April 15, 2025 • 14 mins
What happens when a high-achieving mum, running two businesses and parenting three kids, discovers that the chaos in her life isn’t just “normal”—it’s undiagnosed ADHD? In this powerful and relatable conversation, Justin chats with former psychologist and ADHD advocate Jane McFadden about her late diagnosis, parenting in a neurodiverse family, and why understanding is the first step towards connection.
KEY POINTS:
-
Jane McFadden was diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood—after years of burnout, high-functioning chaos, and parenting struggles.
-
ADHD can often be masked by achievement, especially in women.
-
Many children and adults use “scaffolding,” or complex routines, to hide difficulties with executive function.
-
Diagnosis isn’t about labels—it’s about understanding and unlocking connection.
-
Neurodiverse families can thrive when support and insight replace shame and confusion.
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
“If you don’t want to label your child, they’ll label themselves—and it’ll be far worse than any diagnosis.”
RESOURCES:
-
ADHD Mums podcast by Jane McFadden
-
Happy Families Membership – happyfamilies.com.au
- Help For the ADHD Parent [Article]
- Parenting ADHD [The Course]
- Parenting an ADHD Child [Article]
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS:
-
If you suspect neurodiversity in yourself or your child, seek a qualified assessment—it can offer clarity and hope.
-
Explore resources and communities like ADHD Mums to connect with others on a similar journey.
-
Approach parenting with empathy—ask your child why something is hard instead of assuming they’re being defiant.
-
Recognise the signs of burnout in yourself and prioritise support.
-
Focus on connection first—diagnosis is a tool to deepe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The ADHD experience is increasingly common and most people who
are either going through it themselves or dealing with children
who are diagnosed to finding a very very challenging Hello,
my name's doctor Justin Courson. Welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Today,
my guest is Jane McFadden, a former psychologist. After studying
psychology and starting out working as a psych Jane decided
to forge her own path. She wrote the first online
(00:28):
psychology program for veterans with PTSD in twenty nineteen, and
her business has grown into the largest psychology company in Australia.
Jane continued though a battle burnout, stress and anxiety until
she received an unexpected shock diagnosis of ADHD in twenty
twenty two, and all of a sudden everything made sense,
answered all the questions that she had about what was
(00:50):
going on with her, and ignited her passion to help
other women and girls avoid being misdiagnosed and wrongly medicated.
Jane found ADHD medication Life Chain. However, this medication unveiled
autistic traits that led to be diagnosed with autism in
twenty twenty four. Currently, Jane is studying a master's in
Child and Adolescent psychology to further understand your adversity and
(01:10):
began a podcast called ADHD Mums last year, which hit
number two in Australia in just a year. Now, Jane
works as a speaker an author of Neuroscientists in Neudiversity Specialists.
She lives on the Sunshine Coast, just down the road
from me actually, with a husband and three kids who
all also are neurodiverse, and Jane joins me on the
podcast today. Hey Jane, thanks so much for being here
to talk ADHD, ADHD Mums, ADHD families and your ADHD experience.
(01:35):
Really appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, thank you for having me justin. It's always been
a dream to come on here. I was actually one
of the first members of the Happy Family membership back
years ago.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I was in the first five.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That is that's really really great. I'm so glad that
we're going to have this conversation and I'm really delighted
that Happy Family has been a part of your life.
Tell me when it comes to near diversity lived experience,
actually having the diagnosis, having kids with diagnoses, what does
that feel like in a family of five where everyone
ticks at least one of those.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Boxes well, you know what.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
To be honest, I didn't realize it wasn't normal and
obviously normal as Air quoted, what's normal, Sure, but my
experience of the world was that that was normal behavior.
So we always arrived in chaos, but it was always
exciting and fun. And I didn't realize until my kids
got a little bit older that there was an issue.
(02:30):
What really broke the camel's back for me was I
was running two different businesses and my eldest child, who
has had just hit prep and we all know when
you have your oldest child hit prep, it's like nothing other.
It's you know, the uniform and you've got to be
there on time and you have to have all the things.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And it was the.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First time when I was standing around with all the
other mums that I thought, oh, I'm actually way off.
Like I've always been a bit different. I've always been
a bit much, but I've always made it work. And
I really couldn't make that prep experience work. And so
that was when I was like, actually, this is something
(03:10):
beyond me.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What's fascinating to me is you've got a psych degree,
you've practiced as a psychologist, and you missed it and
this is a story that I hear all the time.
We just kind of this is how I live, This
is who I am. My life philosophy has always been
bite off more than you can chew and make it
up as you go along. And that kind of fits
with that same kind of vibe. Right, this is just
(03:33):
who I am, This is just what I do. And
then somebody says, are you aware? What was it other
than the fact that your preppy was struggling and your
family did not feel like everyone else's as you were observing,
Was that the only thing that sort of set alarm
bells off for you? And when did you realize that
it was actually you?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
This is a funny one, actually.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So I was running to massive companies like massive, right,
I had three kIPS under five, and they were I
was having all the success in the world, career rise,
financial success, career success, and I was getting all the accolades,
which I've always received a lot of positive feedback for
my ADHD traits.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So again I just thought I was a go get up.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And can I just jump in here on this, Jane,
Because the whole idea of ADHD is it has to
interfere with functioning, right, otherwise you don't worry about the diagnosis.
If you can learn how to take those traits and
use them in adaptive ways, then you don't get a diagnosis.
You just a really high achiev or ago get it.
You're a type an I can conquer the world, do
everything kind of person.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Absolutely, And so the feedback and the image I was
putting on at the pickup was just this probably I
feel weird saying it, but probably a really great person
who seemed like she had it all together and seemed
very successful. The issue was that all the little things
were the problem. I didn't have the seesaw login, I
couldn't do the homework, I couldn't get her there on time.
(04:57):
I never could figure out the uniform. And it was
all the small things which I usually avoid. So I
just get other people to do them, right, like staff,
You get staff to do all that. But when it's
my child, I realized I actually cannot do this, Like
this is a problem for me.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Time to get a nanny.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Oh I dum my, hands on mom, my hands on mom.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's not the definition you totally with you, But yes,
a few people did say to me to just go
and get a nanny. I'm like, that's yeah, but I
have to learn, right, it's my oldest kid.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I've got three.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So in the background, I was having this huge battle
with burnout unsurprisingly right, and I was also, I'm going
to admit it, putting a lot of pressure back on
my husband because I would bite off more than I
can true, and then I would look to him to support, like, well,
where are you what are you doing? And I did
really have an expectation that he was going to pick
(05:48):
up the pieces and he wasn't doing that because, in
fairness to him, these were my choices I were making
and he's like, I'm not even in this thing. You know,
you're the one who stiff started to start a second company.
And so we went off to marriage counseling, and we
went off to marriage counseling.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
In my take on it was.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
He needs to he needs to put in, he needs
to do a bit more.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And anyway, we did marriage counseling for a little while
with a brilliant psychologist, and I was really kind of
expecting that he would say to my husband, Hey, you know,
maybe you could jump in a little bit more. And
I was really blown away when he wanted to pull
me in for individual because I was like, well, I'm
not the problem, Like I've brought him in, he's the problem.
(06:29):
And he really zoned in on me and said I
think you need to do some individuals and I was
like like, why, Look how great I am. And turns
out he had worked in an assessment clinic in Kabulcha
and after maybe another three or four sessions one on one,
he said to me, have you considered that you might
have ADHD? And I said, my brother has that. Actually
(06:51):
I definitely don't. And I was actually extremely offended because
I had it in my mind that was unsuccessful people
that couldn't achieve tasks. That's what I had in my mind,
and I had no concept that it could be different.
We went through the assessment criteria and I was saying
him every step of the way, no, I know exactly
where to be. I know exactly where to be, as
(07:13):
I'm saying, I know exactly where to be, and on
what day I've got it all down.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I never missed anything.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I have two phones on the table that are just
alarming reminders and this complex system and is like, do
you know what masking and camouflaging is? Because you are
off charts with some of your basically your scaffolding that
you're doing to mask all your symptoms, so he'd put
my phone away.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Just for people who are not familiar with the term masking, camouflaging, scaffolding,
can you step us through that, and then we'll go
back to the story masking.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And camouflaging with something I only learned off the psychologist.
So basically, it's things that you put into place for
yourself to mask your symptoms or cover them up so
you make it look like you've know exactly what's going on.
But underneath the hood there are so many complex systems.
For example, I cannot ever remember to return something to
(08:09):
somebody that I've borrowed, but I never want to give
the impression that once it comes into my house I
never return it, So I'll put it on the car
so then I can't forget it, or I'll put my
keys on top of something. I'll have lots of complex systems,
so I look ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's like a compensatory behavior so that you look and
the brilliance about it, I mean, some people would say, well,
isn't that just effective planning? Isn't that just making sure
that you know yourself well enough to know that you
have a certain weakness, and therefore you plan ahead to
make sure that that weakness doesn't undermine your ability to
function well. When we move into things like autism, masking
(08:48):
becomes a little bit more complex, doesn't it. Because you've
got kids who will cover up their psychological distress with
smiles and with happiness, and then they get home and
they absolutely collapse and fall apart. And say, with ADHD kids,
there's that level of masking where it's not just a
behavioral thing, but it's a psychological thing as well.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that was one of the things that
I think was difficult for me as well, walking into
prep and having to stand there with all the other
moms morning and afternoon, and everyone else seemed to enjoy it,
and I enjoyed it sometimes, but most of the time
I just dreaded it. I actually dreaded it. And these
people are lovely. Some of them must kill my friends.
(09:27):
This is not about them being judgy. This is just
about being I don't actually have the capacity to put
on this together front twice a day. Sometimes I can't
do it, and I would actually beg my husband to
go for me, and he'd be like why the people
are great. It's like they are great, but I can't
do it today.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I can't. I just and it was like this isological response.
I can't do that today. I just can't.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Jane, take me back into the office again with the psychologist.
You've been told that you're masking. You've been told that
you're doing all of these compensatory behaviors to make it
look like you've got it together, when really you're just
you're the proverbial duck looking calm on the top and
paddling like crazy out of the water. What happens Then
you're angry, you're upset. You think that he's kidding, but
(10:19):
there's a little alarm bell going off in your head
saying I think the sight's onto something.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
One of the things that I think is really interesting
is when parents say they don't want to diagnose the
child because you know, they want to label them or
hold them back, or you know, like kind of like
paint them with a brush of you know, ADHD or something.
But for me, when I agreed with him and I
could see what he was saying, I felt an enormous
relief because I had always wondered what's wrong with me,
(10:45):
Why am I so different? Why do I move states
every six months? Why do I go to Balley without
any means to return? Why do I make this crazy decisions?
Why do I open up airbnbs and get these big ideas?
And when he actually pointed it out to me, I
was so relieved because I'd been diagnosed with all kinds
of things over the last twenty five years. I started
(11:06):
a mental health battle when I was fourteen, and it
has been up and down the whole time. So when
he said that to me, I rang. My best friend
and her husband has ADHD and it has always had ADHD,
so since he was a child. And she said to me,
oh my god, that makes so much sense because it
was an answer for once, and there was hope, there
(11:29):
was medication, It wasn't. I was on this just like
kind of like mouse wheel, you know, where just where
you're going around and around around, doing the same thing
over and over, attempting to have boundaries, not being able
to do any of the therapeutic strategies as psychologists tells
you to do, not be able to ever figure out
the executive function.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And it felt like hope for the first time.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So Jane let me ask you when a parent and
you run a podcast and an Instagram and Facebook page
called ADHD mums, when a or a parent doesn't get
the help that they need, if they don't have the diagnosis,
if they don't see the reality that's right in front
of them, I guess that they're living with What are
(12:12):
the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Well, for me, I haven't met anybody, And as I said,
I run a very popular podcast. I haven't seen, heard
or received a message from one person that said that
they wished they didn't know, They wish their parents hadn't
told them. I've never ever seen that. And I think
if you don't want to label your child with anything
with any kind of diagnosis, they will know anyway, and
(12:37):
they will label themselves. And trust me, the label that
they give themselves will be worse than an actual label
with a diagnosis. For example, I'm not good enough, I'm stupid,
I need to focus more. I'm the problem as well.
If they're masking or camouflaging symptom or traits. For example,
let's say I've got a child that won't put on
(12:58):
their shoes. Now, my daughter in prayer, I spent nineteen
minutes putting on her shoes nine zero, and I had
no idea there was anything going on. So I'm just
going put your shoes on. Why is it so hard
telling her there was no issue. It was only after
she was diagnosed and I realized and I took the
time to sit with her and said, what is it
about your shoes? Like, explain it to me, like I
(13:18):
want to know. And she said, to me, it feels
like glass. It feels like hurting me. It feels like
I've got splinters. It's hurting me. I can't stop thinking
about it. It makes me cry. And when she broke
it down, I thought, oh my god, I can't even imagine.
I actually felt terrible for just ignoring her and actually
a major sensory issue that she has, which I should
(13:40):
have got the jetproof socks. I should have got more
help with this stuff, but I didn't know. So I
think the connection with my kids has absolutely changed since
we have all become diagnosed and given therapy. And it's
not about medication necessary, it's about understanding and connection, which
is why I continue to follow your podcast even when
(14:01):
we were all diagnosed justin because connection first is exactly
the same for any child that's near autivers or not,
it's still the first point for me.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Jane McFadden is a form of psychologist and euroscientist. She
is a mum of three and she runs the Facebook
page and Instagram page ADHD Mums, as well as the
podcast ADHD Mums. You can find out more about her there. Jane,
thanks so much for chatting. Great to hear about your
story and to I'm sure that there are so many
mums who have got either ADHD kids or have their
(14:30):
own lived experience of ADHD themselves who are listening to
this going yep, this is exactly what I needed to hear.
This is reassuring, this is comforting, this is kind of
my story. So appreciate you taking time out to have
a chat.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Thanks for having me, Justin.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
Bridge Media. If you'd like more information about making your
family happier, check out Happy Families dot com dot I
The ADHD experience is increasingly common and most people who
are either going through it themselves or dealing with children
who are diagnosed to finding a very very challenging Hello,
my name's doctor Justin Courson. Welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Today,
my guest is Jane McFadden, a former psychologist. After studying
psychology and starting out working as a psych Jane decided
to forge her own path. She wrote the first online
(00:28):
psychology program for veterans with PTSD in twenty nineteen, and
her business has grown into the largest psychology company in Australia.
Jane continued though a battle burnout, stress and anxiety until
she received an unexpected shock diagnosis of ADHD in twenty
twenty two, and all of a sudden everything made sense,
answered all the questions that she had about what was
(00:50):
going on with her, and ignited her passion to help
other women and girls avoid being misdiagnosed and wrongly medicated.
Jane found ADHD medication Life Chain. However, this medication unveiled
autistic traits that led to be diagnosed with autism in
twenty twenty four. Currently, Jane is studying a master's in
Child and Adolescent psychology to further understand your adversity and
(01:10):
began a podcast called ADHD Mums last year, which hit
number two in Australia in just a year. Now, Jane
works as a speaker an author of Neuroscientists in Neudiversity Specialists.
She lives on the Sunshine Coast, just down the road
from me actually, with a husband and three kids who
all also are neurodiverse, and Jane joins me on the
podcast today. Hey Jane, thanks so much for being here
to talk ADHD, ADHD Mums, ADHD families and your ADHD experience.
(01:35):
Really appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, thank you for having me justin. It's always been
a dream to come on here. I was actually one
of the first members of the Happy Family membership back
years ago.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
I was in the first five.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That is that's really really great. I'm so glad that
we're going to have this conversation and I'm really delighted
that Happy Family has been a part of your life.
Tell me when it comes to near diversity lived experience,
actually having the diagnosis, having kids with diagnoses, what does
that feel like in a family of five where everyone
ticks at least one of those.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Boxes well, you know what.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
To be honest, I didn't realize it wasn't normal and
obviously normal as Air quoted, what's normal, Sure, but my
experience of the world was that that was normal behavior.
So we always arrived in chaos, but it was always
exciting and fun. And I didn't realize until my kids
got a little bit older that there was an issue.
(02:30):
What really broke the camel's back for me was I
was running two different businesses and my eldest child, who
has had just hit prep and we all know when
you have your oldest child hit prep, it's like nothing other.
It's you know, the uniform and you've got to be
there on time and you have to have all the things.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And it was the.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First time when I was standing around with all the
other mums that I thought, oh, I'm actually way off.
Like I've always been a bit different. I've always been
a bit much, but I've always made it work. And
I really couldn't make that prep experience work. And so
that was when I was like, actually, this is something
(03:10):
beyond me.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What's fascinating to me is you've got a psych degree,
you've practiced as a psychologist, and you missed it and
this is a story that I hear all the time.
We just kind of this is how I live, This
is who I am. My life philosophy has always been
bite off more than you can chew and make it
up as you go along. And that kind of fits
with that same kind of vibe. Right, this is just
(03:33):
who I am, This is just what I do. And
then somebody says, are you aware? What was it other
than the fact that your preppy was struggling and your
family did not feel like everyone else's as you were observing,
Was that the only thing that sort of set alarm
bells off for you? And when did you realize that
it was actually you?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
This is a funny one, actually.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So I was running to massive companies like massive, right,
I had three kIPS under five, and they were I
was having all the success in the world, career rise,
financial success, career success, and I was getting all the accolades,
which I've always received a lot of positive feedback for
my ADHD traits.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So again I just thought I was a go get up.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And can I just jump in here on this, Jane,
Because the whole idea of ADHD is it has to
interfere with functioning, right, otherwise you don't worry about the diagnosis.
If you can learn how to take those traits and
use them in adaptive ways, then you don't get a diagnosis.
You just a really high achiev or ago get it.
You're a type an I can conquer the world, do
everything kind of person.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Absolutely, And so the feedback and the image I was
putting on at the pickup was just this probably I
feel weird saying it, but probably a really great person
who seemed like she had it all together and seemed
very successful. The issue was that all the little things
were the problem. I didn't have the seesaw login, I
couldn't do the homework, I couldn't get her there on time.
(04:57):
I never could figure out the uniform. And it was
all the small things which I usually avoid. So I
just get other people to do them, right, like staff,
You get staff to do all that. But when it's
my child, I realized I actually cannot do this, Like
this is a problem for me.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Time to get a nanny.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Oh I dum my, hands on mom, my hands on mom.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's not the definition you totally with you, But yes,
a few people did say to me to just go
and get a nanny. I'm like, that's yeah, but I
have to learn, right, it's my oldest kid.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I've got three.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So in the background, I was having this huge battle
with burnout unsurprisingly right, and I was also, I'm going
to admit it, putting a lot of pressure back on
my husband because I would bite off more than I
can true, and then I would look to him to support, like, well,
where are you what are you doing? And I did
really have an expectation that he was going to pick
(05:48):
up the pieces and he wasn't doing that because, in
fairness to him, these were my choices I were making
and he's like, I'm not even in this thing. You know,
you're the one who stiff started to start a second company.
And so we went off to marriage counseling, and we
went off to marriage counseling.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
In my take on it was.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
He needs to he needs to put in, he needs
to do a bit more.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
And anyway, we did marriage counseling for a little while
with a brilliant psychologist, and I was really kind of
expecting that he would say to my husband, Hey, you know,
maybe you could jump in a little bit more. And
I was really blown away when he wanted to pull
me in for individual because I was like, well, I'm
not the problem, Like I've brought him in, he's the problem.
(06:29):
And he really zoned in on me and said I
think you need to do some individuals and I was
like like, why, Look how great I am. And turns
out he had worked in an assessment clinic in Kabulcha
and after maybe another three or four sessions one on one,
he said to me, have you considered that you might
have ADHD? And I said, my brother has that. Actually
(06:51):
I definitely don't. And I was actually extremely offended because
I had it in my mind that was unsuccessful people
that couldn't achieve tasks. That's what I had in my mind,
and I had no concept that it could be different.
We went through the assessment criteria and I was saying
him every step of the way, no, I know exactly
where to be. I know exactly where to be, as
(07:13):
I'm saying, I know exactly where to be, and on
what day I've got it all down.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I never missed anything.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I have two phones on the table that are just
alarming reminders and this complex system and is like, do
you know what masking and camouflaging is? Because you are
off charts with some of your basically your scaffolding that
you're doing to mask all your symptoms, so he'd put
my phone away.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Just for people who are not familiar with the term masking, camouflaging, scaffolding,
can you step us through that, and then we'll go
back to the story masking.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And camouflaging with something I only learned off the psychologist.
So basically, it's things that you put into place for
yourself to mask your symptoms or cover them up so
you make it look like you've know exactly what's going on.
But underneath the hood there are so many complex systems.
For example, I cannot ever remember to return something to
(08:09):
somebody that I've borrowed, but I never want to give
the impression that once it comes into my house I
never return it, So I'll put it on the car
so then I can't forget it, or I'll put my
keys on top of something. I'll have lots of complex systems,
so I look ahead.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It's like a compensatory behavior so that you look and
the brilliance about it, I mean, some people would say, well,
isn't that just effective planning? Isn't that just making sure
that you know yourself well enough to know that you
have a certain weakness, and therefore you plan ahead to
make sure that that weakness doesn't undermine your ability to
function well. When we move into things like autism, masking
(08:48):
becomes a little bit more complex, doesn't it. Because you've
got kids who will cover up their psychological distress with
smiles and with happiness, and then they get home and
they absolutely collapse and fall apart. And say, with ADHD kids,
there's that level of masking where it's not just a
behavioral thing, but it's a psychological thing as well.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah. Absolutely, And that was one of the things that
I think was difficult for me as well, walking into
prep and having to stand there with all the other
moms morning and afternoon, and everyone else seemed to enjoy it,
and I enjoyed it sometimes, but most of the time
I just dreaded it. I actually dreaded it. And these
people are lovely. Some of them must kill my friends.
(09:27):
This is not about them being judgy. This is just
about being I don't actually have the capacity to put
on this together front twice a day. Sometimes I can't
do it, and I would actually beg my husband to
go for me, and he'd be like why the people
are great. It's like they are great, but I can't
do it today.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
I can't. I just and it was like this isological response.
I can't do that today. I just can't.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Jane, take me back into the office again with the psychologist.
You've been told that you're masking. You've been told that
you're doing all of these compensatory behaviors to make it
look like you've got it together, when really you're just
you're the proverbial duck looking calm on the top and
paddling like crazy out of the water. What happens Then
you're angry, you're upset. You think that he's kidding, but
(10:19):
there's a little alarm bell going off in your head
saying I think the sight's onto something.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
One of the things that I think is really interesting
is when parents say they don't want to diagnose the
child because you know, they want to label them or
hold them back, or you know, like kind of like
paint them with a brush of you know, ADHD or something.
But for me, when I agreed with him and I
could see what he was saying, I felt an enormous
relief because I had always wondered what's wrong with me,
(10:45):
Why am I so different? Why do I move states
every six months? Why do I go to Balley without
any means to return? Why do I make this crazy decisions?
Why do I open up airbnbs and get these big ideas?
And when he actually pointed it out to me, I
was so relieved because I'd been diagnosed with all kinds
of things over the last twenty five years. I started
(11:06):
a mental health battle when I was fourteen, and it
has been up and down the whole time. So when
he said that to me, I rang. My best friend
and her husband has ADHD and it has always had ADHD,
so since he was a child. And she said to me,
oh my god, that makes so much sense because it
was an answer for once, and there was hope, there
(11:29):
was medication, It wasn't. I was on this just like
kind of like mouse wheel, you know, where just where
you're going around and around around, doing the same thing
over and over, attempting to have boundaries, not being able
to do any of the therapeutic strategies as psychologists tells
you to do, not be able to ever figure out
the executive function.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And it felt like hope for the first time.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
So Jane let me ask you when a parent and
you run a podcast and an Instagram and Facebook page
called ADHD mums, when a or a parent doesn't get
the help that they need, if they don't have the diagnosis,
if they don't see the reality that's right in front
of them, I guess that they're living with What are
(12:12):
the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Well, for me, I haven't met anybody, And as I said,
I run a very popular podcast. I haven't seen, heard
or received a message from one person that said that
they wished they didn't know, They wish their parents hadn't
told them. I've never ever seen that. And I think
if you don't want to label your child with anything
with any kind of diagnosis, they will know anyway, and
(12:37):
they will label themselves. And trust me, the label that
they give themselves will be worse than an actual label
with a diagnosis. For example, I'm not good enough, I'm stupid,
I need to focus more. I'm the problem as well.
If they're masking or camouflaging symptom or traits. For example,
let's say I've got a child that won't put on
(12:58):
their shoes. Now, my daughter in prayer, I spent nineteen
minutes putting on her shoes nine zero, and I had
no idea there was anything going on. So I'm just
going put your shoes on. Why is it so hard
telling her there was no issue. It was only after
she was diagnosed and I realized and I took the
time to sit with her and said, what is it
about your shoes? Like, explain it to me, like I
(13:18):
want to know. And she said, to me, it feels
like glass. It feels like hurting me. It feels like
I've got splinters. It's hurting me. I can't stop thinking
about it. It makes me cry. And when she broke
it down, I thought, oh my god, I can't even imagine.
I actually felt terrible for just ignoring her and actually
a major sensory issue that she has, which I should
(13:40):
have got the jetproof socks. I should have got more
help with this stuff, but I didn't know. So I
think the connection with my kids has absolutely changed since
we have all become diagnosed and given therapy. And it's
not about medication necessary, it's about understanding and connection, which
is why I continue to follow your podcast even when
(14:01):
we were all diagnosed justin because connection first is exactly
the same for any child that's near autivers or not,
it's still the first point for me.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Jane McFadden is a form of psychologist and euroscientist. She
is a mum of three and she runs the Facebook
page and Instagram page ADHD Mums, as well as the
podcast ADHD Mums. You can find out more about her there. Jane,
thanks so much for chatting. Great to hear about your
story and to I'm sure that there are so many
mums who have got either ADHD kids or have their
(14:30):
own lived experience of ADHD themselves who are listening to
this going yep, this is exactly what I needed to hear.
This is reassuring, this is comforting, this is kind of
my story. So appreciate you taking time out to have
a chat.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Thanks for having me, Justin.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for
Bridge Media. If you'd like more information about making your
family happier, check out Happy Families dot com dot I
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