ADHD in Motherhood with Patricia Sung

"You can't have ADHD! You have a master's degree!"

... and other misconceptions about ADHD.  Whether you've been diagnosed, related to the memes, or have a child that's been diagnosed... this episode is for you!

Patricia Sung, Adult ADHD coach and host of Motherhood in ADHD, is here to share her journey into diagnosis, understanding her unique brain, and empowering other moms to do the same.

We normalize the struggle, share new insights, and reflect on the powerful act of breaking cycles.


IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVERED...

• Common traits and misconceptions of ADHD beyond being forgetful 
• Her go-to tools for managing anger while parenting
• Ways to work WITH your ADHD to boost your self-compassion as a parent

DON'T MISS-

• The double-edged sword that is having family with ADHD

// CONNECT WITH PATRICIA SUNG //
Website: www.motherhoodinadhd.com
Instagram: @motherhoodinadhd
https://www.patriciasung.com/meetup

I believe in you + I'm cheering you on.
Come say hi!  I'm @parent_wholeheartedly on Insta.
Apply to work together: parentingwholeheartedly.com/Apply

Transcript

Patricia Sung  0:00  
Our day feels very out of control. If you're the person who says, well, I don't know, I just went from zero to 100 or my kid just went from zero to 100. Ma'am, no you did not. You went from zero to 99 without having any clue, and then 99 to 100 when that one tiny thing happened, that's when you lost your ever loving mind on whoever was close by. It's because we weren't aware of what happened from zero to 99. A lot of us with ADHD don't have a lot of like, self awareness on how we feel. We don't understand how we feel and the like, what's going on within us to know that we are getting closer to 99.

Danielle Bettmann  0:42  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood I mean. Have too much anxiety and not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud - this podcast is for you. This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann, and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, sharing her insecurities, her fears, her failures and her wins. We do not have it all figured out, that's not the goal. The goal is to remind you, you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here.

Danielle Bettmann  1:56  
Hey, it's Danielle, if you've been here a while, you know, I specialize in supporting parents whose child struggles with things like emotion regulation, impulse control, high highs and low lows, high levels of sensitivity, sensory preferences, some anxiety and/or demand avoidance, and yet remains relatively high functioning in school, while falling apart at home, holding everyone hostage to their mood, where it's their way or the highway. If you feel like your child fits that bill and is strong willed, they got those traits from somewhere, either you or your partner. So whether you've been diagnosed with ADHD or have related to the memes, have a child that is diagnosed with ADHD or just know you struggle with things like emotion regulation and anxiety yourself - this episode is for you. Patricia Sung helps moms with adult ADHD work with their unique brains and get their ish together one step at a time and feel more confident running their family life. She hosts the podcast Motherhood and ADHD - encouraging moms with practical strategies and relatable missteps. She's a happy, hopping, anxious adventurer, willing to try almost anything once, a Midwesterner at heart, she now lives in Houston with her husband and her two young sons, and in our conversation today, Patricia shares her journey of her diagnosis, the quantitative and qualitative symptoms of ADHD and practical strategies that have made all the difference in her life as a mom. She speaks to exactly what ADHD is and isn't, and debunks the common misconceptions, like, if you have a master's degree, you can't have ADHD, she breaks down her go to tools for managing anger while parenting, and I share mine as well. Best of all, we share all the good -the Ying to the Yang, of the incredible ways you can work with your ADHD to boost your self compassion, self esteem and confidence as a parent. I secretly brought Patricia onto Failing Motherhood in an effort to open more parents eyes to the realization that they and maybe even their child may have ADHD. A lot of the families I work with have gotten evaluations for their child already and have come back, but the symptoms aren't in a treatable range, or they want to do everything they can to support their child before considering medication. So I'm here to support you in the meantime, until they get diagnosed, if they do end up getting diagnosed at all, I can't wait to hear your thoughts after listening to this episode. Here is my conversation with Patricia.

Danielle Bettmann  4:32  
Welcome to Failing Motherhood. My name is Danielle Bettmann, and on today's episode, I'm joined by Patricia Sung. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Welcome to the show.

Patricia Sung  4:43  
Thanks for having me.

Danielle Bettmann  4:44  
Of course! So just real quick, who are you and who's in your family?

Patricia Sung  4:48  
So I am an ADHD coach for moms. I'm a former teacher turned just teacher for grownups now, teacher for moms. I help moms figure out how to live well with ADHD, how to enjoy motherhood, and how to feel like you're not failing every day. I am married and I have two boys, and they are six and nine.

Danielle Bettmann  5:08  
Six and nine. Okay, awesome. My girls are 10 and 11 right now, super, super close in age. I'd be willing to guess that a lot of my listeners are either ADHD, diagnosed or suspecting, or don't know it yet, because I feel like there's a huge Venn diagram overlap between moms with ADHD and moms who feel like they're failing motherhood. So I'd love to always just kind of make our guests relatable from minute one of our interviews. So have you ever felt like you were failing motherhood?

Patricia Sung  5:44  
Pretty much every day, all of them - D. all of the above. I think from the start, I had a really hard postpartum season. I guess you could say with my first I had a really awful postpartum anxiety. I had D-MER, which, if you're not familiar, is like when you're breastfeeding, when your letdown happens, there's a lot of emotional issues driven by hormones. It was really awful. I mean, from the start, it was hard. I think as moms, when we care a lot, we put so much pressure on ourselves, which means we feel like we're not doing enough, or we could be doing this, and we're always comparing ourselves to what our ideal would be. So I think, yeah, unfortunately, I worry about that a lot, and I'm really glad that I've learned the skills to be able to pull out of those thoughts spirals. But man, it is so hard. They don't give you that warning when you start like, they say it's hard, and you're like, I didn't really get the level of hard that you all were discussing, right? 

Danielle Bettmann  6:52  
I don't think anyone does. Yeah, you have no idea what you're signing up for.

Patricia Sung  6:55  
If you did, honestly, I don't think a lot of us would do it - if we knew how hard it was to start with because it is, it's that level of difficulty, and we do it because we love our kids, but you can't explain to somebody ahead of time. I get why they didn't tell me, because I wouldn't have gotten it.

Danielle Bettmann  7:15  
Right, it's hard, 100%, and being neurodivergent adds another whole layer to that. So start from the beginning with how you ended up becoming diagnosed.

Patricia Sung  7:28  
So we're gonna rewind the tape back, that's how old I am. I was diagnosed in the year 2000, my freshman year of college. I went from being a very excellent student all the way through school, National Honor Society, I went to Tulane, which is a very hard school to get into. I was on a scholarship for my grades, and I almost failed my first semester because I didn't realize that I didn't have all of the skills and strategies in place that I thought I did. A lot of women get diagnosed when there's a large life change, or when there is a large hormonal change. You'll see a lot of diagnoses when girls hit puberty, matresence, which is having a baby, like being a mom, and all those hormones into perimenopause and menopause. Then you'll also see a lot of women get diagnosed, or notice that there are a whole lot more problems when you also have those big life changes, like when for young girls switching from elementary to middle, or middle to high school, high school to university, finishing school, going to get your own job, or making a huge career shift, or getting married. Anytime you have these big changes in life where all of a sudden your past habits, strategies, and skills are no longer seamlessly fitting into your new setup of life - that's when a lot of us get either diagnosed or just the doo-doo hits the fan a whole bunch that we're like, this is not normal. So for me, it was moving into university and being like, oh, I am now responsible for getting up in the morning, like, my mom is not there to wake me up - I'm like the living dead when I sleep. A lot of people with ADHD have sleep issues. And, you know, unfortunately, back in 2000 we did not know all the stuff that we know now, and so they really just thought it was like, oh, well, here's some medicine to take when you study. Good luck. The support that I got from the professionals was helpful, but really, the best support I got was from another student. She was a law student, and took me under her wing showed me how to study, and gave me a lot of the skill set that I needed to be able to graduate. I was just really lucky, because the doctor I saw when I was falling apart freshman year knew, like she caught it. And to be honest, looking back now, I'm like, she probably had ADHD, that's probably how she knew, but she caught that I had the pattern of issues that made sense, and she's the one who sent me to the Student Learning Center to get diagnosed. So I've taken all that over the years and applied it to, like, when I used to be a teacher. I used to teach middle school, and, like, pulling all these pieces together over the years. I mean, like, oh, that's also related here, and this comes together here in pulling that all together that now I can like, oh, I can really help moms now, because I have the background of one - I've known about my ADHD for like, 24 years, being a teacher, helping people learn about it, having done coaching, training, pull it all together, and it's like, oh, okay, we can actually take all these skills and put them together into something useful so that we can live well. But when you don't know what's going on and you're not diagnosed, or you don't get diagnosed until you're in your 30s or 40s, it really is a rough journey along the way, because I'm like, oh man, 13-year-old Patricia just could have been so much more supported had we known. But nobody knew to look for that. You know, in the 80s and 90s, especially in girls.

Danielle Bettmann  10:55  
For sure. So before we get too ahead of ourselves, will you just go ahead for those that are less familiar, just define ADHD and some of its presentations and symptoms?

Patricia Sung  11:07  
So ADHD is a medical diagnosis, and very unfortunately, it is called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and there are two combinations. There are two different types, but then there's the combo. So you have your hyperactive side, which is the people who present more in an outward way. So if you want to get really technical, you can go look up the DSM-5, that's the book that psychiatrists and doctors use to diagnose, and it gives you a list of symptoms. It's like, you have to have at least six of these, and they have to be present since childhood, and then you are hyperactive. And that's the typical picture that we have of like, the five-year-old boy who's bouncing off the walls and keeps talking and all that. That's the hyperactive thing that we stereotypically look at. So that's one side the other presentation is inattentive, and that's where I say that the hyperactivity is inside where your mind is, the hyperactivity part. So this can show up as being disorganized, having trouble prioritizing, that you're constantly worrying about things, or just feeling like you're behind all the time. The actual symptoms list is all quantitative, things that they can measure. So things like, you lose your keys a lot, we can measure how often you lose your keys. Where we don't see a clear description is in the qualitative things. So for example, a lot of women with ADHD, or people who have an attentive type tend to be very anxious and have a lot of, like, intrusive thoughts and, like, a lot of panic attacks and things in that area that are, like, harder, it's harder to measure somebody who's anxious. So this is the caveat of this checklist is, like, it all has to be things that scientists can measure for them to put it on here. Then we can have those two together called combined type. So you are both hyperactive and inattentive. Generally speaking, women tend to lean more towards inattentive. But that's not to say that there aren't also males who are inattentive and there's not to say there aren't females who are hyperactive or combined, it's just that it's more frequent on one side or the other, but we all, like anybody can have any one of them. There's no division on like, race or class socioeconomic background culture, or geography, anyone anywhere can have ADHD, and it can present in any of these formats. Now, I have a check sheet on my website that you can download that I call my, like, real-life symptoms. So like, when they say that you're disorganized, what does it actually look like as a mom or as a woman, as opposed to, like, oh, well, yeah, I mean, I do lose my keys quite often. But like, how do we show up? Like, when it says, you have trouble prioritizing, a lot of times it gets kind of lost in the mud. It's like having trouble prioritizing means, like, you know, you walk into the laundry room and you're like, oh, I forgot to put that stuff in the dryer. So you start putting the stuff in the dryer, and you're like, oh, I don't have any hangers. So before you finish putting it in the dryer and turning it on, you go get some hangers. And when you get there, you're like, oh, man, I forgot to make the bed. You start that prioritizing, where your brain just picks whatever it sees first. That's not prioritizing in the way that you want. It's just prioritizing what showed up next. So it's these kinds of ways that when you go to your assessment appointment and you're asking your doctor, like, I think I have ADHD, and they're like, well, how disorganized are you? You're like, well, I'm very good because I have all these systems in place to make sure that my kids' permission slips are turned in, and that I put lunch money on the card. You think about all the things that moms are responsible for, so then they'll be like, well, you're not very disorganized. You must not have ADHD, and that's not true. The question I ask is, well, if I took all your systems away, how would you do with that? And if that just makes you want to vomit, if you don't have all of your reminders and your systems and your color-coded notebooks and the, you know, all the things that you've set up to be able to allow you to juggle all those things- that's the difference, most people would be like, oh, well, that would stink, but like, probably most of it would still get done. Versus the person who's like, if you ever lost my notebook, I would be like, what am I doing with my life? I don't know, because I have systems for everything, and yes, so I'm now a very organized person, but because I figured out the systems that work for me, not because I am naturally a very good organizer. So all that to say, to sum it up, there are two different kinds of ADHD, plus the combination of the two, and that, the way that we usually think about it, is just the stereotype of one. For women, it usually stems more from the mood and like, losing your temper with your kids and being anxious, and there are so much more underlying things that happen that are not as obvious. That's where I want to be able to help moms and be aware that, like, it's not that there's something wrong with you. I think when we don't know that there's a reason, like, our brain functions differently. We think it's us. We think I'm the problem. I can't stay organized. I'm too lazy. I don't try hard enough. If I could just remember to do all the things. Anytime we're beating ourselves up with that language, like, well, if you adjust or you should that frequently, that's when we start to think it's us. When you know there's a reason for it, it's not an excuse, but it's an explanation, then you can start putting those strategies in place that actually make sense for your brain, as opposed to, like, all the advice that you've tried 16 times and never works, and how you bought the 15 planners, and they're all just collecting dust over here, because you only use one page of each one, like all that advice that worked for everybody else, and you're like, how is it that I've tried 15 systems and none of them work for me. Those are the moms where I'm like, hello, my people, let's discuss, because there are ways out there that can work for us, but we have to filter out all of the advice that's like, this is not realistic for me. That's not happening. We got to filter out all the advice that's like, totally ridiculous for moms that people are like, well, if you have a 5 am morning routine, you shall be a wonderful human I'm like, you know what I'm doing at 5 am? I'm either really happy that I'm still asleep, or somebody's waking me up because they vomited. Like, I am not coming here at 5 am to do sunrise yoga because there's a toddler like, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. I'm hungry, hungry ma, I'm hungry. Like, that's a different level of advice that I need. So we have to filter out the stuff that doesn't make sense for ADHD, the stuff that doesn't make sense for not parents, and look at like, what's left in the middle there, and use that so you can have a very successful life. But don't listen to all those people that don't know the topic.

Danielle Bettmann  17:58  
That's basically what I do with parents with some type of neurodivergent kids who whether they're diagnosed or not, need to unlearn a lot and take all of the well-intentioned advice and unsolicited advice that they're getting and throw it in the garbage and find what actually works for their family and their kid. That is no small feat, but an absolute breakthrough, when you can finally name and feel comfortable and confident with what does work, so that you can feel like you can nicely nod at everybody else's advice and take it with absolutely a grain of salt or not at all, exactly. I feel like there are so many misconceptions and myths about ADHD because it either had a stigma for so long or was just really misunderstood or misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. There's still, I think, so much work to do in really understanding the whole spectrum of neurodiversity, because there are the things that you said about like, Well, if the doctor says, yeah, you're not late very often, then you must not have it, or you have a Master's degree, so you must not have it. But yeah, I get there an hour early so that I'm not late because I have a system and I'm anxious and you know that all of these things mentally are going through the gymnastics in my head. But I do think that you could speak to a little bit more of kind of those misconceptions, or, like the myths you like to debunk of what either ADHD isn't or what is maybe a healthier understanding that we're starting to understand as a society right now.

Patricia Sung  19:37  
I think you hit a lot of the nails on the head there where there's so many things that people say, well, you have this, so you must not have ADHD, or you can do this, so you must not have ADHD - as you said if you have a Master's degree, I know a whole lot of like, lawyers and doctors and very extremely successful entrepreneurs who have ADHD because they have figured out how to make it work for them.

Danielle Bettmann  20:05  
I would argue most entrepreneurs have ADHD.

Patricia Sung  20:09  
I will not take that bet, because that is a true statement. I mean, I would bet it's north of like 80% maybe 90% because we are the big-picture people, we think outside the box. We are willing to take more risks than other people,

Danielle Bettmann  20:25  
We just can't fit into the box of someone else's schedule working for us.

Patricia Sung  20:29  
Yeah and sometimes we do not follow instructions very well. So for someone else that can be really hard. Also, you find in there, a lot of times like, we think we understand what the person has asked of us, and so we start to go do it, and then they're like, that is absolutely not what I meant. Then they're upset that you didn't do the thing. Then you're upset because you think they're upset at you, and we run into these like communication barriers where we thought we had it and we didn't, and that really beats down on our self-esteem. 

Danielle Bettmann  21:05  
Oh, we're so hard on ourselves. 

Patricia Sung  21:07  
Yeah, and I'm like, which can of worms am I opening now? Yeah, I'm gonna stick with this one that I just opened. This part of ADHD that we don't talk about enough is the idea that there's a lot involved with the emotions and the energy that's not that quantitative thing. Emotional dysregulation is so hard. What that means is that our emotions are reactions to what what's going on around us, and some of us, honestly, are not even aware of how much the things around us are affecting the way that we feel and the way that we act, and when we are a more susceptible person to the things going on around us - that makes us feel a lot more out of control, but we can actually do a lot to control the way that we feel about things like not 100% but like, we can do a lot more about how we want to react to a certain thing when we're aware of it. But like, if you're the kind of person who, like your partner, is in a bad mood and all of a sudden you're in a bad mood, and you don't even know why you're in a bad mood, but they came in and they're with their bad mood. Or, like, your kids come home from school and, like, I mean, right now we're recording this, like, close to the start of school, and your kids are just like, your kids are just like, exhausted, and they've held it together all day, and they come home and they just, like, turn into this tiny tornado of emotion, and then you also are like, well, if you would just put your back on the hook, like, when you have that interplay of like, other people's emotions really affect the way that you feel,

Danielle Bettmann  22:39  
Or even just the clutter around you. You know the environment.

Patricia Sung  22:42  
It can be that. It can be like, you're frustrated because there was a lot of traffic and my sweater is too itchy, and like, all these things come in, you're like, I'm not even sure why I'm in a bad mood. When all those other things feel like they're controlling our mood instead of us - that is a huge part of ADHD, and it's called emotional regulation, like our ability to regulate the way that we feel about things, it is a skill we can develop. When we don't even know that we have the ability to do anything about that, our day feels very out of control, because it feels like, if you're the person who says, like, well, I don't know, I just went from zero to 100 or my kid just went from zero to 100. Ma'am, no, you did not. You went from zero to 99 without having any clue, and then 99 to 100 when that one tiny thing happened, that's when you lost your ever-loving mind on whoever was close by. It's because we weren't aware of what happened from zero to 99. A lot of us with ADHD don't have a lot of, like, self-awareness on how we feel. I'm like, that's another whole soapbox I'm gonna try not to get on the moment. We don't understand how we feel, what's going on within us to know that we are getting closer to 99 - so that that one tiny thing that set us off, and we're like, oh my gosh, why did I yell at my kid about the purple cup? Like, I should have just given him a purple cup, but it seems all that other stuff happened. So when we learn how to be aware of how everything else around us is affecting us, and then what we're going to do about it, that is a huge skill set for ADHD, but for people who are not diagnosed, a lot of times, we just don't even know that that's a thing. We don't even know that we're being affected by that and that same lines, we've got rejection sensitivity dysphoria, so a lot of us, when we hear criticism or even perceived criticism, it really like hurts us to the core. If you get that vague text that's like, oh, can we talk later? You're like, oh, that's it. I'm getting fired. Or, that's it, my best friend hates me, or, oh, my goodness, my partner's gonna yell at me. When we immediately assume that this disaster has struck, and you start running through like, what are all the things that I possibly could have said to upset them? Why would they want to talk to me later than that? Like, a runaway train of emotions is a real thing. We really do feel that intense pain when people say unkind things to us or give us that funny sideways glance, and we're like, I think they're mad at me. It really does hurt, and how big the reaction is in relation to the thing that happened is what gives us a clue that this isn't just a grumpy, tired mom. This can be something more because that difference is the hard part, and this is the difference of it is the hard part. We can't put on a piece of paper on a checklist, so, like, all these things with ADHD, and we say, you know, it hurts my feelings when you look at me like that, and people are like, why are you being so sensitive? Why are you getting upset about that? The fact that our reaction was like an eight to that sideways glance, and somebody else's reaction might be like a three, like, if we're talking like a scale to one to 10, these are the ways where ADHD shows up, and we don't know, because when somebody says, well, then they kind of gave me a side eye, and then they move on with their day. But somebody gives me that side eye, and I'm like, spending an hour thinking about why they hate me so much. That's not what everybody else is doing, and that's how we know that this isn't just like regular life, and it's the same way like when we're struggling as a mom, if everyone else is struggling at a level three or four, and you're over here struggling at level 10, yes, everybody struggles. Yes, everybody loses their keys sometimes. Yes, everybody thinks being a parent is hard, but when your struggle is up here at eight, nine, 10, and everyone else's struggle is like 4/5/6, that's a big discrepancy, but everybody's saying it's hard. So you think again, you think it's you, you think that you're the problem. So when we can put a name to this - we can start to say, okay, well, let me learn about this. Let me understand it. Let me figure out the skills that fit that. Then you can start moving forward. But I think these are the parts that we don't understand like what we talked about originally, of like, you can be really smart, you can be successful. You can also be like, I can't hold down a job. That dichotomy of it not make sense. That's a red flag where, like, I can hear, you know, like I've had my podcast for five years, and I can put out a weekly podcast for five years, and yet, still I'm like, did I do laundry recently? I do laundry all the time. I'm Mom, I do laundry every week, and that's really hard. That dichotomy is what tells us, there's the ADHD, not your intelligence level, not how much money you have, not where you grew up, not who your parents were. Then the second part of those things that we don't have on paper, things like the emotions, things like the reactions to criticism, the energy management, about like, how things will just take a lot out of us, so we don't realize other people can do a lot easier and it's not as hard on them. Those are the things that we don't talk about enough, and that's where I think most moms are struggling with the mental fatigue and the amount of decisions you have to make. That's where it really becomes hard as a mom.

Danielle Bettmann  27:56  
100%, yeah, so well said. This summer, I actually did talk to my doctor about an ADHD diagnosis, and that was where she had said, oh, you're an entrepreneur, then most likely you have it like right off the bat, just minute into the conversation, and, you know, I laughed, but it has been absolutely life-giving over the last year of really being able to accept that about myself because my brother was diagnosed in high school, ninth grade, I think. You know, looking back now, I can see it in my parents. I can see it in one of my kids. I can see it everywhere, like it's like it begins to become, like a veil was taken off your eyes and now you can look at things in a totally different light. You would think that it would be one that would be discouraging in some ways, but it's actually so incredibly empowering because it allows you to give yourself a lot more benefit of the doubt, because it is inherently extremely frustrating to feel like you can't get your life together, and you keep losing your phone, and you set it on like a random counter in the laundry room, and, you know, spend three hours tracking it back down again because you can't you get it off vibrate. It's so easy not to just think, like, wow, I must have some problems. Like, this is my thing, but then it becomes, oh, there's a huge thread of commonalities and patterns here that I can actually work with and actually find some humor in too now when I can name it and it can be something almost a little bit more externalized. So do you find that moms will come to you because their kid has been diagnosed, and then they start to see it in themselves? Or how do you see it kind of relating to the family, like you started to mention?

Patricia Sung  29:50  
There's very much a genetic correlation. So if you have ADHD, there is a 50 to 75% chance that we are kids will have ADHD as well. If both parents have it, then it jumps even higher, and it is so much tied into our families. Like, once you know what to look for, it's like, everyone around you just has like, a highlighter on, and like, yeah, it's not going to be everybody in your family, but you'll see, like, Oh, Uncle, so and so, yeah, Auntie, so, oh yeah. Well, no, you know, this person seems kind of normal, maybe not them. It is highly correlated to your family system. I always tell people, if you have anyone in your family blood-related or not because we are birds of a feather, flock together. So if you are willing to put up and marry somebody with ADHD, it's because you're probably okay with it, because you're used to it. It's probably in your family somewhere, like, whenever people like, everybody has ADHD, I was like, everybody in your family does like, it's probably because you are used to seeing that. You are used to people always losing their phone and can't find this and showing up late. You are used to it because probably there's a bunch of people in your family to have it. So it very much is a prevalent thing. It's a two-sided coin, though. Like you said, it's encouraging, because you're like, okay, it's not just me. I can see the other places where it is, and there can be more forgiveness in families because we're used to everybody showing up. On the flip side, it also creates a lot of extra trauma and extra chaos. If your family system has a lot of undiagnosed ADHD, or even diagnosed ADHD, and you grew up in a family with one or two parents who were very disorganized or very chaotic and like, let's be honest, a lot of ADHD can end up showing up in places like addiction, not being able to hold down a job, not being able to pay bills, and that instability that lies within a family system that has a lot of ADHD like that is a very traumatic can be a very traumatic upbringing if that is part of your family line for generations. So it is a struggle to be able to balance that, depending on all the characters that are in your family, you may have some people who are very understanding and very helpful, and then you may have some people who are not doing well and create a lot of chaos and drama for those around them. So I think that as the generation that I'm in and the generations that are coming, you know, after us, as moms, are becoming cycle breakers, and like getting the information they need and setting their kids up for the skills that they need, I think we'll see a lot more healthiness in the generation as it goes forward. But this is another layer of difficulty on top of trying to take care of yourself, and then also, like wanting your kids to have a stable upbringing, that is, they have the skills to do well in their school or their job, or, their relationships because ADHD very much impacts your relationships, your finances, everything. Being able to create more stability in your life so that your kids have more stability, and being that generational cycle breaker is a lot of responsibility and effort on top of all the things that we're doing. So that can be a point of contention as well since it's hard, it's really hard to do things differently than your family's always done them.

Danielle Bettmann  33:25  
Yeah, for me, I feel like that looked like my mom is the opposite of a domestic goddess, as in, had a really, really hard time with household tasks, and my house growing up was always extremely dirty and, you know, clutter filled, and she just did not keep up with really anything as a routine. I became a complex where I didn't want to invite friends over and never did. And, you know, I then ended up taking the brunt of that as the eldest daughter, you know, in high school. I really set out to say, that I want our house to be a home that is not going to be perfect, cleanliness-wise, but I absolutely want anyone to be able to stop over at any time and not be a huge source of stress, and my kids feel comfortable inviting people over. That was a piece of cycle breaking that I did not understand was probably related to some neurodiversity in our family, you know, for years and years and years later, but that just was one of the obvious things to me. My husband, his hyperactivity growing up as a kid became what he wanted to do differently as a dad, where he really wanted to set out and say, hey, like this is really important to me to stay calm and to be able to let my kids be kids. You know, not have these sensory things like fly off the handle and control me, and so that's been really important to us  - to set out and kind of under not only understand that but empower ourselves with, well, how are we going to do that? Because, you know, you can't just have a wish and a prayer and an intention.

Patricia Sung  35:14  
Yeah, you can't wish it there. I wish it did.

Danielle Bettmann  35:18  
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Danielle Bettmann  37:27  
So what have been some of the things that have been game-changers for you as a mom with ADHD?

Patricia Sung  37:32  
For me, when I look back, anxiety has been one of the biggest themes, and anger has been one of the biggest themes. So whereas I felt like I had accumulated a fair amount of organizational skills and keeping on top of that stuff, I feel like my mom did a really good job teaching me those things. But when it came to the anxiety I did not understand intrusive thoughts before I had my oldest son and went to see a psychotherapist who truly understood that, and it was very like, judgment-free. Like, side note, it's hard to find somebody that you really trust and you believe in. Please do your research, and figure out what their background is. They're humans too, and so sometimes it's not a good fit, and that's okay to say, like, well, this didn't work out. Let me try someone else. It seems like when you choose a partner, you can't just pick the first person that shows up. Sometimes that works out, but most of the time you have to do a whole lot of dating. So having the skills of somebody qualified - an expert to say, like, how do we work through these anxious thoughts, how do we work through these intrusive thoughts that they're not controlling you? How do you exit that thought spiral? I think that's been a really huge gift to me. I think back to like, I wish that little Patricia had had those skills too, because I can see where that anxiety and that want for control, when I felt very out of control a lot, like had turned into an unhealthy coping mechanism. Then the second part for me has been like, really working on my emotional regulation in terms of my anger. I know that when I start yelling at everybody, that that's my clue of like, I'm not in a healthy place, I'm not in a good spot, and I need to get out my tools and figure out what I need to do about this at the moment, and then also to like, back up and be like, how do I not get there again? So learning the emotional regulation skills and like, that's what I do in my coaching, are we mostly focused on, what are these emotional regulation skills that you need to know to trust yourself, to have more control over your feelings and be able to exit when things are getting bad, and also know what got you there in the first place is daily work. For me, it is an effort every day. I won't lie and be like, oh, well, I learned these skills, and now my life is great. It is significantly better, but it is a constant work of putting those skills into practice and being able to look at myself and say, I don't want to be an angry mom who yells at everyone. So I know this is the one skill that I'm going to do when I'm struggling. For me, it's like, wait, hold on - before I'm gonna say mine. Side note. This is also an ADHD characteristic. If all your thoughts come with parentheses, you're my people. Yep. I'm like, Oh, wait. Then I did another side note. Now. I'm like, what was my original side note? Classic. I'm like, I must go, oh, is that when we start to get triggered and we are very upset? Our brain goes offline, our logic system is not functioning, and we forget that we even learned any skills at all. You forget you have a toolbox. You forget that you know these strategies because your brain's not using its problem-solving abilities in your prefrontal cortex, it's like survival mode. The children are attacking, and you're in fight or flight. So you probably know a bazillion things. You've read all the books, you listen to the podcast, you went to the coaches and the therapist, and then you get in the moment and you're like, I am just yelling at everybody, I'm not even using all these things that I have learned along the way. So what we can do is just pick one and be like, this is my go-to thing. I'm gonna do this one thing, and then if at some point it stops working, I will choose one other skill. But like, I just need one thing when I realize I am either yelling at everybody, or I have disassociated and I have gone and hid in the bathroom, or I'm scrolling my phone because I can't deal with these children anymore, you need one skill to be able to get you out of that. For me, it is top-up breaths. I don't want to count while I'm breathing. I don't count when I'm mad. I don't want to count. I don't count anything. So whenever I was like, box breathing, and I was like, no, this isn't working for me. So I found the one that works for me, which is the top-up breath. You take a deep breath in, and then when you think you're full, you add in a little extra and then let it out slowly. So I don't have to count. I don't think about it much. All I know is, like, when I'm really struggling, this is my go-to thing. If it's not working, I have my backup one. But like, in the moment, you just need one skill to get you out of that. My other favorite, if you want to try it, that's really easy, is peripheral vision. If you just take a moment and kind of like, lose focus of what's in front of you, and try to take in what's on the sides of you in your peripheral vision, below, above, and take that in that will allow your body to know like you're safe at this moment, there's no you know, tiger lurking in the background trying to attack you, even though you know this angsty 15 year old might feel like they are. It can give your body a moment to be like, okay I am safe, and it gives you enough to back down a little bit to be able to try and access that logical part of you that knows you don't want to yell your kids, or you don't want to be scrolling on your phone, avoiding life. Having that one skill will allow you to get out of that moment. So for me, I look back and I'm like being able to deal with all the anxiety, which is rooted in my ADHD, I definitely have anxiety, but it's because of the ADHD and that's why a lot of women will get treated for anxiety or depression for years, and nothing ever seems better, because that's not the root. The root is something else, for example, ADHD, so when we treat that, then all of a sudden, all the anxiety and depression things start to get better because we treated the root. It's like, if you have a tree, if you have unhealthy roots, there's no apples at the top because the the roots are messed up. So like, being able to gain the skills there has helped a lot. Then on the flip side, I was able to control my anger. I don't even necessarily like the word control, I don't feel like I control it very well. I know how to manage it enough to be able to get my thinking brain back online and not take it out on everybody else. Then it's like, okay, well now that I back down enough I'm like okay, I'm not about to explode. What do I need to do to take care of myself? Do I need to tag in with my partner? Do I need to throw the kids in the stroller and go on a walk for 10 minutes? Do I need to throw everyone in the car? They're all belted in, they can't go anywhere, and I'm just going to go on a drive for a few minutes?  Am I sticking the baby in the playpen and going to stand on the front porch for a minute and take in some nature first? What is it that you need in that moment to able to get down to a place where you can function and be the kind of parent that you want to be temporarily so that you can then actually fix the problem? We also can't just stay in that temporary fix zone, because it doesn't give us enough a of a break to be able to actually solve the problem. So we have to circle back and actually solve the problem of why we got there in the first place.

Danielle Bettmann  44:47  
Super tangible, practical. I love that you named what works for you. Because for me, box breathing is great. It makes me feel like I have control of something. It's very structured. That was a game changer when I realized just how big of an impact it was, because my chest was so tight before, and it actually makes me feel like I can expand my body. And for me, getting space is huge, because I feel claustrophobic when I'm triggered, and so I have to just step away, even if it's three feet, 10 feet, and, you know, for 30 seconds to 10 minutes, and that is all I need to just immediately feel like it's coming down. But, you know, without those go-tos, and knowing that that's your go-to, helplessness absolutely overtakes you. I think that the biggest trigger I see with moms is just that feeling of my back against the wall. I have zero tools, and the world is expected of me, all the pressure is on my shoulders, and I feel helpless to impact this moment, both in what's going on with my own body and with my kids. And so that's just, you know, a runaway train,

Patricia Sung  45:57  
Exactly.

Danielle Bettmann  45:58  
So I would love to circle back to like strengths because I would hate for anyone listening that has ADHD or that's like, really seeing themselves on paper right now to feel like, oh no, this is a really horrible thing to be accused of - all of these challenges and struggles, but there's genuinely so much good. So can you speak to the other side of what the benefits and the strengths can be of having ADHD?

Patricia Sung  46:28  
Yeah, so I like to look at it on both sides that, you know, yes, we want to bumper pad our weaknesses, but we really want to focus on what our strengths are. Listen, I can't change the fact that I have no sense of time. I generally have no idea. I don't know. I'm not going to, like, magically get that gene somewhere along the way. So it's like, I need to bumper pad those weaknesses. But what I want to do is really lean into the positive side of that. It is my personal belief that every part that you struggle with is something that you can then turn around and flip, not to be like toxic positivity, because gross. For example, I don't have a good sense of time, but what that means is, when I'm present with my kids and we're really into something, we are in it. You want to learn about black holes. Cool. Let's go through the Google rabbit hole, the black hole of black holes on the internet, and figure out, what that means. So I will jump in with childlike wonder with them and explore questions. Sometimes it gets me in trouble because I'm supposed to be making dinner, and all of a sudden I'm over here. Like, how do we make a box for it more stable? It's like that childlike wonder and that enthusiasm makes me a great mom. When I think about how I can be an angry person, I flip that around. I'm like, I am passionate about the things that I believe in, and that zest for my feelings and like, how I am passionate about causes. I want my kids to see that that matters and that we stand up for people who aren't being stood up for, and then we will speak up when people aren't being treated well, that is a beautiful side of that. So any part of ADHD that you're like, I'm not happy about that, I'm like, agreed, and there's a good piece to that. We will bumper pad the hard part of it, but then let's strengthen it. I'm not the best at finishing projects. That's why I have a team who helps me finish the projects. My gift is, that I'm the ideas girl. Listen, you need a solution. I got 16. Let's go down the list, to which one is gonna work. My ideas will distract me from getting something done, but that is my gift. I can problem-solve out of just about everything, and I love doing it. So yes, having ADHD is really difficult. It can be a disorder, especially when it's preventing you from doing things like holding down your job paying your bills, or keeping your relationship healthy. How do we focus on making the things that work for you? How do we find you a job that appreciates your creativity, and wants your ideas? How do we find the one that's flexible for you to do with your schedule? That's all there when we can look for it. There's a part of neuroscience called confirmation bias, it's like, when we're in that, oh, everything's so hard. Why is this so difficult? Life is terrible. We're going to continue to find more examples of that because that's our brain's job. Our brain's job is to find confirmation so we think that feel secure. So when we adjust and think, okay, well, how can I flip this around, we start looking for those things that are better. Our brain will then start to be trained to look for confirming things that are better. So it's not the idea of toxic positivity, it's how we train our brains to be doing the things that we want it to do, not the things that we don't want them to do. You don't think you can hold down a habit? Lies. You have lots of habits. You just don't like them, but you have lots of habits. So how do we take the habits that you have and adjust them to be the ones that you want? How do we take those baby steps in the right direction? I'm not going to tell you to be 5 am sunrise yoga lady, when you're normally waking up by your toddler bonking your own head and saying, Ma I hungry, Ma I hungry. That's not how we're going to solve your morning routine problems. How do we take what you already do and make it better? So it is possible to take any part of ADHD that's really hard and figure out how to use it to at least not be a detriment, and move it into a strengths view so that you're not always beating yourself up because it is hard, and you're also really great at a whole lot of stuff. How do we highlight those? How do we make those where you're spending most of your day instead of the other stuff? 

Danielle Bettmann  50:44  
Yep, like the object permanence of like, if you don't see it, it doesn't exist. You know, yesterday, I did not shut my garage door for several hours. Haven't told my husband that, but because the car had already been pulled out and faced down the road, so once I got in the car again after getting the mail, even though that is such an automatic habit, you would think to close the garage door as you leave. Did not even realize it until I pulled back in and went, oh, hmm, interesting. But when that's how I absolutely know my brain works and I stopped beating myself up for it, I constantly am like, how can I use my object permanence problem for good and keep things out and visible and in front of my face and doing things at the moment when I remember them, or, you know, just trying to really work with that in a way that makes me feel productive and accomplished, and getting things done in a way that makes sense for my brain, and that is such a game changer, rather than just beating myself up again because I'm making, you know, elementary mistakes, and how dare I? I love that you named all those strengths because I think even the sensitivity makes you, I think, have a high level of emotional intelligence, where your EQ is so high, that you can really connect with and relate with other people and be present with them in a way that creates that flow with a time blindness and a way that's a huge gift. When you're a people person, I see that sensitivity in a lot of different ways, with both the high highs and the low lows, but the high highs, like, yes, I get overstimulated when there's toys everywhere on the floor, but also warm lighting cannot possibly make me more happy. I have a little disco ball by my window now in my living room, and every day at like, 4pm there's just like little glimmers of light shining all over the ceiling. I get giddy every single day because I'm so impacted by it and it's such a high for me, so that there is always a dichotomy of the flip flop of the other side of that sensitivity, or the emotional intelligence, or the timeliness of the object permits - all the stuff. I would love to have any listener that relates to this conversation, see themselves in a more compassionate light that finds more self-love through that process, rather than more and more reasons to become self-aware to a point where they are ashamed or not want to brush this conversation, you know?

Patricia Sung  53:24  
Yeah, that's like, always my core message is you're not broken and you're not alone. As we're sharing these stories you might not identify with every single one of them. Everyone with ADHD is different. We're different people. But when you see those pieces that are similar, like you are not the only one struggling with these things, and it's not a fundamental issue of you not being a whole person - you're not broken. You can do this and you can figure it out when you have the right support system around you. I think there is always hope for us to find a way that works for us and a huge step in that direction is that grace of - how do we take care of ourselves? How do we give ourselves more compassion? Honestly, being able to illustrate that to our kids is a really huge gift.  Like, oh man, I really messed that up. I'm gonna forgive myself, and I'm gonna do this so that I can do something different next time. Like, that's a really beautiful gift to give our kids too. They're watching us, and like not to be one of those, like, creepy, guilty people on all those Instagram reels. It's like you have the power to lead your kids in a different direction, and it starts with us as the parent, as the mom, to be like, hey, I'm going to do something about this. I'm gonna take a tiny action step in the right direction so that I can treat myself with compassion, and I can give myself grace, and I can show my kids like we're gonna mess up. We're humans. We're not meant to be perfect. So what are we gonna do with that? How are we going to react to that? How are we gonna own up for our actions? Then moving in the way that we want to move forward. Taking care of ourselves is step one. We can't take care of other people when we are falling apart, as much as we have tried, all of us moms, we have tried -  it didn't work. Taking care of yourself matters so much. 

Danielle Bettmann  55:16  
Yeah, those teaching moments that come from when I washed my headphones through the washer and dryer again for the second time and wanted to scream and punch myself in the face. That is a moment where I have the opportunity to show my kids how they should treat themselves when they are going to inevitably make those mistakes, and I didn't do it well for the first few minutes.

Patricia Sung  55:44  
It's okay to own that too. We can say ooh, I was not kind of myself there. Let me try this again. Talking through what we're doing mentally helps teach our kids how to do that. Like narrating it out and being like, oh, wow, I am really being a grumpy face, and that's not okay. I'm going to take a minute here, and I'm going to do my breathing, and then I'm going to come back in about 30 seconds, and we're going to try this again, like narrating that through with them, is one of the ways that we can teach them how to do that, because, yeah, being a parent is difficult, so we will constantly be given opportunities to repair and to redo and to do things in the way that we want. That's the beautiful part about parenting. It's a lot of the same stuff every day. So if you want to try something different tomorrow, it's a new opportunity,

Danielle Bettmann  56:37  
It's not going to be like minute one, you know, changing the first word out of your mouth, it's going to be catching yourself down the road and then rerouting and then trying to catch yourself sooner the next time. That's what the realistic expectation of change should look like, of progress. You know, I think that becomes a misconception too, in a lot of my clients is, well, I messed up again, you know, because I started yelling. Well, yeah, you're gonna yell, and then how long did you keep yelling before you kind of had that aha moment of catching yourself? That's what we're looking for. So being realistic in our expectations of ourselves and our kids is definitely a constant struggle. Name of the Game, for sure. I feel like we could keep going, but I do want to wrap up, so will you share how listeners can connect with your work?

Patricia Sung  57:23  
Of course, I would love to have you. I have a podcast as well. It's called Motherhood in ADHD, and that's my website, and that's my handle on all the socials. But earlier I mentioned there, that I have a check sheet of symptoms in like, real life, so you can go to my website. It's patriciasung.com/ADHD-symptoms. You can download that checklist and once you get that, I send you the link to my toolkit, which has, like, all my free resources in there. So, the skills that I offered earlier are there too. There's just a plethora of - like, I'm a teacher, I'm a teacher at heart, I got lots of free stuff in there for you. So go download the checklist and go listen to the podcast. I would love to have you as part of our group. I think one of the most beautiful parts is that when you find the people who really get you, the community that we've created is really beautiful and forgiving, and they're the moms who are like 'me too, oh my gosh.' That's a huge piece of the forgiveness process, is to know that, like the other moms are there and they understand and they're cheering you on. So yeah.

Danielle Bettmann  58:28  
No judgment, just solidarity, such a game changer. Amazing. The last question I always ask every guest that comes on is, how are you the mom your kids need?

Patricia Sung  58:39  
I'm a pretty strong Christian, God gave me these kids, and he asked me to be willing to take care of them. So I have to trust that like they're mine for a reason. When I look at my oldest, he looks just like my husband, and he's tiny to me. So I am able to, like, understand where he's coming from, and give him the grace that I wish I had had when I was nine. My youngest one looks just like me and is so much like my husband, and I am the best mom for him because I see the joy and the light that he has in him. I'm pretty sure he's an Enneagram seven like he just has a zest for life, and he always wants everyone to be in a good mood, and being able to see that and allow him to shine in the way that makes him most happy has been such a growth place for me, because I am the oldest daughter, Enneagram One - like this is the way that it's right, and really allowing him to be who he really is, is a gift that I'm really happy that I can give him.

Danielle Bettmann  59:49  
That's so awesome. I love that. They're both lucky to have you and having that level of intentionality, and, you know, taking your impact so seriously and being able to support them and just being themselves to the level of an extent that they feel the freedom to be, which is all we all want, really, is that level of authenticity in our homes. So very cool. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing all of your insight. It was both insightful and practical, and I know so many of my listeners needed to hear this conversation where they had probably some aha moments. I hope I was successful in my endeavor of convincing everyone I know that they have ADHD, to join the Club.

Patricia Sung  1:00:33  
I mean, if you're not sure, go listen to my podcast and you're gonna learn real quick. If you're like, ooh, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep,

Danielle Bettmann  1:00:39  
You're either like, that is me or it isn't, and pretty much everyone that I hang out with is, you know, birds of a feather flock together, so welcome to the club. Again, thank you so much.

Patricia Sung  1:00:51  
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Danielle Bettmann  1:00:59  
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now share it in your Instagram stories and tag me. If you're loving the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed. Leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood on a daily basis, and if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong-willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen, schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you, and I'm cheering you on.