ADHD Mums

Your best friend leaves a box of tampons on your doorstep on the worst day of your fortnight — no fuss, no waiting around, just quietly handling the piece of the nightmare nobody else saw. And you well up. Real tears. And then you wait ten minutes to make sure she's gone before you'll even open the door, delete the thank-you you started typing, and walk off. Because you could not have said it to her face if someone paid you.
If you're the woman who leaves a gift on a doorstep and runs, who dodges goodbyes with people she loves, who can't stand inside a thank you — you've probably filed that away as proof you're cold. Broken in the part where you're meant to feel things. This episode is Jane pulling that file back out and finding the opposite: it's not that the love is missing. It might be flooding. Masking, surface acting, and the wall that goes up right where other people let love in — and why every piece of advice you've been given points you the wrong way.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Twenty-one, on an Emirates training flight, and my face is the problem
01:34 — Learning the Barbie-princess smile in the mirror
02:32 — The box of tampons, and the door I couldn't open
04:45 — Ten minutes, a deleted text, and walking off in tears
05:31 — The filing cabinet: 'there's something wrong with me,' opened at 2am
06:22 — The goodbyes I swerve, the thank-yous I can't stand in
07:43 — 'I'm not cold. I cried over a box of tampons.'
08:33 — The real problem: a feeling with no volume control
08:56 — What was actually happening on those flights
13:46 — Surface acting: the sociologist who studied this in 1983
16:05 — Two settings — perform the okay face, or leave
18:49 — Why every piece of 'just be present' advice fails someone like me
20:55 — The therapy this is secretly built on — ACT, and acting on what you value
23:00 — The moment was never the love. The tampons mattering that much was.
25:04 — What I'd do differently: feel it, then send something real by text
26:50 — You get to love people in your own way
WHAT WE COVER
The Emirates training flight where Jane was told, over and over, that her technically-perfect service didn't matter — her face did
Learning to perform the 'Barbie princess' smile in the mirror, and what years of that installs in a nervous system
The box of tampons on the doorstep — one of the kindest things anyone's ever done for her — and why she waited for her friend to leave before she'd open the door
The 2am filing cabinet labelled 'there's something wrong with me,' and the subtheme she found inside it
The goodbyes she actively swerves, the gifts she leaves 'like a robber,' and the years of reading all of it as proof she's cold
The reframe: it was never a missing feeling — it's a feeling that arrives with no volume control, like a flood, with nowhere safe to show it
What was really happening on those flights — the workers, the conditions, the smiling over something that was not fine — and how surface acting burns you out
Why every piece of standard advice — slow down, be present, make eye contact, receive it properly — aims you straight at the exact thing your body evacuates for a reason
The evidence-based therapy this is secretly built on, and the one shift inside it that changes everything
What Jane would do differently now — and the real, texted, kitchen-bench version of 'thank you' that works for a nervous system like hers
FREE RESOURCES
ADHD Physical Health & Emotional Wellbeing Kit — for the emotional-regulation and burnout side of years of masking — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-physical-health-emotional-wellbeing-kit/
Energy Accounting Guide — for the cost of surface acting, day after day — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/
PAID RESOURCES
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
RELATED EPISODES
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/
An RSD Story. Taking My Own Advice — S1 EP9, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/an-rsd-story-taking-my-own-advice-s1-ep9/
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/
Masking & ADHD — S1 EP11, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/masking-adhd-s1-ep11/
REFERENCES & FURTHER READING
On 'surface acting' — the 1983 flight-attendant research: Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press.
On Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): an evidence-based therapy built on acting in line with your values rather than waiting to feel the 'right' feeling first. The most widely used plain-language ACT resource in Australia is Dr Russ Harris's The Happiness Trap.
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Have you ever answered a simple question with the whole real answer — and watched the room go a particular kind of quiet? Have you ever lain awake at 2am running back one thing you said in a group chat three years ago, certain everyone clocked it the way you did? Have you ever walked out of a room having already decided you were the too-much one before anyone said a word?
There's a reason your brain gave the director's cut when everyone else gave three sentences. It's not the reason you've been telling yourself.
CHAPTERS
00:16 — The plastic chair, the room going quiet, and knowing before you know why
00:46 — Six weeks postpartum, new town, no family, no one to talk to but her husband
01:11 — The things about babies nobody says out loud because they're 'obvious'
02:33 — Why she joined a mother's group, and the morning it all went sideways
03:27 — Twenty minutes late, sweaty, in her husband's vomit-swapped T-shirt
04:13 — Bows, baptism outfits and homemade plates: the prep she didn't know about
05:29 — Three questions. Name, baby's name, the birth. Easy.
06:07 — What recent trauma does when someone kindly asks you to tell it
08:00 — The Wi-Fi freeze: watching the room drop out in real time
09:00 — Morning tea, the decaf, and 'where the f*ck are we?'
10:01 — Kate's three sentences, and the instruction Jane never heard
11:30 — The most embarrassing moment, and the one heading she filed it under for years
12:44 — Going back into the room with the lens she has now
12:55 — The two filters: the words she heard vs the contract underneath them
14:00 — The freeze wasn't a verdict — it was sorting happening in front of her
14:49 — Why it was actually the most efficient thing she's ever done
15:10 — The next week: the biscuits, the permanent marker, the friend for life
16:43 — The pram that rolled past the window on its own
17:24 — Watching the room split again — who moves away, who leans in
18:11 — Told to be less your whole life — and why she won't join that group
19:14 — Being an adult: let people move towards you or away, but let them choose
20:11 — Telling everyone who you are up front, and the door it leaves open
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Free Resources
After Your Diagnosis Kit — for the 'oh, that's why I've always done that' realisation —
https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mum-after-diagnosis-kit/
Paid Resources
Navigating School Pick-Up & Social Settings — the guide Jane names in this episode: 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/
ADHD Reset Workbook — Values, Energy & Planning — for the days the too-much shame has flattened you — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-reset-workbook-values-energy-planning-for-adhd-mums/
ADHD Mums Shop — https://adhdmums.com.au/shop/
Related Episodes
Is It Social Anxiety — or Is It Autism — S3, with Amanda Moses — the 'said too much, read the room wrong' feeling — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-34-is-it-social-anxiety-or-is-it-autism-with-amanda-moses/
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & Emotional Intensity — Jane solo — the after-sting of 'too much' — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/

The Untold Struggles of Motherhood (Part 1) — Jane solo — new-baby isolation, no support —
https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-45-the-untold-struggles-of-motherhood-part-1/
Is It ADHD or Motherhood? — Jane solo — the invisible rulebook nobody hands you —
https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-22-is-it-adhd-or-motherhood-solo-episode/
📬 Listener Questions & Community
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For thirty years, ADHD has had one wanted poster. Loud, can't sit still, disrupting the class, talking back — a boy. And you weren't him. So you walked past every checkpoint in your life — the GP, the teachers, the report cards, the parent-teacher nights — and nobody stopped you. Maybe someone said you were bright, you just needed to apply yourself. Maybe you got 'conscientious' on every report card. And conscientious doesn't go with ADHD, does it?
Three different women can all have ADHD. All three can walk straight past that same poster on the wall, and not one of them gets stopped — because not one of them looks like the sketch. This episode is Jane putting three new posters up: the inattentive mum told to try harder, the 'too much' mum who apologises for her personality before she's said a word, and the 'fine' mum everyone leans on who's hanging off a cliff on the inside. See if you find your own face on the wall.
Take the self-test: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/768431/173992641938064622/share
Chapters
00:00 — The one wanted poster ADHD has had for thirty years
01:25 — Three women, one poster, and why none of them get stopped
02:17 — Who drew the poster — and why the quiet ones were never in the sketch
03:54 — One Monday morning, one clock, four different mothers
04:32 — The neurotypical mum, and where the difference actually shows up
05:54 — Profile 1: the inattentive mum, told her whole life to try harder
07:36 — The planner graveyard — six apps, four planners, three years of fresh starts
08:17 — Profile 2: the mum who's always been 'too much'
09:12 — Apologising for your personality before the conversation starts
09:39 — The drive home, and the tape that runs every single time
11:00 — Profile 3: the mum everyone says is 'fine'
11:50 — 'I don't know how you do it' — and why it doesn't land as a compliment
12:54 — Why she only rests when her body reaches up and stops her
13:35 — The real reason so many of us slipped through — it didn't cost anyone else
15:07 — If you've just been diagnosed: the relief, the grief, and what you can put down
15:56 — How we actually redraw the poster
What We Cover
The single wanted poster ADHD has been diagnosed against for thirty years — and why your face was never on it
Why 'conscientious' on every report card was a signal everyone read backwards
One ordinary Monday school run, four mothers, one clock — and the four completely different mornings happening behind the same front doors
Profile 1, the inattentive mum: the permission slip she looked at on four separate nights, and why no planner, app or alarm has ever held
The difference between a neurotypical mum forgetting the form and an ADHD mum forgetting it — it's not the forgetting, it's what happens next
Profile 2, the 'too much' mum: the verbal hyperactivity nobody put on a poster, and the tape that runs on every drive home
Why apologising for your own personality before you've started talking should be a diagnostic tick in its own right
Profile 3, the mum everyone calls 'fine': the one who looks the most together and is the closest to the edge, and why 'I don't know how you do it' makes her feel more alone
The uncomfortable answer to why so many of us went undiagnosed — not because our ADHD was lighter, but because it only ever cost us
What there is to feel if you've been diagnosed late — the relief, the grief for what might have been — and the part of it you're allowed to put down
How the poster actually gets redrawn, and the one small thing that starts it

Free Resources
Preparing for Diagnosis — for the 'oh, that's me' moment, and what to do next — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/
After Your Diagnosis Kit — for the relief-and-grief part, if you've already been diagnosed — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mum-after-diagnosis-kit/

Paid Resources
Pre-Diagnosis Workbook — the deeper 'get clear before you spend money on an assessment' version — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/prediagnosisworkbook/
Assessment & Diagnosis Bundle — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/bundle-adhd-diagnosis-assessment-guides/

Related Episodes
Too Much? Or Just Misunderstood: ADHD, RSD & the Power of Emotional Intensity — S2 EP83, Jane solo — the deep dive on the 'too much' profile — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-83-too-much-or-just-misunderstood-adhd-rsd-the-power-of-emotional-intensity/
ADHD or PTSD? Why So Many Women Are Misdiagnosed — S2 EP82, with Amanda Moses — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-82-adhd-or-ptsd-why-so-many-women-are-misdiagnosed-with-amanda-moses/
ADHD Mum: What You Need to Know After Your Diagnosis — S2 EP55, Jane solo — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-55-adhd-mum-what-you-need-to-know-after-your-diagnosis-solo-episode-with-jane-mcfadden/

📬 Listener Questions & Community
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Send a WhatsApp voice or written on 0403 457 313
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In the Facebook group there's a pattern that comes up again and again: the mum grows. She gets the kids assessed, she starts to recognise herself, she does the reading and the therapy and the work — and the husband lags behind. He won't consider that he's neurodivergent, or the problem is always someone else. The kids. The school. Her. And underneath it all is the question so many women are actually asking: how do I get him to see it, and is it even worth staying?
Emily Jade O'Keeffe's story runs the whole thing backwards. Her husband got diagnosed first — but only after they'd separated for 18 months, after the mudslinging and the lawyers, after she'd rebuilt herself from the floor up. This is the rare positive one: what happened when the diagnosis finally came, why she chose to help him when almost nobody would have, and the single question a marriage counsellor gave her that changed everything — 'is it arsehole or ADHD?'
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Meet Emily Jade O'Keeffe — 30 years in radio, and why she drove up from the Gold Coast
02:46 — The order most families discover it in — and why Emily's ran backwards
03:46 — 18 months apart: 'I was devastated, and he said can you just get over it'
06:07 — Rock bottom, and the call that started with 'you were right'
08:17 — 'I removed myself from the marriage and the problem was still there'
09:17 — The groceries, the tone, and the pressure that was never actually there
10:15 — PDA — a name for the thing Emily had been living without knowing
13:00 — The first six months: lawyers, mudslinging, and the awakening that stopped it
16:50 — 'I'll dance with my daughter's dad at her wedding' — the line that set the path
20:00 — 'I can't be the problem again' — why she wouldn't just take him back
23:30 — 'Is it arsehole or ADHD?' — the counsellor question that changed how they fight
26:00 — Woo back or woo up — how they actually communicate now
28:00 — The one thing she'd tell you to do first — and it isn't about him
What We Cover
The pattern Jane sees constantly in the group — the mum who grows while the partner stays certain the problem is everyone else — and how Emily's story ran the opposite way
What 18 months of separation actually looked like: the lawyers, the grief, and the slow realisation that leaving didn't fix the thing that was wrong
The moment her husband hit rock bottom and came back to the person he'd hurt most — and why she said yes
How undiagnosed ADHD and autism had been quietly rewiring every conversation — the groceries, the 'I miss you,' the pressure that was only ever in his own head
PDA — the framework Jane raises that gave a name to years of Emily's confusion (see the note below on the terminology)
Why Emily refused to simply reunite — 'I can't be the problem again' — and what she required instead
The Jennifer Garner line that reset her whole approach to co-parenting
The marriage counsellor's question that changed how they argue — 'is it arsehole or ADHD?' — and why a reason isn't the same as an excuse
What Emily says actually has to happen before a resistant partner will change — and the honest, uncomfortable truth about waiting for rock bottom
The one thing she'd tell any woman to do first, and it has nothing to do with him

RELATED EPISODES:
Struggling to Understand ADHD? Here's What Your Partner Needs You to Know — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-58-struggling-to-understand-adhd-heres-what-your-partner-needs-you-to-know/
Is PDA Real and What Can We Do About It? (with Michelle Garnett) — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-30-could-it-be-pda-exploring-the-signs-and-why-its-different-from-odd/
Co-Parenting Amidst Diagnosis Disagreements (with Alana Manix) — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-1-co-parenting-amidst-diagnosis-disagreements/
FREE RESOURCES
Preparing for Diagnosis — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/preparing-for-diagnosis/
Emily Jade O’Keeffe is a much-loved Gold Coast media personality, and co-host of the number one breakfast show, Galey & Emily Jade, on 102.9 Hot Tomato. With more than 30 years in radio, television and media, Emily is also the co-creator and co-host of the Move Over Mama podcast alongside her teenage daughter, Millie. A wife and mother of two, Emily brings warmth, humour and honesty to all her audiences.
Move Over Mama and Emily Jade's IG here
📬 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
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The mental load starts as the thing you can laugh about — the admin, the medal for mowing the lawn. And then, somewhere underneath it, it stops being funny. It's the sentence that comes out of your mouth before you can stop it: 'would you mind having the kids on Saturday so I can get a haircut' — asking the other parent for their own children like you're lodging annual leave with HR. It's 'they were so good while you were gone,' and knowing 'good' meant nobody got fed. It's being so tired of being the only adult in the building that you stop being angry and just go quiet.
This is Part 3, the last in the series, and it's the heavy one. It begins with a laugh and then it lets that laugh go. This one is for you, on your own, with your headphones in — and if you're right on the edge of exasperation today, Jane's honest recommendation is that you save this one for another day. Built entirely from what you wrote in. Support links are in the notes below.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — The last one. It starts funny, then it doesn't.
00:44 — 'I shouldn't have to book my own kids in like it's annual leave'
01:37 — Watch where the school emails go — and the 11-day anaphylaxis email
03:37 — 'It was so easy while you were gone.' Was it though?
05:41 — The 7am text from Cassie, and what Jane wrote back without thinking
07:32 — 'I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just so tired of being the only adult.'
07:46 — The nine-year-old asked to regulate himself while the 39-year-old isn't
11:33 — The question underneath all of it: are these women still with them?
12:37 — 'Supportive of what?' — when the pat on the back keeps you carrying it
14:39 — The economy of gratitude — his effort is a gift, yours is the weather
15:03 — 'He's cheaper than hiring someone' — the accounting that holds women in place
16:58 — Why this lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the load that has no gender, and the one that does
20:52 — Why leaving isn't the easy answer, and the thing nobody says about single-mother poverty
22:38 — This series was never mine. It was yours.
What We Cover
The sentence so many women said comes out of their mouths and they don't know how they got there — asking the other parent to mind their own kids
Where the pattern hides in plain sight — whose inbox the school actually emails, and the 11-day reply to an anaphylaxis email that says everything
'It was so easy while you were gone' — what 'good' actually meant, and where the bar for care got left
The 7am text from a friend that Jane laughed at before she worried, and the moment it turned from a joke into something real
The messages about children being asked to manage their emotions while a grown adult in the same house isn't — and what it costs the kid who gives up on a parent
The question that started sitting under every message — are these women still with their partners, and if it's this hard, why do we stay?
'Supportive of what?' — the uncomfortable idea that the comfort itself might be the thing keeping you carrying all of it
A sociologist's phrase you can't unhear — why his effort gets thanked and yours becomes the weather
Why this exact load lands twice as hard on an ADHD mum — the part that has no gender, and the part that absolutely does
The honest, un-tidy truth about why leaving isn't a clean answer — and the structural thing nobody wants to name

🆘 Support
If anything in this episode landed close to home, you don't have to sit with it alone.
1800RESPECT — national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling — 1800 737 732, or 1800respect.org.au (24/7, free, confidential).
Lifeline — 13 11 14, or lifeline.org.au (24/7 crisis support).
If you're not sure whether what you're experiencing 'counts,' you can still call. They will talk it through with you.
Free Resources
Household Family Meeting Template — for the 'hand over a whole job, not a favour' conversation this episode is really about — https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-household-family-meeting-template/
Related Episodes
The Admin Husband: 'Do We Have Parmesan?' — Part 1 —
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mental-load-do-we-have-parmesan-cheese-he-was-standing/id1686843092?i=1000777917338
The Gold Medal Husband: 'Did You See the Lawn?' — Part 2
https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-podcast-episodes/mental-load-he-mowed-the-lawn-once-and-wanted-to-know-if-you-saw-it/
I Love My Family… But I'm So F**king Angry (Mum Rage Part 1) — S2 EP84 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-84-i-love-my-family-but-im-so-fking-angry-mum-rage-part-1/
What We Wish Our Partners Knew About the Mental Load — And How to Truly Support Us — S2 EP75 — https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-75-what-we-wish-our-partners-knew-about-the-mental-load-and-how-to-truly-support-us/
References & Further Reading
Hochschild, A. R. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Viking.
(The 'economy of gratitude' Jane cites — whose effort reads as a gift to be thanked, and whose reads as the background running of the house.)
Also relevant — the cognitive/mental load framework underpinning the whole series:
Daminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007
📬 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.
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