This episode is for ADHD mums who feel like they’re living inside a nervous system experiment.

The kind where everything is technically ‘fine’… until the TV is on, someone’s making mouth noises, a child is asking 400 questions, another one is humming, and your body is trying to exit the situation through the nearest wall.

We talk a lot about overstimulation like it’s a personal flaw. Like you should be calmer. More patient. Better regulated. But what if you’re not failing at regulation… you’re just carrying too much regulation load?

In this conversation with Rachel Few, we get painfully practical about what actually helps when you’re at the edge. Not in an ideal world. In a real ADHD household, with real kids, real noise, real time pressure, and real limits.

– Why overstimulation is not a single moment, but a build-up across days

– The ‘therapy taxi’ burnout cycle and how it dysregulates the whole family

– Why regulation strategies fail when they become another to-do list

– Nervous system mapping: learning your early warning signs before the snap

– ‘Recipe building’ for families: planning around needs, not just appointments

– Why yelling and snapping usually starts earlier than you think

– PDA-aware approaches: when direct help makes things worse

– Side-step regulation tools that don’t rely on compliance

– Real-life resets (including the candle trick, which sounds unhinged until you try it)

– Why acceptance is sometimes the missing strategy, not another technique

– you feel overstimulated before 7am and then blame yourself for it

– your household escalates fast and you don’t know where it starts

– you’re carrying the clean-up after every meltdown (emotional or literal)

– you’re exhausted from scanning for hunger, sensory triggers, and ‘what could go wrong’

– you’re parenting a PDA-ish child and standard advice backfires

– you keep thinking ‘once we get the right support, it will all be fine’ and then it isn’t

– you want tools that actually work when you’re already at your limit

Surviving the Mental Load of the School Year

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-63-surviving-the-mental-load-of-the-school-year/

When You Can’t Relax Even When It’s Quiet

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/why-adhd-mums-cant-relax/

The ADHD Myth of ‘Just Try Harder’ (Quick Reset)

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-24-quick-reset-the-adhd-myth-of-just-try-harder/

– For more information on Rachel Few - see here

-PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia) is mentioned in the episode

– Maternal mental health research is referenced (mum’s mental health as a key predictor for child wellbeing)

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This episode is for ADHD mums who have ever sat in a car park before an assessment and felt their whole nervous system start negotiating with the evidence.

Because the paperwork looks fine.

The report cards look fine.

Your life looks fine.

And you’re standing there knowing that ‘fine’ is exactly what disqualifies you.

This is the ADHD myth as it actually lands. Not as a hot take online — but as a private internal audit that starts the second you consider asking for help.

It’s the voice that says: ‘Everyone says they have ADHD now, don’t they?’

And the way your body believes it before you even get to answer back.

– The ‘good school report’ trap and why it makes women doubt themselves

– Why visible competence is often just quiet compensation

– How anxiety, eating disorders, burnout and depression get missed when you’re not disruptive

– The internal investigation ADHD mums run before they ever ask for help

– Why ‘you’ve managed this long’ lands as dismissal, not reassurance

– How vigilance gets trained in childhood and then masquerades as personality

– Why gender shifts the cost of impulsivity, mistakes, and social timing

– How hypervigilance becomes the price of belonging

– Why motherhood doesn’t create the load, it exposes it

– The difference between being tired and constantly compensating

– How media narratives about ADHD being a ‘trend’ reinforce silence and shame

– you have ‘good’ school reports and still feel like you’re drowning

– you rehearse what to say before appointments so you don’t sound ‘dramatic’

– you minimise automatically and tell yourself other people have it worse

– you’ve been called controlling when you’re actually doing risk management

– you feel embarrassed even seeking an assessment

– you relate to being ‘a pleasure to have in class’ while quietly falling apart

– you’ve carried the mental load for years and only now it’s breaking through

You Were the Good Girl. That’s Why You’re Falling Apart Now

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-35-you-were-the-good-girl-thats-why-youre-falling-apart-now/

Making the Invisible Mental Load Visible (Partners)

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-73-making-the-invisible-mental-load-visible/

The ADHD Myth of ‘Just Try Harder’ (Quick Reset)

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-24-quick-reset-the-adhd-myth-of-just-try-harder/

– ADHD in women and girls: internalising presentations and delayed identification

– Burnout, anxiety and depression as common outcomes of long-term compensation

– The impact of social conditioning and gender expectations on symptom visibility

Submit a Listener Question (anonymous option)

If there’s something you want answered on the podcast, you can submit a question here — anonymously if you prefer.

https://form.jotform.com/251238118486864

Share Feedback or Topic Requests

Have a topic you’d like covered, or feedback you want to pass on?

This episode sits right in the space where mental load, motherhood, and neurodivergence collide.

It’s about the exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing one hard thing — but from having to remember everything, explain everything, repeat everything, and stay emotionally available while your own capacity is already gone.

For many ADHD mums, the hardest part of advocacy isn’t the paperwork. It’s being the living filing cabinet. The one who holds every report, every strategy, every update, every change — and is expected to access it on demand, usually at the worst possible time.

This conversation with Letitia from Understanding Zoe explores what happens when that load becomes unsustainable, why school pickup can feel like a threat to your nervous system, and how repetition and emotional labour quietly push mums toward burnout.

– Why repeated conversations and ‘quick questions’ drain capacity faster than admin

– The invisible emotional cost of being the default advocate

– School pickup as a nervous system stressor, not a social moment

– Why mums freeze when asked for information they technically ‘know’

– How mental load is reinforced by systems, not personality

– The guilt and self-blame that comes with forgetting details

– How AI can act as a second brain instead of another demand

– Using technology to reduce repetition without losing control or privacy

– school pickup makes your shoulders rise before you even get there

– you dread being asked for strategies when your window of tolerance is closed

– you’ve handed advocacy to a partner and it somehow comes back bigger

– you feel like you’re supposed to know everything about your child, always

– you freeze when asked questions because your brain has already hit capacity

– you’re tired of being ‘so capable’ while quietly burning out

When this load isn’t named, ADHD mums internalise it.

They assume they should cope better.

They blame themselves for forgetting.

They keep tabs open because closing them feels risky.

Over time, the nervous system never gets a break. Not because mums don’t rest — but because responsibility never fully leaves their body.

This episode reframes that experience. Not as failure. Not as disorganisation. But as what happens when one person becomes the emotional interface between systems that don’t talk to each other.

Understanding Zoe platform - check it out here

Why ADHD Mums Can’t Relax — Even When It’s Quiet

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/why-adhd-mums-cant-relax/

Why Am I Bracing for Impact When Nothing Is Wrong? (Quick Reset)

https://adhdmums.com.au/podcast_episode/episode-10-quick-reset-why-am-i-bracing-for-impact-when-nothing-is-wrong/

ADHD Mums Energy Accounting Guide (Free)

https://adhdmums.com.au/product/adhd-mums-energy-accounting-guide/

Submit a Listener Question (anonymous option)

If there’s something you want answered on the podcast, you can submit a question here — anonymously if you prefer.