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She mentioned a friend called Kel. That was it. That was the whole thing. Twelve seconds, and you'd filed her under no vacancy, decided your kids didn't match, and worked out she already had a Tuesday person. Then the term ended and you didn't sign up again, and she probably has no idea any of it happened. This episode is about the forecast you make in the first few seconds, and whether it was ever true. Related Episodes Every RSD episode in one place → https://tr.ee/RSD Navigating School Pick-Up & Social Settings — how ADHD and autistic mums read social situations, how neurotypical people do, and how to bridge the gap → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/surviving-school-pick-up/ 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

Nine good comments in the performance review. One 'area for growth'. Three days later you can still quote the one, word for word. You couldn't name a single one of the nine. That's ADHD rejection sensitivity, and the usual fixes don't touch it. Don't take it personally. Keep a praise folder. You've tried. There's a reason the nine never land, and it's not that you're too sensitive. More episodes on RSD If this one hits, listen next: Why You Can't Accept Kindness: Masking, Surface Acting and the Wall That Blocks Love In Free Resources Available here References Mylett et al. (2026). Social camouflaging in adults with ADHD. Research in Neurodiversity. McKinney et al. (2024). Camouflaging in neurodivergent and neurotypical girls. JCPP Advances. Wicherkiewicz & Gambin (2024). Camouflaging, life satisfaction and depression in women with ADHD. J Autism Dev Disord. Swann, De La Ronde & Hixon (1994). Authenticity and positivity in marriage and courtship. JPSP. Kwang & Swann (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? PSPR. 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You did Pilates every week for a year. Then you bought the reformer so you'd never have to drive there again. You haven't done Pilates since. Now there's a new idea that won't leave you alone, and it feels exactly like the last one did on day one. So how do you know if this one's real? That's the ADHD hyperfocus question a listener sent in. She's been a teacher for 27 years. For the last few years something's been building in her: she wants to start a neurodivergent-affirming school. She's even gathered a small group who want in. But she's asking whether it's her real direction, or just another collection of ADHD ideas. I didn't feel qualified to answer that. I've moved house more times than I'd like to admit, and I once had a magnificent pros and cons list for a move to acreage. Every reason on it was true. Two years later, we're moving back to the beach. So I went looking for a better way to tell a hyperfocus from a real passion than checking how strongly you feel it. The feeling is where most of us go first. It's also the one thing that can't give you the answer. There's the graveyard of hyperfocuses: the garden beds, the online course with no modules done, the podcast that got two episodes. Most of us read that pile as a verdict on our character. It might be the most useful data you've got. Then there's the advice ADHDers get about new ideas, like 'finish what you start before you start something new'. That one was never going to work for a brain that makes this many ideas. And there are three tests to try before you quit the job, or buy the gear. Related episodes: When You Keep Starting the Same Thing – And It Never Gets FinishedTis the Season to Overspend: ADHD Mum vs. Impulse Shopping Free guides: I gave away 16 guides I used to charge for. Grab the one that fits at adhdmums.com.au/resources 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox References Hoogman M, Stolte M, Baas M, Kroesbergen E. Creativity and ADHD: a review of behavioral studies, the effect of psychostimulants and neural underpinnings. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2020.White HA, Shah P. Uninhibited imaginations: creativity in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 2006. Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You rolled forty identical socks into pairs the night before your mum arrived. Then unrolled them all on Monday. The hack works. It's worked for six months. So why does it feel like you're getting away with something? This Mum Hacks starts with a voice memo about forty pairs of identical white socks and ends with a confession about mine. In between: the two piles every objection from your inner critic falls into, the one question that sorts them, and why a sociologist would say you might be running your whole house like the guest toilet. More mum hacks: The Mum Hacks collection Free guides and printables: ADHD Mums free resources References Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor Books. 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

A nurse who gives out meds all day found May's script in her glove box in July. Still in the chemist bag. She bought the pill box with the days on the lid. Put it next to the toothbrush, like everyone says. It worked for two weeks. Then one morning she looked straight at it, and she was already in the car. The verdict she landed on: careless with the thing that matters most. It might not be that. Your brain files anything that never moves as background. The fridge humming. The shirt on your back. The pill box that's sat by the toothbrush for a fortnight. The filter doesn't check how much something matters. It only checks whether it changed since yesterday. This Mum Hacks episode is about why 'next to' fades, why 'in the way' doesn't, and a quick check for when a hack that was working quietly stops. Related Episodes QUICK RESET: The Hallway Hook That Saved My Sanity → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-38-quick-reset-the-hallway-hook-that-saved-my-sanity/ Mum Hacks: 'I Wasn't Consistent Enough.' It Lasted Eight Months. → https://tr.ee/baskets All the QUICK RESET episodes → https://tr.ee/quickreset All the ADHD medication episodes → https://tr.ee/medication Resources A Guide to ADHD Medication → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/a-guide-to-adhd-medication/ ADHD Mums free resources → https://adhdmums.com.au/product-category/free-resources/ 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

Have you ever fought for years — the waitlist, the referrals, the appointments where nobody believed you — finally got the diagnosis, and then sat in the aftermath feeling nothing? Have you ever had everyone around you exhale and tell you how relieved you must be, while you felt flat, wrung out, and grieving something you couldn't even name — and then guilty, because didn't you get exactly what you asked for? You're not ungrateful and you're not doing it wrong. There's a real thing that happens after the diagnosis you fought for, and almost nobody warns you it's coming. Erica Lee sat in it for nine years and wrote it down. About the Guest Erica Lee is a Western Australian educator and mother of two neurodivergent children. She's written a memoir about parenting through diagnosis, advocacy, and the emotional adjustment that follows — the flatness, the grief, and the fight that doesn't end at the answer. She speaks candidly about what motherhood actually looks like when the expectations shift and the support systems get tested. Find Erica Lee’s memoir, The Bond Between Us - https://hawkeyebooks.com.au/products/the-bond-between-us-a-mother-s-journey-raising-two-neurodivergent-hearts Website: https://www.ericalee.com.au/ Instagram: @ericalee_writes. 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

Have you ever found the old laundry basket in the garage, full of paint tins, and couldn't say when it stopped being the laundry basket? Have you ever said 'I fell off the wagon' about towels? You keep a list of every system that stopped. This short episode is about what that list is actually recording — and the one question to run on any hack before it goes on there. Related Episodes QUICK RESET: The Hallway Hook That Saved My Sanity → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-38-quick-reset-the-hallway-hook-that-saved-my-sanity/ All the QUICK RESET episodes → https://tr.ee/quickreset Free resources ADHD Mums free resources → https://adhdmums.com.au/product-category/free-resources/ Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You packed it at 7am. The safe food, the same as always, because the sandwich comes home untouched and it feels like putting money in the bin. At 3:30 you open the lunchbox and it's exactly as you packed it. You've been told to hide the vegetables, stop making separate meals, she'll eat when she's hungry. None of it has worked. Dr Rachel Zabel says the question every parent walks in with — how do I get her to eat — is the wrong end of the problem. Related Episodes Could it be ARFID? Spotting the Signs + Why It's Not Just Fussy Eating — with Margo White → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-78-could-it-be-arfid-spotting-the-signs-why-its-not-just-fussy-eating-with-margo-white/ You've Tried Everything… They Still Won't Eat: Real Strategies for ARFID at Home → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-81-youve-tried-everything-they-still-wont-eat-real-strategies-for-arfid-at-home/ More from Dr Rachel Dr Rachel is a PhD qualified paediatric dietitian on a mission to change the way feeding support is delivered for neurodivergent families. After struggling with feeding in her own family, she developed a responsive feeding therapy framework and resources built for the way neurodivergent kids are wired. She mentors and trains other allied health therapists in the approach, and supports families directly from her practice in Moreton Bay, Queensland, and by telehealth. If you'd like to find out more about Rachel's Responsive Feeding approach — either for yourself or for your child's therapists — follow Rachel on social media or visit her website. Dr Rachel's Kitchen → https://www.drrachelskitchen.com.au Instagram → @dr.rachelskitchen → https://www.instagram.com/dr.rachelskitchen Mentioned in this episode Robyn Gobbel — the nervous-system approach that changed how Rachel understood feeding → https://robyngobbel.com/ Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

The whistle's gone, they've lost by three, and he's standing in the middle of the pitch with his socks down and his shin pads on the grass, not moving. He walks off past the handshake line, straight to you, face like thunder — they didn't pass to me, I could have won that — and he shoves your arm. And the two mums behind you stop talking. You already know what the sideline wants you to do. This episode is about what it costs when you do it, and what to do instead when you're standing there at 10am on a Saturday with everyone watching. Related Episodes Every parenting episode in one place → https://tr.ee/parenting Every RSD episode in one place → https://tr.ee/RSD Meltdown & Shutdown Guide — a printed guide for the meltdowns, the shutdowns, and the recovery this episode is about → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/navigating-meltdowns-strategies-for-parents/ Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — this exact situation comes up constantly in there → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast Send in a listener question — this episode came from one. WhatsApp 0403 457 313 → https://wa.me/61403457313 All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You're bendy. You get dizzy when you stand up. Your periods are heavy, the headaches are worse the week before, you're constipated, you're exhausted, and your mood falls off a cliff for a few days a month. Every one of those has been looked at on its own and waved off. Your bloods came back normal, so that was that. You probably don't have seven separate conditions. Dr Ceri Cashell is an Irish GP on Sydney's Northern Beaches who has spent her career on the part of medicine nobody was taught, and she starts this episode by explaining what fake nails have to do with any of it. Related Episodes Every Women's Health episode in one place → https://tr.ee/womenshealth Mentioned in this episode Healthy Hormones — the free national community Dr Cashell co-founded with Dr Emma Harvey. There's a medically moderated community for women, and a list of clinicians who've completed their extra menopause training → https://www.healthyhormones.au/welcome — Instagram @healthy_hormones Australian POTS Foundation — download the active stand test, and find POTS-aware practitioners → https://potsfoundation.org.au/ The Ehlers-Danlos Society — including the Beighton score, the basic hypermobility self-check → https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/ Dysautonomia International → https://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/ Dr Cashell's own books have been closed for a couple of years — Healthy Hormones is where to find a clinician. Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — the listener questions in this episode came from there → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 All the top rated episodes sorted by topic 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You were fine at 9am. Genuinely fine. Then it's school pickup, the gates open, there are dogs and toddlers and a teacher walking towards you, and one kid starts up with let's go to the park, let's go to the park. And you hear yourself snap at someone who did nothing wrong. You didn't ignore the warning signs. You weren't getting them. That's a different problem, and it needs a different fix. Related Episodes Every Mum Rage episode in one place — the collection Jane mentions in this episode → https://tr.ee/adhdmumsmumrage ADHD and Sensory Overwhelm: Identifying Triggers and Finding Relief — with Rebecca Torpie → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-13-adhd-sensory-overwhelm-identifying-triggers-and-finding-relief-with-rebecca-torpie/ Energy Accounting Guide (free) — the guide Jane mentions in this episode, for working out where your capacity actually goes → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/ Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group — where Jane runs body doubling sessions for the dreaded tasks → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast Instagram — body doubling also runs in the broadcast channel → https://www.instagram.com/adhd_mums/ All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

Have you ever been told your bloods are fine, it's just busy mum life, and walked out still dizzy, still flat, still carrying a headache you've had for so long you forgot it wasn't normal? Have you ever watched a friend do eight-hour days like it's nothing and quietly decided the difference must be you — that you're just weaker, and you need to suck it up? There's a reason your body keeps stopping after twenty years of pushing through. Bianca Comfort has lived it and treats it, and she says the crash isn't the failure. It's the last thing your body has left to tell you. RESOURCES & REFERENCES Free Resources ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit — for the burnout, the chronic symptoms, and the body-keeps-score part — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/ Energy Accounting Guide — the closest thing to the energy-mapping Bianca walks through — where your limit actually is — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/ Paid Resources ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — for mapping what fills the tank and what drains it — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/ ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/ Related Episodes Burnout, Pain & Weird Symptoms? The ADHD Link No One Told Us About — Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-62-burnout-pain-weird-symptoms-the-adhd-link-no-one-told-us-about/ ADHD and EDS/POTS: Vanessa's Journey Through Chronic Health Challenges — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-41-connection-between-adhd-eds-and-pots-vanessas-journey-through-chronic-health-challenges/ Preventing Burnout: The Power of Setting Boundaries — with Kara Lynch — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-adhd-autism-or-both-karas-story-of-burnout-and-sensory-overload/ When You Can't Relax Even When It's Quiet — What Your Body Is Doing and Why — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/why-adhd-mums-cant-relax/ Masking & ADHD — Jane — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/masking-adhd-s1-ep11/ Hypermobility, POTS and MCAS: The Conditions That Cluster With ADHD (with Dr Jason Lam) — https://adhdmums.com.au/episode/hypermobility-pots-mcas-adhd About the Guest Bianca Comfort is a clinical psychologist running a telehealth clinic dedicated to chronic illness and neurodivergence, and the former Vice President of the Australian Psychological Society. She's autistic and ADHD herself, and lives with EDS, POTS, MCAS and ME/CFS — she treats this from both sides of the desk. 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

Have you ever bought the perfect birthday present weeks early, felt properly pleased with yourself, and then lost it before the birthday? Filled in the form, folded the flap, put it somewhere safe on the Sunday — and by Wednesday it had gone? Renewed the passports early, put them in the safe place, and then had no idea where the safe place was? You've been told your problem is that you're disorganised. It isn't. There's a job that piece of paper was doing that nobody ever told you about, and every system you've ever bought only does half of it. Episode's Jane mentioned: ADHD Stress and Emotional Regulation: What Your Kids Noticed That You Didn't— the soccer photo envelope episode this one follows on from → https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/why-are-you-always-so-stressed-out-my-eight-year-old-asked-me-that-an-hour-after-i-called-myself-organised/ QUICK RESET: 'I'm Not Lazy — My House Just Doesn't Have a Memory' → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-49-quick-reset-im-not-lazy-my-house-just-doesnt-have-a-memory/ Free Resources: Household Family Meeting Template (free) → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/ Send Jane a voice memo — what did you do early that still disappeared? WhatsApp 0403 457 313 → https://wa.me/61403457313 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast Mentioned in this episode Barreau, D. & Nardi, B. (1995). Finding and reminding: File organization from the desktop. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 27(3), 39–43. All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

You might be the bendy one. Or the dizzy one, the one with the headaches that never really stop, the one who reacts to food nobody else reacts to. Tired in a way sleep doesn't fix. And every time you get to a GP, you can't quite land on the same page as them. Dr Jason Lam is a GP and sports medicine registrar who spends his days on the things that get missed — hypermobility, Ehlers-Danlos, POTS, MCAS, and the way they tangle together in a neurodivergent body. This is the episode that joins the dots nobody has joined for you. RESOURCES & REFERENCES Free Resources ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit (free) → https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/ Energy Accounting Guide — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/ Paid Resources ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/ Related Episodes ADHD and EDS/POTS: Vanessa's Journey Through Chronic Health Challenges → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-41-connection-between-adhd-eds-and-pots-vanessas-journey-through-chronic-health-challenges/ HORMONES: Histamine + Hormones — Why You Feel Like You're Falling Apart → https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-37-hormones-histamine-and-adhd-why-you-feel-like-youre-falling-apart/ About the Guest Looking for a practitioner? Dr Jason Lam points listeners to the practitioner registers at the Ehlers-Danlos Society and Connective Tissue Disorders Network Australia. Join the ADHD Mums Facebook group → https://facebook.com/groups/adhdmumspodcast More from Dr Jason Lam — https://www.thedancedr.com.au — Instagram @_thedancedr Dr Jason Lam — useful links and resources are on his website → https://www.thedancedr.com.au All episodes → https://adhdmums.captivate.fm/listen 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces

There's a mum at pickup you really like. Ninety seconds every afternoon, one of those chats where you both go 'yeah, exactly' — and then the kids spill out, someone's swinging a backpack like a helicopter, someone's demanding the petrol station, and you're pulled away before you can even say goodbye. And every day you get back to the car thinking: I should have her over. We should do a barbecue. I'd love to actually talk to her for more than ninety seconds. You got her number in January. It's the end of July. And you've made no progress at all. You've probably already filed that as proof you're flaky, cold, a bad friend. This episode is Jane taking that story apart — because the silence between you and someone you genuinely like usually isn't 'I don't want this.' It's 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with.' CHAPTERS 00:00 — Nat, the 90-second pickup chat, and the barbecue that never happens 02:29 — Got her number in January. It's July. No progress. 03:57 — 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' — the personality we build around it 05:33 — The executive-function tax on turning a pickup mum into a real friend 06:36 — It's not that you need to try harder. It might be the fuel tank. 07:13 — The mum with the same life who still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue 08:36 — Good girl conditioning: when friendship becomes your job to carry 10:45 — When you can't stand the silence — and what your brain files it as 12:09 — Why a late-diagnosed brain has had decades to build 'I ruin friendships' 14:31 — The flicker of energy, and the threat analysis that kills the text 15:54 — The heart-react as a hostage 'proof of life' photo 17:35 — Moving to acreage, and quietly deleting myself 18:43 — 'I want this, but I have no hands to build it with' 20:16 — Why 'just put yourself out there' aims you straight at burnout 22:11 — What actually works: the low-fuel, no-apology text 23:42 — Drop the bar. Plug a friend into the worst 40 minutes of your week. 26:28 — Maybe the skill isn't the barbecue. It's letting friendship be uneven. WHAT WE COVER The pickup mum you really like, the barbecue you keep meaning to have, and the seven months that have quietly gone by Why 'I'm flaky, I'm cold, I'm a bad friend' becomes a personality — and what it's actually covering for The hidden executive-function tax on turning a mum you like into a mum who's actually your friend: remembering, initiating, holding the plan, pushing through the 'what if it's awkward' Why the friend with the same number of kids and the same Saturday sport still hosts the perfect Sunday barbecue — and why it's not that she's better at friendship Good girl conditioning, and what happens when you learned early that friendship is your job to carry, keep alive, and never drop The other version — when you can't stand the silence, and your brain files 'haven't heard from them in ages' as danger The flicker of energy to send the text, and the threat analysis your brain runs to talk you out of it The heart-react on her story as a 'hostage proof of life' photo — I'm here, I'm fine, please don't give up on me Why 'put yourself out there, just make more effort, have them over' is telling you to spend the exact thing you've run out of What actually works with an empty tank: the low-fuel, no-apology text, dropping the bar, and letting the friendship be uneven and survive anyway FREE RESOURCES Energy Accounting Guide — mentioned in the episode — budget your energy for your real capacity, not what you think you should be doing — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/ Household Family Meeting Template — for the load underneath 'there are no leftovers' — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/ PAID RESOURCES ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/ RELATED EPISODES School Pick-Up Can Be Draining! How to Stop Overthinking & Save Your Social Energy — S2 EP65, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-65-school-pick-up-can-be-draining-how-to-stop-overthinking-save-your-social-energy/ QUICK RESET: I Cancel Plans Because I Don't Have the Energy to Fake My Personality — S3 EP14, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-14-quick-reset-i-cancel-plans-because-i-dont-have-the-energy-to-fake-my-personality/ You Were the Good Girl. That's Why You're Falling Apart Now. — S3 EP35, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/ Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/ 📬 Listener Questions & Community 🎙️ Ask a Listener Question (voice) Voice notes are preferred when possible — hearing your voice helps add context — but you’re very welcome to submit a written question instead. Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313 Send a SMS voice or written on 0403 457 313 👥 Join the ADHD Mums Facebook Group 👥 Receive the episodes in your inbox Mentioned in this episode: Give away bad for biz - free resources Free Resouces