Jane McFadden:
Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums. Today we have Dr Jacinta Thompson back again. How are you, Jacinta?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:
Yeah, I’m really good. Thanks, Jen.

Jane McFadden:
If you haven’t listened to Jacinta’s previous episodes, I’m going to put them all in the show notes. Particularly the episode about the differences between ADHD and autistic traits has still been, I think, the most downloaded episode of all time.

If you haven’t listened to that, go back down to the show notes and check it out. Jacinta, for anybody who hasn’t listened to these episodes, would you like to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about you?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:
Sure. So I’m a clinical psychologist and I work on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

I have my own private practice and I predominantly work with adults in the space of providing neuroaffirming assessments and also therapy and supports for those particularly with ADHD and autism. I’m also a mum of two little neurospicy individuals.

Jane McFadden:
How lucky are you?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:
So lucky. Feeling hashtag grateful every day.

Jane McFadden:
Jacinta arrived. I was like, how are you, Jacinta? She goes, I’m running on about 10 hours sleep. I thought, geez, that’s good. She said, for the week.

It’s tough when your kids are sick and all they want is, well, it’s not just me, thankfully. They also gravitate towards needing their father, but when you’re just waking up hour on hour, it’s like that newborn phase again and you just live in a constant state of delirium.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:
Oh, it is.

Jane McFadden:
Well done to you for showing up regardless.

We are going to kick this off. Today we have a two-part episode on mum rage. The first part will be about motherhood, ADHD and rage—why it happens, how it impacts ADHD mums. Then the second part is going to be what we can do about motherhood, ADHD and mum rage.

What practical strategies can we put into place right now to make some positive changes? A lot of the listeners struggle with explosive frustration, sensory overload, and the shame spiral that follows. A lot of women have written in many, many times, desperate for answers beyond the usual, just regulate your emotions.

So I brought in Dr. Jacinta Thompson to talk about this episode with why mum rage happens and how it impacts us.

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Jane McFadden:
So the background to this episode is that I have wanted to tackle an episode on motherhood, ADHD and rage for a long time. I get so many emails, DMs from listeners who are saying that they are struggling with explosive frustration, sensory overload, and the shame spiral that follows.

If you have not listened to the episode with sensory overload with Rebecca Torpey, that would probably be the only episode that would rival in popularity Jacinta’s episode on autistic and ADHD traits. Rebecca caught me on a day that I was really, really down, and we went to some deep, dark places around sensory overload, default parenting, and mental load.

So that is a good episode to segue to after this one. But those two episodes are so popular because a lot of the listeners are desperate for answers beyond the usual advice.

So when Jacinta emailed me, I immediately emailed back and said, Jacinta, if possible, would you be willing to tackle this topic? Because she is a perfect person to have this conversation with, because she has both lived experience and also clinical expertise.

So here we go, Jacinta. Let’s go to the buildup, to the rage. Because it’s not for me and most women, I don’t think I’m really happy and then boom, I’m not. I’m in complete rage. It’s usually that buildup, those micro moments.

What are some of the early warning signs that a mum might be about to hit breaking point?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:
This is obviously different for everyone. Personally, I like to try and keep track of my arousal levels as basically how activated my central nervous system is or how flooded I am with stress hormones at any point in time. So trying to think about this almost like a thermometer or a rating scale out of 10.

So zero is totally relaxed, it’s catatonic, and 10 is breaking point. I know there’s some very overt signals for me that I’ve hit 10 out of 10. It might be screaming, it’s swearing, it’s threatening, it’s my body’s trembling and I’m sweating.

I have the sort of urges that maybe I want to hit something or just grab my passport and book the next one-way flight to Cancun. So obviously, we want to be trying to build that sort of mindfulness in catching ourselves when we’re climbing on that scale. So when we get into a seven, an eight and a nine, if we can pick up on those early warning signs, that means we’ve got a before we hit 10 and we explode.

So like you said before, some of the biggest early warning signs could be associated with those sensory sensitivities. So they start to become sort of louder or more distracting or more distressing.

It could be things like background chatter, clingy kids, noticing the grit under your feet after the dog’s just walked in from the mud, maybe your partner’s breathing too loudly next to you in the kitchen or even noticing the underwire in your bra starting to cut in uncomfortably.

So it’s when those sort of sensory sensitivities start to get, I guess, sort of louder and you can’t focus on what you’re doing around them, that’s usually a pretty good indication that you’re starting to climb on that thermometer.

There’s also just general sense of emotional flooding. So when you feel like everyone’s needs and demands are just crashing over you like a tidal wave and your brain can’t seem to formulate a plan to tackle all those tasks ahead of you.

So I guess that’s that sort of executive dysfunction that us ADHDers struggle with most of the time. But if you start to notice, okay, I’ve got all the ingredients for dinner out on the bench in front of me, but I can’t figure out where to start. And if that’s something that maybe you normally can do then there’s probably an indicator there that executive functioning system in your brain is starting to get overloaded and you’re climbing on that scale.

There’s also increased self-criticism. So that self-talk in your head might be getting a bit meaner. You might be having thoughts like, you know, why can’t I handle this? Other mums seem to manage.

Why can’t I just stay calm? Why can’t I get things right? What’s wrong with me? That self-talk piece can both be a trigger for making us more distressed, but it can also be that like a side effect or a signal as we’re climbing that scale towards breaking point.

Maybe you’re someone who actually shuts down or starts to avoid things. That could be a belly warning sign for you. So more zoning out or doom scrolling, you know, instead of doing the thing that you’re supposed to be doing at that point in time. Or disappearing to the bathroom for, you know, just for five minutes that actually turns into an hour or three.

Physical tension. This is something that’s really important for all of us to try and keep track of because I think when you’re neurodivergent, a lot of us have those differences in our interceptive processing or experience of those sensations in our body. Some people are like hyper-attuned to noticing those sensations and some people it actually takes a lot more conscious sort of awareness to pick up on some of those changes.

So you might be noticing things like your jaw’s getting really sore because he’s clenching your teeth or trying to bite your tongue from saying something that you might regret. You might notice that there’s like tension in your neck or your shoulders, like maybe your shoulders are getting tighter and moving up towards your ears.

You might be sighing really badly or even holding your breath without realizing it. So all of these physical sensations are signs that fight-flight stress response in the body is really engaging and escalating up that thermometer.

The next one is something that I’ve become very aware of in myself in the last couple of years and it’s a sense of like feeling trapped. Like you’re stuck in an overwhelming situation or environment. And again, this is usually when you’re managing the kids at home and it’s switching hour and you’re trying to juggle the laundry and getting some dino nuggets in the oven, whatever it is.

And all of a sudden I start to notice almost like this panic of I feel trapped. Like there’s no way out of this moment or this life. There’s no break. I feel like there’s no help. There’s no space.

And those thoughts aren’t necessarily true for me. But in that moment, it all just feels like this endless, exhausting, infuriating, thankless loop. And when I start to notice that sort of sense of feeling trapped, that’s a pretty clear indicator for me personally that I’m at a nine. I’m almost at breaking point and I’ve got to intervene or find some strategy to put in place pretty quickly or I will hit that 10 and I will rage.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I hope there’s a couple of these, I guess, early signs or experiences that you might notice in yourself.

And it’s just about, I guess, building that curiosity and that mindfulness of tracking for yourself. Where am I at? And what are those symptoms or struggles that you can sort of match up when I’m at a seven, when I’m an eight, when I’m at nine?

So all of that gives you that self-awareness to then be able to press pause and do something to try and downregulate your nervous system before you’re at a 10.

Jane McFadden:
Oh, I think hearing you talk about those points, it really shows me the power of having somebody on this podcast and also somebody delivering assessments and therapy who has both lived experience and clinical experience.

Because all of your points were like, I was reading them and I was like, that’s my biggest one. No, that one is my biggest one. So I think everyone will relate to those points. You’ve done a great job putting them together.

The only thing I was going to add as examples, but let me know if they don’t go here, was I noticed, particularly with this last one, I think feeling trapped is like, oh, it’s just bang on. Because sometimes you feel okay. And then other times you think, well, I think I have to do this for another 10 years. I can’t do this for another 10 years. I’m so over this.

I need help. And I get, I feel extremely depressed. Like I just want to drive to the international airport and leave these people behind. I don’t even know if I like these people anymore. I think I may be better off in another country alone. Like, you know, you start to really spiral.

At that point, my husband will usually say to me very nicely, are you okay? And that he comes from a nice place and he’s a good man. He’s a great husband. So it’s not about him.

I just want to reach across and strangle him because I feel like there is nowhere to put all of these feelings. I can’t offload at my kids. There’s nobody else here. And I start to feel like it’s all his fault.

That is a real like trigger for me when I start to spiral. And then he talks to me in a nice way, trying to check in on me. And I want to rip his head off. That for me is a real sign that I am spiraling hard because he’s the same person he was an hour ago. He’s asked me nicely and I have a physical need to hurt him at that point.

Like I’m so angry at him for absolutely nothing that he’s doing. But it feels like if he had have done that differently 10 minutes ago, that would have been the whole change, the whole afternoon. It’s like this blame that I just want to like bang onto somebody else.

And I notice that that is a real point for me where I want to blame whoever’s around. Well, it’s only my husband, really poor man.

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Jane McFadden:

And I think that ties into another really important point in recognizing that anger in and of itself as sort of a very natural reaction to things that aren’t going right or boundaries that have been crossed or when we’re overloaded. But often it’s also as it can be a secondary emotional reaction. I don’t know if you can Google it. There’s lots of images online, like an anger iceberg.

And it shows examples of when it looks like we’re angry or we’re blaming or we’re projecting on others or the printer wouldn’t work and fk the printer and like fking printers. Anyway, it can sort of like peel back and say, well, maybe there’s something deeper and even more vulnerable that we’re sort of coping via or expressing that as anger.

So, an example here is like that feeling overwhelmed and feeling so trapped and feeling helpless and this is coming out as anger and snapping at your husband, but perhaps like underneath that is a sense of like overwhelm or helplessness or hopelessness or despair, even dread. They’re really, really, really heavy and hard feelings to sit with, especially when you’re in just the chaos of that home environment at that point in time. So, it feels in a way almost like easier to just throw that out there as anger than to be able to stop and go actually, far out, like I’m feeling completely helpless right now and I just can’t cope with the demands of this life.

And you might not be able to do that in that moment, but again, if you’ve got a partner who can sort of hold space, seeing the anger, the bit above the water and not taking it personally and then finding another time to circle back and just be curious about some of those sort of triggering or primary emotions that were maybe underlying that experience for you in that moment. And that’s, we need a lot of compassion, a lot of support. We need to work through those deeper feelings in healthy ways too.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah. Oh, I think that’s great. I’ve only got one more extra one I was going to add in. Again, tell me if it doesn’t go here. I noticed, was it yesterday or the day before, I got really, really, really upset about something. I was really worried about something and I just spiralled hard and quick. And it was like the final thing, you know, the final thing that all you need is, and I just like just got so in my head and so spiralled into a really depressed, bad place. My response to that was to get everything inside the house that needed to go to Lifeline, which was everything at that point, right? Like I was ruthless.

And then I started like stress cleaning the garage and I noticed it was a real control element. Like what can I do productivity and control wise? And it was almost trying to make myself feel better. Like I can control this even though it was unrelated to the thing I was worried about. Does that go in here?

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. So that’s actually something I was going to talk about a bit later, and that’s trying to find behavioural strategies that help you. We call it like completing a stress cycle. So if you’re climbing that scale, you’re at nine, you’re at a 10, you’ve got so much pent up rage, that’s this like physical energy that you need to get out of your system. So stress cleaning or rage cleaning or organising or washing the car or whatever it is, mowing the lawn even, they are really adaptive strategies for trying to process and release some of that steam. Like a pressure cooker, if it doesn’t come out in one way, then it’s just going to boil and boil and boil until it’s the next kid that comes up and asks you what’s for dinner.

And that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. That’s just the point of explosion. So I think that’s going to be really healthy.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Oh, well, I appreciate that because I was like, cry, stress, cleaning in the garage. Hubby comes in as only he can do and said, although he’s gotten a bit better because a few years ago, I feel like he would have come in and asked what was for dinner. He’s really improved because he opened the door and I’ve trained him, not trained him, that sounds awful, but sometimes he’s confused what to say. So I’ve said to him, if you don’t know what to say, saying nothing does not help me because I think you don’t care. Just ask, is there anything I can do to help? Just go with that, always generic.

So he opens the door, goes, is there anything that I can help with? And I said to him, keep the kids away from me. I’m cleaning the garage. And he goes, I don’t think you really need to clean it. Like, should you go for a walk or something? And I was like, go away. And he’s like, okay, cool. No worries. So I might let him know that Dr. Jacinta Thompson has told me I can stress clean whenever I want.

Jane McFadden:

I think the communication you’ve set up there is amazing as well, because often it can just be extra triggering if you know that you’re at a nine and someone comes up and you’re like, well, what’s wrong, you know, or it’s not that bad. Or yeah, like, when are we doing the groceries? That’s enough to take you over the edge. I’ve actually coached my husband to do exactly the same thing. So his gentle cue to me, if he’s noticing me climb and not coping, or I’m doing some other sort of repetitive routine, self-regulatory behaviour. Is there anything I can do to support you in this moment? Same thing. There’s no judgement behind it. There’s no tone. It’s just that gentle offer or support. And it’s a cue for me as well, so that I will then check in at, you know, where am I at a 10 and is what I’m currently doing enough to help me move through this heightened arousal? Or do I need to add something in or, you know, try something different?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah, I love that. A bit of gentle coaching to a partner, I think, goes a long way. I used to have it in my mind that if I coached him and then he said the line, it meant like that it wasn’t meaningful. But then I’ve reframed it because I’m like, he just doesn’t know what to say. And actually in that moment, if you say it in a nice tone, it doesn’t even register to me that I’ve coached him. Yeah. And I think we’re always coaching each other. It’s not a negative thing. It’s just getting better and expressing our needs and more nuanced needs in helping us through these really challenging emotional states. And like we’re talking about anger here, again, it would be understandable if a partner doesn’t know what to say or how to support us in anger because we don’t have this like societal narrative around anger being normal and okay and acceptable if we deal with it in adaptive ways.

Jane McFadden:

I’ll add just one thing before we move on. A couple of years ago, my hubby used to say, and it’s not malicious, it’s just, you know, oblivious, it would be the word I would use. If I would have a bit of a whinge about one of the kids or something or say I’d had enough and I was over and I was exhausted, he’d go, well, I mean, you wanted to have three, just like brain explode me. So, it is good to coach in those moments. If there’s things that they say that are not helpful and they don’t realise, sometimes it’s best just to let them know. Let’s come back to that a bit later when we talk about a cognitive strategy for managing an anger response because I feel like we can use that and tweak that and reframe it in a much better way. All right, let’s move on.

So, what role does sensory overload play in all of this? For example, I’m fine and then the child whinges, the loud noises, the lunch box, the dog barking, the lawnmower going, and then you’re like, boom, I’m exploding now. As you’ve talked about in previous episodes, sensory overload is often a silent instigator of a rage explosion, definitely is for me and a lot of the mums that I work with, parents that I work with in general.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

It can build up really insidiously, like in the background, layer by layer until it feels like it’s one tiny thing that just tips you over the edge, but you get to that 10 and you want to, you know, burn the house down and head off to Cancun. So, when we try to reflect on, I guess, this sort of sensory overload and how does that build up, take a look at your entire day before that point, if not the entire week, it may be that the day before you had to work from the office and maybe work in an open plan office where the whole day you’re trying to focus on your task while there’s lots of background chatter and that uses so many, you know, spoons or cognitive attentional resources to try and perform above all that distraction. Or it may be something that day the kids are screaming in the car on the way home, or your air con’s broken and you’re just extra hot by the time you walk in the door.

So then, you know, I’m fine, I’m just agitated, I’m a bit sweaty. As you say, it might be the kids start whinging, you feel like, oh, it’s mildly annoying but manageable. But then someone turns the TV on and it’s on 48 volume, my son loves to do that, and then your husband being helpful, he’s washing up the dishes, they’ve been there for three days, but they’re clanking in the sink and then all of a sudden you feel like every noise is just like an assault on your brain.

And then kids being kids, one of them might come up to you and want to cuddle and it’s in our rational brain, we might think, okay, that’s an attachment behaviour that I’d like to be able to lean into, but maybe they grab you sort of unexpected and it feels like your skin’s on fire. And then next door neighbour’s dog starts barking or a baby cries, or it’s just the general mental load and someone’s saying, well, you know, run out of clean school uniforms. So boom, it’s like that ball bone rage.

So for neurodivergent mums, this sensory overload, it’s more than just annoying, it’s actually the brain’s alarm system getting triggered into that fight or flight state by too much input. So when we’re flooded with stress signals, it makes it pretty much impossible to stay calm and think clearly. So this is, again, comes back to why it’s really important to like have a good understanding of what your sensory triggers are, what those aversions are.

And as you’re trying to keep track of where you are in that thermometer day to day, it’s incorporating all these things that I know to be struggles for me in terms of sensory input. Like I’ve just had them building up, building up this week and I’m getting to that point where I just need to step out, you know, go and spend some time in a quiet, dark room, if that’s something you can access and have support to access. Otherwise that sensory input is just going to keep building up until we are exploding or it’s a meltdown or a shutdown.

And this isn’t fault of ours. This isn’t being hysterical. It’s literally that our brain and body simply cannot process that much sensory input.

Jane McFadden:

I love this because I noticed yesterday, because I knew that we were doing this episode today, that I’m pretty aware, not perfect, pretty aware with each of my children what their escalation looks like. And I’m pretty good at putting strategies in place with them. I don’t get it right every time, but I’m getting better. However, I thought last night, because I knew we were doing this episode today, that I actually have no idea what my own personal triggers are and I have no stress management approach at all. All I know is that every now and again, I have to go for a walk and then sometimes I scream in my car or I rage clean. I would imagine that for mums, they’re going to have personal triggers.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah, definitely. And look, this comes back to this sort of socially prescribed narrative that we’re here to serve our children’s needs first and foremost. And if we can maybe have the energy at some point to check in with ourselves and that’s a bonus. But really, we should be tracking and managing our own sensory, emotional, cognitive needs, because being self-regulated is critical to them being able to offer that co-regulation for our children. So spending some time, whether that’s with a psychologist or there are some amazing online resources we can link to, to map out your own sensory profile and then experiment. What sorts of sensory tools, strategies, regulation needs that you have as a mum and keeping those as a priority. Like yesterday, I picked my son up from the grandparents who was sick and the whole way home, he was dysregulated. He was screeching as he does.

He flicks the door handle, thank goodness for child block. He flicks it, he bangs it over and over and over and over and he kicks the back of my seat. And that can take me from a three or a four, like I’ve had a great day at work, very quickly to a 10.

And obviously it’s not safe for me to be dysregulated and raging whilst I’m driving, especially with my child in the car. So I put my lubes in as well as my noise cancelling headphones over the top. And for me, that’s about reducing some of that overwhelming auditory input. And it actually, unfortunately makes him more distressed because he experiences that as me, he’s not getting the reaction from me that he’s seeking. But in that moment, I have to decide to prioritise what my nervous system needs to keep us safe until we get home. And then if I’ve got some wiggle room, you know, if I can keep myself at a seven or an eight out of 10, then I can focus on that co-regulation with him.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, that’s tough. To be honest, the car, I would love to do a poll on Instagram. I probably should do it. On where you experience mum rage the most, I reckon the car would be very high on the top because I just so identify with that. There’s been so many times I’ve been driving with the kids, talking, screaming, fighting over the song, the music. And I’ve actually thought to myself, how many mums have a car accident because of the amount of shit they’re going through inside that car that they just can’t even focus on what they’re doing?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah. There’s actually been quite a few times that I have chosen to pull over when my kids are fighting in the backseat or, you know, throwing things at me while I’m driving, like spitting and, you know, all sorts of really challenging behaviours. And I am aware that I cannot focus on the driving safely enough to continue. So I have to pull over, try and manage that situation before I can drive again. I mean, that, again, like this reflects the disability associated with living with a neurodivergent brain. These everyday sorts of tasks and demands can be just so much harder to manage. And so now I do keep a pair of loops in my car at all times. And if I’ve got my noise cancelling as well in my handbag, then I don’t usually have to pull over anymore. I can put those in and that take, you know, buffers the intensity of those sorts of sensory triggers for me just enough to get home.

Jane McFadden:

So can we rewire our rage response then?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah, we can rewire our rage response, but it’s important to recognise, like we said before, that anger and rage are completely normal and natural human emotions, especially for parents and especially for us mums fighting the damn patriarchy. So feeling angry doesn’t make us bad or unfit. It makes us human. And in fact, rage, as we said before, can be a healthy signal that something’s not right and requires immediate attention. So the important thing is to learn how to manage anger and rage so it doesn’t control us. Through neuroplasticity, the brain can adapt and form new habits over time. So if we can do this work around recognising our early signs of overwhelm, allowing space to experience anger without shame, we can definitely create healthier responses and habits. So it’s like retraining a muscle. It’s important to be consistent, but we don’t need to be perfect. And the more that we practise, the easier it gets.

Jane McFadden:

Sorry, I’m having a bit of a giggle because the next question is, what is the best way to model emotional regulation when we struggle with it ourselves? And I just had this whole moment of a giggle of like blind leading the blind. My children need some work on emotional regulation, as most children do. However, I also need some help with emotional regulation. So it’s difficult for me to model that because I’m not even looking at my own personal triggers. So I just had a small giggle laugh inside my brain for a second there. But anyway, that is the question, Jacinta.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

It is the blind leading the blind. You know, having emotional regulation challenges is a core experience of being an ADHDer. But let’s remember this isn’t about being perfect or having all the skills or all the tools and knowing exactly when and how to apply them effectively. It’s just about showing your kids that it is okay to have big feelings and we can experiment with ways of working through them together. So I find that one of the best ways of modeling that awareness is just like speaking our feelings out loud. It’s sort of that commentary. I’m feeling really frustrated right now because I can’t find my keys for the fifth time today. Or I’m upset because with all this noise, I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. So when we put words to it, we help our kids understand that our emotions are natural.

It also gives them context. So they’re not just assuming that, you know, they’re the cause of our distress. Although they’re often a large part of it. But we’re showing them that they can be managed, even if they feel completely insurmountable at that moment. And it’s okay as well, then speak out loud, tell them what you’re doing to try and manage those feelings. And maybe you’re saying, I need to step away for a minute and take a breath. Or I’m going to go do some rage cleaning in the garage for 15 minutes and I’ll be back. And just normalising that.

Jane McFadden:

I really liked that. One thing I’ve been doing lately, which I think works, which is related, is when I ask my kids to do something in the morning and they say, Oh, not right now, I’m going to come back to it. And you just know they’re not going to, it’s important. So let’s say for example, this morning, it was the library bag. And I said, it’s library today. You need to make sure you find your books and put your folder in the bag. And it’s like, everyone’s ignoring me. And then I ended up actually having to say to my daughter, who’s nine, when I ask you to do something and you don’t do it, it’s so hard on my brain to then have to re-remember it again. And that’s the reason I get frustrated. And so that’s why I want you to do it straight away because it’s so hard for me to then remember again, and then you don’t have your library stuff. And it was really good because she actually said, Oh, Oh, I didn’t realise that. Okay. And it seemed to get a bit of a better response.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

So I love the way that you are just expressing verbally very simply what you were feeling. It’s just, it’s just giving them your own rationale, but for most of us neurodivergent folk, and maybe this is a global thing, if we can understand the why, then everything else seems to like slot into place a bit more smoothly. So you’re explaining the why, and that’s some really beautiful emotion coaching as well. But I actually was thinking then, does she actually have her library bag? Unsure. Anyway.

Jane McFadden:

Okay. So what is the role in the way that mums tend to just suppress emotions? Like how does that then connect to the rage that we experience?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah. And we go to partly blame the patriarchy again here. But also if you grew up in a family or culture where expressing big emotions, especially anger, was frowned upon, then you likely learned early on that showing those feelings wasn’t like acceptable or even safe. So in these kinds of environments where emotions were stifled or punished, that leads children to just sort of develop like emotional suppression as a coping mechanism or a survival strategy. As kids, we need to do what we need to do essentially to survive our environment. So if that means bottling up anger and frustration because expressing it might lead to negative consequences like punishment or rejection, then that’s what you have to do.

So for ADHD mums, this emotional expression can get even more complicated if we’re pushing down feelings of anger, overwhelm, frustration, those sensory irritations, and thinking that if we just ignore them for long enough, they’ll go away. They don’t. It just creates an emotional pressure cooker that eventually will boil over. You will climb that seven, eight, nine, you will hit 10, and it will come out in some way. That’s where the rage comes in. It’s not that we’re out of control or irrational. It’s simply that all of that suppressed emotion has no other way of escaping.

Jane McFadden:

Okay. So let’s say after suppressing emotion, which I so relate to, suppressing it, suppressing it, pushing it down, eventually something boils over. Then I feel like as soon as that happens, I immediately go into shame. I’m not good enough. I should be able to do this. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone’s got their own similar but different recipe of shame. Why do we do the whole shame spiralling thing after?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah, I think it comes back to this cultural narrative of if we’re carrying around this delusion that mothers should be inherently and endlessly calm, patient saints, like 24-7, the moment you blow your top, which you will, you probably feel like you’ve just irreparably shattered your child’s self-esteem, wrecked their entire life, and single-handedly betrayed all of womankind, just a typical Tuesday. Then obviously the more times you go through this rage and shame spiral, those connections in your brain get really deeply hardwired. It’s almost become this natural sequel of thoughts and beliefs and then feelings and sensations and coping behaviours that then just happen over and over and over again.

Jane McFadden:

That makes sense. Then I would imagine as part of that cycle, you may go into then that toxic positivity afterwards, where you’re making up for it or because of what you’ve done before.

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Yeah, that’s a bit of a dangerous overcompensatory response because that can actually make our kids quite confused. If they’ve just seen mum really angry and upset and then coming back and almost trying too hard to alleviate their guilt or their shame, you don’t need to do that. All you need to do is, again, just acknowledge and take accountability for the way that you behaved, if you feel like it was scary or dangerous in any way for the child. Just saying, okay, I’m sorry that I yelled at you or I swore at you. Put that rationale or that context there for the child. I’ve lost my keys for the fifth time today and it actually was not your fault and I’m sorry I took it out on you and I’m going to try better next time. That’s what we need to do. That’s just repairing the rupture and we move on.

Jane McFadden:

Thanks so much, Jacinta. That makes complete sense. It sounds like when you acknowledge the feelings out loud, like I felt enraged, I was frustrated, it goes a long way to really, would it be reducing emotion or reducing the rage? Is that part of it?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

There’s a theory that has a strong empirical backing. You might have heard of it. You name it to tame it. When we’re in a really heightened emotional state, some fight-flight response, if we can actually identify and articulate the feeling that goes with it, it does actually, it brings our prefrontal cortex, like our thinking brain, back online and it does actually settle that alarm system. It can actually soothe some of the intensity of that anger or rage.

Jane McFadden:

That’s a great point. One final thing before we finish up, I always get so many light bulb moments when I speak to you. One thing I just thought of then that you said was validating it and acknowledging the emotion really goes a long way. Isn’t it interesting that I find that I can do that with my kids? I’ll go, oh, that must be really hard. I’ve really pushed myself to do that with my partner, with some family, but yet the validation piece for myself, I don’t do. Then I wondered then, is that why this podcast has become so popular? Because it’s that validating experience where people are listening to others. They’re going, yeah, this is hard. They’re getting that piece externally to really, I suppose, improve their own mental health. What are your thoughts around that?

Dr. Jacinta Thompson:

Absolutely. That is acknowledgement. That’s validation. That’s also normalising. In this particular episode, we’re normalising the experience of anger and rage. Hopefully all mums and parents listening to this who experienced those really difficult feelings know that they’re not alone. It is healthy. It is good to talk about it, to acknowledge it. Like we’ve discussed already, it’s about how you work through those feelings that can make a big difference.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, I love it. Okay. I am pumped to go to part two, but I’m going to hold back because we need to release that with the next episode. I can’t wait to get to the strategies next. Listeners, if you’ve loved this episode, please send me a message and tell us how much you loved it. If you’d like to check out Dr. Jacinta Thompson, you can on her website, which is going to be listed in the show notes. She does assessments and therapy on the Sunshine Coast for adults. She is incredible. I cannot recommend her highly enough. We’re going to catch up with Jacinta for part two of this motherhood rage series. Thank you so much for listening. The key message here is you are not alone. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us on Instagram or head over and join our amazing ADHD Mums Podcast Facebook community. Everything you do matters and helps to spread the word about what neurodiversity in females looks like.