, don’t you? You need to do the triple P parenting course. Clearly there’s something that you’re doing at home that’s wrong that’s created this problem, this ‘naughty child.’ And I’m air quoting for anyone who’s listening.

Jane McFadden

That’s just so common, isn’t it? You’ve had your own weight loss journey as well, haven’t you?

Eliza

Yes. So I had the gastric sleeve surgery in 2016. I lost 54 kilos, which is amazing. Been able to keep it off. One of the things that I now know about ADHD is if they do have any form of the gastric sleeve or any surgery that really gives them that dopamine hit, they generally don’t go to their follow-up appointments.

And I thought that was a weird thing to understand until I looked back on my post-op care and was like, actually, no, I didn’t go to any follow-ups because I was consistently losing weight and getting that dopamine hit that my clothes were getting bigger and I was looking really well and that sort of thing. And that’s a textbook ADHD reaction to something that you do in your life that you’re impressed with.

Jane McFadden

Absolutely it is. Okay. You were a single mum at some point and now you’ve met somebody. Is that correct?

Eliza

Yeah. So when I had my daughter and this is something that people need to obviously take consideration for if they have the gastric sleeve. One of the side effects of the sleeve is malabsorption of medication. I didn’t know that. So I was on the contraceptive and I’d been on that for 15 years, no issues. And I got pregnant with my daughter on the pill and her biological dad decided he didn’t want a baby and he wasn’t ready to be a dad.

I decided I was 29 at the time and I tried for 10 years to have a baby, didn’t happen. So I thought this is my chance if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it on my own. Had her, six weeks after she was born my housemate on the Gold Coast told me to come and visit her in the town we live now in Biloela. And I moved within two weeks of being here.

Obviously impulsive ADHD side of my brain was like, hey, this is a nice town. The rentals are really cheap. Let’s move. Wow. So I did. And I got a job, I met my husband.

I told my husband that I had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested. And he was like, okay, cool. No worries. Have a good night. A month later, he walked into my New Year’s Eve party that I was also at and the rest is history. He didn’t have any issue that I had a baby.

So she was about seven months old when we met. And he said to me, when you meet the rest of my family, you will understand that blood doesn’t mean anything. And I thought that was a really weird sort of comment. And then obviously found out that some of his family had been fostered and adopted. So it was very common in his world that his family was not biologically related and he’s got cousins that are adopted and from fostering and from adoptions and stuff like that.

So he ran with the whole parenting gig pretty quickly.

Would you like me to keep going with the next section about your husband’s role, your marriage, and career path?

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Jane McFadden

So he was quite positive. Okay, this isn’t my biological child, but I will love this child as if it’s my own. That kind of, wow, tell you what, that’s an attractive thing to do, isn’t it? I feel attracted to him and I don’t even know him. And I’m like, wow, what an awesome dude.

Eliza

He also said it’s weird because he loved her before he loved me because he said, the love you have for a child is always so different to the love you’d have for a partner. And yeah, within 18 months we were engaged, married and pregnant with my second baby.

Jane McFadden

Wow. This is so positive because I’m going to see here single moms and it can be really daunting and that’s such a great story. Love that.

Eliza

Yeah. Okay. I think I was very lucky.

Jane McFadden

Were you lucky or are you a good person and then karma came around? Who knows? Let’s not put it down to luck. Maybe you’re a bit of a catch. And he saw that and he walked in. He’s like, oh, I’d like a piece of that. She’s got a baby. Fine.

So what kind of career path have you had?

Eliza

I work in equipment hire. I have been in my job for 12 months. The second time around. I started with the same company in 2016 and then went on maternity leave and decided to upheave my life to Biloela from the Gold Coast.

And yeah, tried for four years to go back and there was never any positions in town. And I walked in and my boss had a whiteboard out front in true ADHD style. She was like, I’m going to do everything I can to try and get a person. And I walked in and said, you need me to work because I’ve got experience. And she’s like, okay, cool. Come back in 24 hours and we’ll have an interview.

And absolutely love what I do. It’s the one job that I have been able to stay at long-term.

Jane McFadden

Is it about that job that helps you stay there long-term? Because I know you wrote in your email that you’ve had 13 different jobs. What is it about this one that has actually you been able to stick to?

Eliza

It is the difference of every day. I can do three or four different things differently a day. I get to operate machinery. I get to go out back and play on helping. I can do some sales stuff. I can do customer service. So there’s quite a few different variations to my job. It’s not just sitting in an office answering phone calls, which probably keeps me busy.

And I can deal with multimillion dollar companies. And then I can deal with a little old lady down the road who needs to hire a mini excavator for the weekend because she’s got an overflowing septic. Common problem in our area.

Jane McFadden

So it’s a variety of people, but different. Yeah. Could you wake up in the morning, you’re operating the machinery, then you’re on the phone. It could be anything. Is that the excitement? Who knows what’s going to happen today? Could be anything.

Eliza

Yeah, exactly.

Jane McFadden

I know that you’ve been diagnosed as both autistic and having ADHD. How does this present and play out for you as a mum?

Eliza

It was really funny when I obviously became a mum. I dabbled a little bit in childcare when I was 15, 16, like doing the traineeship at school and loved kids and was like, yes, I can do this. I couldn’t wait to be a mum. And then my daughter was born and I’m like, holy shit, what do I do with a kid?

I was so overwhelmed. I was so anxious. And that was the autistic side of my brain going, you’ve not only got to look after yourself, you’ve now got to look after another human and they can’t tell you what’s wrong. So I really struggled with that concept of my daughter not being able to tell me what was wrong.

I didn’t understand the different cries. I didn’t understand hunger, her sleep cycle. It was just a whole heap of stuff I didn’t understand. And then it led to obviously the affection side of things. I love affection, but it’s got to be on my terms. My daughter is very much the same. So she loves affection, has to be on her terms.

And that was probably the biggest thing, just learning those sort of cues and getting overwhelmed so much. I didn’t realise parenting was going to be so hard because I’d gone and prepared at 30 and had a life. Surely it’s not that hard.

And I used to tell people whether you’re parenting at 15 and going through a teen pregnancy or you’re parenting at 30, it’s still equally as freaking hard.

Jane McFadden

Absolutely. It’s all hard no matter what age.

Eliza

Agreed. Definitely.

Do you want me to keep going with the section where you reflect on what about the diagnosis made sense in your life?

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Jane McFadden

What about the diagnosis has made sense to you? What about your life, the diagnosis has come and you’ve been like, oh, well, that makes sense now.

Eliza

Everything that I did growing up was around doing things for everyone else. So I’d follow my brother around for his sporting events. And then when I was interested in something, I couldn’t go and do it. So I was like, oh, why can’t I do that? I’m interested in this. I want to do this.

And it was always presented that girls should be seen and not heard, like the old saying. And I used to get told like I’d be a really good student if I just paid attention in class and stopped interrupting and started engaging in the schoolwork. And that would have been like the key indicator that something was wrong.

I got moved from the back of the classroom to the front of the classroom because they thought I had problems with my eyes. So they moved me and it didn’t make a difference.

The autistic side was around number recognition, that I am an absolute freak with numbers. I remember driver’s license numbers, tax file numbers, bank accounts, mobile numbers, all off by heart. My husband’s details, just really random numbers that most people would have to go and look up. I can photo memory and just go, yep, my tax file number is this, my bank account number is this.

And people ask me, how do you know your tax file number? I’ve had it since I was like six weeks old because of baby modeling, but not something normal people really have recollection of on a good day.

Jane McFadden

So that’s more of the autistic side with the photographic memory.

Eliza

Yes, correct.

Jane McFadden

And then I know you’ve mentioned to me in the past about the lack of imagination playing with your kids.

Eliza

My husband yesterday, he got home with my son after daycare and he bought a new pair of shoes and he cut out a garage so the trucks could go and park in that. And I just saw a shoe box. I’m like, what are you doing? He’s like, oh, this is our parking garage.

Whereas me and my daughter are sitting there going, what are they doing? We can’t go through. And my daughter has a really vivid imagination, which is amazing, but her play is very structured. So it’s very hyper-focused at the moment for her. She’s obsessed with gymnastics and everything is about gymnastics competitions for her. You can’t vary from that play.

And I’m the same. I just sort of go, oh, well, how are we playing mums and dads? Can we not just go and clean up? Can we not just go and do this? And I’ve got a million things running through my head at any given time.

Jane McFadden

Yeah. It’s the whole kind of like being present can be a lot more challenging for mums that are neurodivergent.

Eliza

Yeah.

Jane McFadden

So let’s talk about your daughter and getting her help.

Eliza

Yes.

Jane McFadden

And the way that she was perceived by the medical professionals around you. I know that you said in your email that she started in kindy and she was put in the naughty group.

Eliza

Yeah.

Jane McFadden

How did all that kind of play out?

Eliza

So we had a meeting with the kindy very early on in term three of kindy and she was thriving and doing really well. And then two weeks into that term, we got called into the office and there’d been an incident and the teacher said she’s showing no remorse to her actions. We really think she’s got sociopathic tendencies.

Jane McFadden

That’s a big word to say about a four-year-old girl.

Eliza

Yeah.

Jane McFadden

I can’t believe they used that word.

Eliza

I’m going, yeah, are you kidding? And we brought her home and obviously asked her and she was crying and quite upset about it. So that’s a bit weird. So they said, look at getting her a diagnosis. We believe she’s autistic.

I had previously worked with a whole group of autistic boys in my childcare setting and teacher aide work that I did. And I sat there dumbfounded because I didn’t see any of the autistic presentations that I saw within boys with my daughter until we went to the psychologist and she asked about affection and milestones and toilet training and speech.

And what I thought was quite normal because I did the same was not normal. So like my daughter at 18 months old was speaking in full sentences. She was fully toilet trained. She refused to use a potty. She found it uncomfortable, didn’t like affection, cut out her sleep completely. And a lot of it was also situational from our end because I was pregnant with my second bub.

So I wanted to make sure she was out of nappies before I had another one because I couldn’t do two nappies. We just said to the psychologist, look, a lot of it was stuff that we’ve actually forced as well. But apparently kids aren’t meant to pick up those things as quick. And I’m learning that with my son because he’s three and a half and he’s only just starting to toilet train now.

Do you want me to keep going with the part where you explain the traits your daughter showed that you thought were normal, and how assessments unfolded?

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Jane McFadden

So what were the things that she was presenting with that you thought were normal? Because you do them too. I’m just curious.

Eliza

The full sentences at 18 months old. I used to do that with my mum and my mum thought it was quite cute because I’d get in the car and say things like, we’re going to pick up Saj from work.

Jane McFadden

I think that’s really clever. I’m confused as to why, I mean, from a medical profession, they’re really gifted.

Eliza

The memory of recollections. When I was a child, we grew up in Melbourne. I could name every single train station along the Belgrave train line going from our stop where we got on into the city. And I would know by the motion of the train, which way it was going to go, whether it was going to go through the city loop or whether it was going to go direct to Flinders Street.

And apparently that’s not normal, which I know now, but my mum and my grandma thought it was amazing that I was interested in that sort of stuff.

Then with my daughter, so she remembers really random things. Like we were coming home one afternoon from Rockhampton, which is about two and a half hours away. And she said to me, mum, can we go back to the farm? And I’m going, what farm are you talking about? She goes, the one where the lady was doing the painting, she was painting the windows.

And I had to think back and we’ve got family friends. And the last time we’d seen them, which was about 18 months ago, that’s what the lady was doing. We drive in and she was painting her window frames. And that’s what my daughter recalled.

And we’re going, okay, that’s really odd. She shouldn’t be recalling those sorts of memories. But I do the same. We thought it was very normal.

To a psychologist, she was level two autistic. And then we had to go to a pediatrician for that final diagnosis. And he said to us, she’s a four and a half year old girl starting school. The other boy in her grade, so she goes to a very small school with only 16 kids in the whole school. The other boy in her grade is about seven months older.

So he compared it as if the little boy’s older. So he’s obviously going to know a bit more than our daughter. And we were like, okay, cool. No worries. That’s where we’re at.

And it wasn’t until I got my diagnosis that I started noticing. And then I think, pretty sure it was one of your podcast episodes where you said your daughter gets up at bedtime and gets random things like drinks of water and comes in for a cuddle and asks really random questions when she should be winding down for sleep. And I thought, actually, I think she’s got more ADHD than autism.

So I started investigating that and I had to ask the school for their opinion. And I had this conversation this morning with a friend because she is going through the same thing with a son who’s exactly the same age as my daughter. And the school has actually come to her and said, we believe your son might have ADHD. Whereas for me, it was the opposite way around.

I was the one instigating the conversations around it because they just kept saying, no, she’s a young kid starting school because she was four and a half starting as opposed to five and a half like the rest of the boys. And that’s what we got for all of last year. It was a big, big frustration.

Jane McFadden

And it sounds like she’s very early in some of her development too with the talking and the photographic memory and the toileting. Yeah. Obviously we know on this podcast that people that are autistic are not intellectually disabled, which seems to be sometimes what medical professionals think.

So a really gifted child that’s ahead and then you’re bringing them in for an assessment, medical professional might be like, wow, your child’s actually, from what I’ve seen, really ahead and gifted. And you’re telling me that you think there’s something maybe not right with her. I’m just confused because I remember taking my daughter and then they held up the milestone sheet next to her and were like, oh, she’s only behind on a few.

And I was like, yeah, but I’m telling you she’s not right. And I couldn’t get the GP referral. So I can see what you’re saying.

There is that playoff with gender. And some of the things that you’re talking about, except for the sociopath word, that was a shocker, does sound to be like she’s quite gifted and quite bright.

Eliza

Yeah.

Jane McFadden

And quite independent. Like you do hear of girls that, like I’ve said that about my friend’s little girls before, oh, she’s ready to move out of home. She’s only four. They’re independent women.

Like I remember my daughter, she wanted to catch the bus on her first day of prep. She was like, I don’t just want to catch the bus to school. And I was like, but you’re five and I’m your mum. Yeah. And I want to take you to your classroom.

She’s like, no, I’m actually fine. Thanks. Just drop me at the bus stop. So then if you say to a medical professional, hey, there’s something going on with her. She seems really bright and independent and I’m not sure what the issue is.

Would you like me to keep going with the part about her meltdowns, masking, and how you and your husband experienced her behaviour differently?

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Eliza

Yeah. And then she started having these meltdowns and I was getting so overwhelmed because at that point I was also undiagnosed and I was getting so overwhelmed with it. And I kept saying to my husband, she behaves differently around me to you. You do not see what I see.

And I started videoing what she was doing. And he was like, I don’t know. And then I learned obviously about the masking and she feels safe around me. So she’s always going to be a different person around me. My son does the same. He reverts back to a bit of a baby because I have babied him.

Jane McFadden

Sorry to interrupt Eliza, but what exactly was she doing that you were filming? Just so example is clear.

Eliza

She would have an absolute screaming meltdown over me not getting her a chupa chup in the supermarket or chewing gum or something that she really wanted. So something that she was interested in like squishmallows, little pop toys, anything that she showed an interest in.

Jane McFadden

So when you say a full meltdown, you mean like she’s fully on the ground, screaming, crying, incoherent.

Eliza

Yeah, incoherent.

Jane McFadden

But the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum for me, and correct me, this might be not true in your world for me, is that I know that when it’s a true meltdown, when you actually then give them the chupa chup at the end, or you offer it to them, depending on how it’s gone, they then no longer want it.

Eliza

Yes.

Jane McFadden

Because they are so off their head at that point, even giving them what they want does not even work. Is that the level we’re talking about?

Eliza

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Jane McFadden

If anyone’s listening, they’re like, oh, my kid just wants a chupa chup and they have a bit of a, I have to negotiate out of that. And they might yell at me. That’s the difference there.

If you’ve got a kid who’s blue, purple, holding their breath on the ground, and then you actually get what they want at some point, and they don’t even care anymore. There you go. There’s the difference between a meltdown and a tantrum in my personal opinion. Not a parenting expert, personal opinion.

Eliza

She likes to play a lot on it. So we’ve had a few issues with her going to before and after school care, doing the same thing. And she does exactly the same thing until I give in and go, okay, I’ll just drop you at school this morning. And then she gets to school and she’s fine.

And then in the afternoon, she gets on the bus to go to after school care without a problem, like nothing’s happened. And we’re going, what’s going on? What’s happening in your world? And she came back and she goes, mum, I just feel really misunderstood there.

Bear in mind, she’s five. And I was like, what do you mean you’re misunderstood? That’s so insightful for a five-year-old to say she feels misunderstood. Holy shit. And she’s like, I just want to do craft and they don’t freaking listen to me.

And I got up there and was like, you can’t say they don’t freaking listen to you. But mum, you say it and it’s all right for you to swear and it’s all right for you to do this. And that’s what she plays with me all the time. And I’m just like, are you kidding me?

And then me and my husband use the term, it annoys the piss out of me when you do X, Y, Z. And now my lovely children have both gone, mum, you annoy the piss out of me when you do this. And me and my husband just have to laugh because obviously they’ve learned it from us and this is what they’re getting at.

But at the same time, do they go off to school and daycare and say these things? And then people think that we’re shit parents because this is how we talk about our kids. But it’s because my daughter especially has that level of maturity that a five-year-old should not have.

We’ve never babied her. We don’t intend to baby her because there is no point in doing it because she’s just going to ask questions and we want to give her the honest answers. We don’t want to hide anything from her.

Jane McFadden

Yeah. It can be really difficult when you’ve got a child that’s presenting really mature to then say, oh, she’s actually autistic and has ADHD. And they’d be like, wow, she seems more, and I’m air quoting, ahead or better than my kid possibly. That’s neurotypical.

But I think sometimes with neurodivergence, we’re very cottage cheese–like. So we’re very ahead in some areas and very behind in others. She might be crying and screaming over a chupa chup at home, yet she’s photographic at school and gifted, I’m assuming.

Eliza

Yeah.

Jane McFadden

So it’s very confusing because you’ve got this child that’s like ahead and behind all at once that you’re trying to get assessed in some way.

Would you like me to keep going with the part where she gives more examples of her daughter’s gifted memory, knowledge, and the challenges with professionals?

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Eliza

A hundred percent. And she came home one day, we went for a weekend away and we were driving over a river and she asked if there were crocodiles. Because in Rockhampton, there is generally crocodiles in the river. So every time we go over, that’s what the kids ask.

And she’d ask that question and we’re like, oh, we’re not sure. And then she came out and said, do you know that crocodiles lay 40 to 60 eggs and they only eat this and they snack on this and freshwater crocodiles live here? And we had to Google this because we had no idea.

And the teacher said to us, she actually worked that in term two of prep and this was Christmas time. So this is nearly eight months later and we’d never heard it before. And it was just that random little fact.

And obviously I do the same sort of thing with just random little general knowledge things that you need to know and don’t need to know. And we were laughing, my husband said to me the other day, how do you know random things? And I’m like, I just remember them.

We bought Yakult the other day. And the one thing I remember about Yakult is it is the Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain.

Jane McFadden

Wow.

Eliza

And that was not an indication when I was in primary school that I had autism or ADHD apparently. Remembering little random facts.

Jane McFadden

And see this changes the narrative too. Then see why the medical professionals get confused, because if the stigma of that eight-year-old boy, right, running around hyperactive. Okay. I think that ADHD stigma around girls is becoming a little bit like quiet, inattentive, bit scatterbrainy.

But actually I don’t think that highly confident, independent, intelligent is really there yet with ADHD. And obviously you’ve got a mix.

Eliza

No.

Jane McFadden

So you’re talking like a recipe of who knows what, because it’s all overlapping. Where do you begin? Where do you start? You could never measure up your daughter with another child that had the same diagnosis because they’d be completely different.

So really when we’re talking about girls being ignored, it’s actually really difficult because there’s so much in that recipe that’s confusing overlaps. And then there’s trauma too, that there’s kids with trauma backgrounds that can also be identifying with some of those things.

So there’s symptoms, but maybe they have a trauma background, not necessarily neurodivergent. But then trauma can also increase the likelihood of neurodivergence. So what a recipe there.

Here’s a question for you. This is a big one. What would you like to see changed in regards to girls and ADHD and autism?

Eliza

I think a better understanding for not only educational professionals, but medical as well, that girls probably 70 to 80% of the time will present differently to their male counterparts. And all the boys that I know that have had their ADHD diagnosis, they’ve all been picked up at day care to four as the latest, in some cases.

Whereas I’m getting feedback from some of my mum-friends that have got teenage girls saying they’re not coping with mainstream school because of X, Y, Z. They don’t feel focused at school. They don’t feel this.

But then if they’ve got a son and they’re being told the same thing about their son, the ADHD diagnosis is thrown around quite loosely with boys generally. If you’ve got a hyperactive kid, then, you know, straight away, ADHD.

Jane McFadden

Correct.

Eliza

And one of my friends, her son, he’s a typical farm kid, loves to roam free, came into town to do kindy. And the kindy teacher was like, he just wants to be outside. He’s climbing on all the play equipment. He doesn’t want to sit still. And we’re pretty sure he’s got ADHD. Go get him assessed.

And she went through the process and got him assessed. And it came back, no, he was just a very active kid that’s grown up on a property with no real need to be inside and sit in front of a screen. He just loves being outdoors.

He was bored inside. There was nothing for him. Whereas my daughter, if she didn’t want to engage in play, I just go, oh yeah, cool. No worries. She doesn’t want to engage.

We’ve directed her to go and play with this. Or we’ve directed her to go and move to the home corner because she’s interested in being a mother. She’s interested in caring for the other kids. And she’s like a little mother hen with all the younger kids.

And that’s what they kept saying to me. She’s really mature for her age. She sits still when she’s interested. And I said to them, of course she sits still because she’s focusing on something she is interested in, which is learning. And it’s the hyper focus.

Do you want me to continue with the part about her daughter’s memory, quoting movies, and how girls’ autistic traits are often overlooked compared to boys?

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Eliza

And there were just random things that she would do at kindy and at home. And I thought, I really think something is wrong.

I don’t know if you remember, but there is a movie called Shark Boy and Lava Girl that was out when I was a kid.

Jane McFadden

Yes.

Eliza

On Netflix, the little preview is Taylor Lautner’s spiking hair.

Jane McFadden

Yes. I like a bit of Taylor.

Eliza

Yes. And she literally said to my husband, I want to watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl. It’s this one here because she literally just saw the top of his head.

We said to the kindy teacher, look, she’s recognizing stuff at home. And we said, oh yeah, she does that here. But we just think because we’ve played it so much, that’s why she remembers.

But she can go through every movie and quote, line for line, just random little things that she does. Whereas if my son was to do that or another boy in her kindy class, the autism and ADHD diagnosis would be thrown out so quickly.

And a few of her boy counterparts got diagnosed when she was at kindy and it was one appointment.

So if anyone’s listening, very much, autistic female traits are heavy interests in animals, looking after little other kids, and photographic memory around animals. But often the interest is a lot more socially acceptable.

So you might have a little girl that’s obsessed with dolphins and everyone just thinks it’s cute. But yet if you have a boy that’s obsessed with magnets or trains, that then can raise red flags. That’s what the medical professionals see as, oh wow, he knows all the different types of trains. And that’s a bit more of a stigma around, that’s what autistic boys look like.

Whereas you have a girl who really loves animals, theatre, High School Musical, all of that jam, dolphins, echidnas, that’s just seen as, oh, she really likes that animal. But it can be so much more than that.

Jane McFadden

But I think it’s hard to recognize, isn’t it, Eliza?

Eliza

Yeah. So when I was growing up, that was my keen interest. So music, dance, drama, anything that I could essentially unmask and be myself. And I was in the Australian Girls Choir for 15 years and then did modeling and absolutely loved it, but I could unmask and be myself.

And I’d go to school and I’d do a modeling job in the morning. I’d be late to school. And I would say to the kids at school, oh, I slept in. And I was so fearful of them finding out that I was enjoying myself doing these things.

And it was the same with my daughter. She’s not keen on sports, but her hyper focus at the moment is gymnastics. And she watches gymnastic shows on YouTube and gymnastic shows on Netflix and is begging me and her dad to drive her three hours to the closest gymnastics academy so she can do gymnastics because that is the be all and end all. There is no ifs, buts or maybes.

Whereas my son just sits there and he names all the trucks and tractors and his goal in life is to go and drive where his dad worked. Where my daughter, she wants to be a vet or she wants to be a gymnast or she wants to be a singer.

She loves music. She wants a cat because she absolutely loves cats, but I’m allergic to cats so we can’t have a cat. There are so many things that she’s interested in, but because she’s a little girl, it’s true.

But if my son came in and goes, mum, I want to have a cat or I want to be a vet or I want to be a doctor, we’ll go, oh, that’s awesome.

My daughter’s thing was she wanted to be a nurse because she didn’t feel like she was good enough at the start of the year because she was really struggling with her numbers and she’s now medicated. But again, that was my push to go, I don’t want her getting to 36 years old and struggling with life like I had and constantly being told my hair is blonde and I dye my hair blonde because I’m ditzy, whereas I know that I’m actually quite smart and intelligent with the things that I’ve been able to accomplish.

But because I put on that mask of, oh, I’m just going to be the dumb kid because I’m not actually engaged in this. It’s boring. Why do I need to learn about random things? But as soon as I learned about anything to do with numbers, anything to do with music, anything to do with dance, a hundred percent, I was there focused.

But if it was anything to do with English, I did, oh, why do I want to read a book? Can I just watch a movie? And the best English lesson I had was we got to watch Looking for Alibrandi, the movie.

Jane McFadden

I love that movie. One last final question for you. How important do you think a diagnosis is for a child? The reason I mentioned it is because I still hear it everywhere. People go, oh, I don’t want to label them. I don’t really want to make them think there’s something wrong with them. There’s always this dialogue around, oh, that could be seen as a negative to my child. I don’t want them to feel bad about themselves. What would be your take on that?

Do you want me to continue with the part where Eliza shares her strong views on diagnosis, her own school experiences, and why she wants things different for her daughter?

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Eliza

My biggest thing, and it’s my opinion, obviously having a situation with my daughter. I don’t want her to go through schooling and struggle. I want her to be the absolute best she can be because I know that she’s got that ability. And I want her to have the confidence to be able to trust that we’re making the right decision for her.

For me, my best friend is a GP who specializes in women’s health. I spoke to her about my diagnosis and she said to me, oh my God, could you imagine if you’d known this at school? When we were talking about what we wanted to be, I wanted to be a forensic psychologist and the brain interrupted me, but I kept getting told by my teachers, I was never going to be smart enough to do that. And then I thought, okay, cool.

So I don’t want my daughter to go through that experience. And if we can do everything to support her growth and development moving forward and make her schooling enjoyable because she is a very social kid. And that was another thing that everyone said to us about the autistic stuff. She can’t be autistic. She’s very social.

And I said, yeah, I’m very social. So for me, I was always diagnosed with postnatal depression after I had the kids. And I said to the doctor, I’m not depressed though, because I go out and have coffee with friends. I ring people. I don’t hide in my bedroom.

For my daughter’s sake, I don’t want her growing up how I grew up. And my mum being told that my brother was ADHD hyperactive. And in grade four, I had a male teacher who mentioned because he’d known my brother’s history that potentially because of my number recognition, I could be autistic. And my mum just dismissed it because I wasn’t able to write very well.

So I was the last kid in my grade to get my pen licence, which is apparently a thing, but I was the first kid in my grade to memorize all of my times tables from zero through to 12. And that’s when the teacher picked up that there could be something. But my mum dismissed it because I was floating along at school. I wasn’t disruptive to the class.

And that’s where my daughter’s at. She’s not disruptive. She interrupts occasionally when she’s not interested, but it’s not an unrelated sort of irrelevant question. It’s not like completely off track. And she sits on the mat when they need to. She participates well. Her behaviour’s great. But after it was like, let’s get her looked at and start what we need to start.

So then at the end of the day, we know we’ve done the best thing for her so she can succeed at school and get to that full potential. Because if she’s still focusing on being a vet in grade 12, then we will push for her to go through with that.

Whereas as my best friend said, she went on to medicine after high school and I went into full-time work because I couldn’t see myself sitting, getting a qualification. And I love my job now. So obviously I’ve found where I need to be, but that was her big thing. Imagine if back in primary school, you were diagnosed and you were put on the right path.

Jane McFadden

Yeah, absolutely. And then I suppose, I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s really what this podcast is about. It’s about changing the face of the way neurodivergence looks in females. And the hope is that people listening to this podcast listen to, and I’m air quoting normal, like in terms of Aussie mums who are neurodivergent, but just typical, not celebrities, just a typical Aussie neurodivergent woman and look at what their life looks like, what their kids’ lives looks like.

And someone might listen to this and listen to you talk about your daughter and go, hmm. And if that happens, that’s all I want. And we want people to seek assessments and maybe there’s nothing there, but wouldn’t you rather know?

And if you’re not sure, especially if you’ve got a teenage girl who’s presenting with a heap of anxiety, school refusal, stress, and antidepressants, anti-anxiety is not working, there might be something else to look at.

Do you have any final thoughts, Eliza, before we finish up?

Eliza

I think you always need to be your child’s biggest advocate. And I stress that to everyone I speak to because you know your child more than anyone else and how they present to you is always going to be their true innocent form because they can let themselves be themselves.

And it was one of the first things that my husband noticed about me was I did present with ADHD and autism, but he just brushed it off for me because he was like, oh, maybe she’s just thinking this is normal. Absolutely.

Whereas for my daughter, I want to have that confidence that I have advocated enough for her. And then with friends, if they’re going through the same experience, I can give them my understanding of how it’s been for us. Because like I said earlier, my friend’s son is now going through the process, but the school approached her with her son, whereas her older son and her older daughter could have been missed.

Like some of the things I was mentioning to her that I’ve heard you speak about in the podcast, she was like, oh, my older son does that. Oh, my daughter does that. And then she was saying stuff that she does.

And I think that’s the biggest thing. It’s not a stigma having ADHD or autism. That was probably my biggest thing because growing up, it was different terminologies used. And there’s a lot of people that just have that assumption that if you’re autistic, you’re intellectually disabled and you cannot function in a normal society without assistance.

Jane McFadden

Yeah.

Eliza

You can’t do eye contact. You wouldn’t go meet a friend for a coffee. You wouldn’t be able to ask how someone else was. Actually, female autistic and ADHD women are incredibly empathic. They’re incredibly attuned to other people’s emotions. And actually one of the characteristics is massive amounts of care.

Jane McFadden

Oh yeah.

Eliza

Why would the female autistic population be so drawn to animals if they didn’t care?

Jane McFadden

Exactly.

Eliza

Why would they be so keen on the environment and picking up rubbish at school and purposely moving through the world and picking up dead birds off the ground to come home and revive? Why would they do that if they couldn’t take other people’s perspectives?

Do you want me to continue with the part about schools, evidence for diagnoses, and how compliance in girls can mask their challenges?

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Jane McFadden

Oh yeah. The other thing that I think as well is with the schools is that often they’ll back a parent with a male student. So for example, with a boy, they might find it easy to fill out the forms to identify the behaviours. So then you’ve got something to take with you to the paediatrician or whatever you’re going to.

If you have a teacher that’s not up to date with this stuff, as of course a lot of them aren’t because they’re so overworked. And this is absolutely not a teacher bashing thing. I actually love teachers. I just find them to be so overworked that they might be trying to really draw straws and trying to put something together for you because they’re not seeing a lot there at school.

And that it’s difficult to take to a paediatrician if you’re wanting to try some medication where they’re like, actually, and in fairness to the paediatrician, they’re taking your word as a mother, right? So you’ve got a school that’s not backing it up with evidence. You’ve got one woman and you’re going to medicate a child who the paediatrician is actually there to advocate for the child off the word of a person that you don’t know is doing the right thing for their kid.

We know that we are advocating for our kids, but there might be some people out there who possibly are seeing things that aren’t there, or you just don’t know what they’re going through. And you’d never want a child to be diagnosed or medicated unnecessarily off the word of one person.

I fully get why, but then I’m also looking at it going, well, what is the mother left with if the school can’t say anything? And maybe they’re divorced, or maybe they’re a single parent. That can make the diagnosis journey even harder.

Eliza

For us, that was initially where the kindy went, that I was a single parent, though that’s why she had all these behavioural issues. And obviously, as I said, she was seven months old when I met my husband. There was no way in hell that was a concern of ours.

With the school last year, going by what the kindy had said about her, they didn’t see any of that autistic side. And then even at the start of this year, they still couldn’t see any of the autistic side of her beautiful personality. But as soon as I had mentioned, I was diagnosed with ADHD and they actually started focusing a bit more, that’s when they started compiling their list.

And I love her school. It is the best environment for her being small school. She gets so overwhelmed with being grouped. And that was another key factor for us with the autistic diagnosis, that she gets so overwhelmed in big situations and she doesn’t cope with that sensory overload.

And we notice when we go to the city, because our town is very small, she knows everyone. She is the only child in the town that has her name. So everyone knows who we’re talking about when we mention her. But we go to the city and she just shuts down and will cling to us and get that sensory overload.

And the school finally was like, yes, actually, but she’s presenting different to the boys that have got the diagnosis within the school.

Jane McFadden

Yeah. I mean, she probably could be quite crucial. And also as well, autistic kids, not just females, can be very compliant. So you’ve got to remember as well that autistic kids, both boys and girls, can present very compliant, very obedient. They are real followers. They’ve got strong sense of social justice.

So they might be there just doing exactly what they’re told. Angelic, that could be the word to describe them. And that there, a teacher seeing an angelic child that’s doing exactly what they’re told, and maybe even seeing other kids to let them know what’s right and wrong, doesn’t necessarily add up to be autistic.

So I think we’ve shed a really good light on some of the less common characteristics, particularly in autistic girls. I’m almost wondering whether to change the theme of this episode, to be honest, of how that shows up, because that’s just so interesting. And I don’t think people know about it enough.

Thank you so much for your time, Eliza.

Eliza

Awesome.

Jane McFadden

Thank you. This has been a really different light to shed today, and that’s really important because we want to get all perspectives. And I think we’re going down more of a neurodivergent general path in terms of girls and women for next season. So this is a great intro to that, about not just ADHD, because we know that there is 75% of people with ADHD also autistic. So it’s much more prevalent than we know. So thank you so much.

And congratulations to you, because I know that every appointment you go to is like three hours away. So I mean, I have to drive like 10 minutes to my appointments with my kids, and I’m like constantly having a whinge about it. So I can only imagine three hours there, three hours back, you wait for an hour, you do a two-hour appointment. That’s like six hours. So well done to you.

Eliza

Yeah. Thank you. It’s much, much more beneficial now that a lot of my stuff does telehealth with my daughter’s diagnosis. Now the school actually get someone that they can get in as well. So it means that we’re not pulling her out of school. And it means we’re not taking a day out of our life to go and sit for three hours in the car and then have her tired and then have her react in a way that she knows she shouldn’t be reacting.

So the school’s been amazing that they have got people to come in and start seeing her in that environment.

Jane McFadden

And you don’t want it to be a punishment for her either. Like, oh, I had to do three hours there, sit in an office, three hours back, like, that’s a pretty, you know, like, oh, there’s something wrong with me. Now I have to go do that again.

And I understand that labeling thing, people think that, but I think they’re thinking it anyway. You know, we always talk about, is it going to label themselves as not good enough, different, weird, whatever the word is. I think a more positive label like neurodivergent, autistic, ADHD is always positive, but it can be a hard load for them to carry when, you know, they do have to do all those appointments, you know, at such distance. It can be really hard.

I just feel for the kids, hey, it sucks to be a mum, but fuck, it sucks to be a kid.

Eliza

Yeah, it sucks to be a kid. And obviously in this day and age, because my daughter does say to me, and the other day she was like, mum, why do I have such a chubby face compared to all the other girls? Why am I this? Why am I that?

And I just went back to me being a kid, getting called exactly, and I was like, nah, this bullshit has kicked up. Stop saying that kids are this and that, and there’s so much pressure. And if I can be positive and remind her that she is beautiful and we love her for her, then that’s all I can hope for as a mum.

Jane McFadden

Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, look, thank you for your time. We’re going to finish up. Thank you. But really appreciate it. I think it’s been a great episode. Thank you so much.

Eliza

Thank you.