30. ADHD & ANXIETY: Tara's story of motherhood, postpartum anxiety & depression 💜

Hi Vestys, we are back for season two after three months off. We're so excited and you can now watch your ADHD Vestys podcast episodes on YouTube. We've finally started filming them. We're uploading them every week. So head across now, look for us on YouTube or there's a link in the description of this podcast episode. And this podcast episode is brought to you by our brand new snack hacker. Over 300 of you have already gone and downloaded it. It's created by Tara to help you with that feeling you get when you open the fridge and you've got no idea what to get and you're just overwhelmed. I have been using it and I'm absolutely obsessed with it. So go and check it out on future ADHD.com and onto the episode. I felt so guilty. You know, I had these ideas of wanting to be at home with my kids and I couldn't wait to do painting and all of these different things with my kids. I had these grand plans of what kind of mum I would be and I went through such a big phase of feeling horrible that I wasn't that kind of mum that wanted to do puppet shows and all of those things. Hello and welcome to your ADHD Vestys, the podcast for people who cannot think of anything worse than having to do business administration. I'm Tara Bruso, dietitian and diagnosed ADHD. And I'm Grace Kourmer, founder of Future ADHD and diagnosed ADHD as well. So Grace, with that little gentle bit of foreshadowing, tell the listeners about what we've been up to this week. It's basically only been business administration. And it's been hell. I can't even say the words. It's the worst words. And Tara and I, like, we love the creative side of what we do together. Love, love, love, love. But then there's this ugly, underbelly where you have to have an account and you have to sign stuff and you have to be and you're sitting there going, I'll never read through this in a million years, but I should, and I get killed. I should be reading what I'm signing, but I'm not. Yeah, no. And we both try our best, but it exhausts us. It's exhausting. Yeah. So this week we had to set up a bank account. We had to have a meeting. Tara was meant to bring her passport. I messaged her the night before. Somehow I didn't see the message rocks up without the passport. So we did a one hour run trip to get the passport. We did. We did. And then we arrived at the bank all ready to go. Yeah. Who has the official document? I was meant to bring the official documents. Neither of us. Neither of us. No, we didn't bring. So then we couldn't do the bank appointment. No. And then there was more rescheduling, which is just a nightmare for ADHD is these things. We've talked about it before with Centrelink or government support, those sorts of jumping through hoops. They're just designed for neurotypical brains. Yeah. And we just wilt. Yeah, we do. I think I hand sanitised like 50 times because that was the only exciting thing to do at the bank. My eyes were so clean and so dry. Oh my god. No, yes. So that was our week. Yeah. All of that. All the first side though, when we were speaking with the banker, we told her we have ADHD and we advocated. And then opened up a little conversation, which was nice. It's it. Yeah. You know, she had ADHD too. Yeah. Lovely. It's cute. It was. Okay. Do you have a little recommendation for us Grace? I do. I was inspired by our recent app where we spoke about meditation and how we can kind of relax our brains by doing like hobbies and stuff like that to recommend an amazing free guided meditation. Because it's really hard to find ones that I think are good for ADHD brains and aren't too like, you know, this one starts. It's all about burnout, which I love. And it's important to like find ones that you can go back to every time you feel this way. Firstly, it's cleanly recorded, which is important. And then she also starts out by saying, your feeling burnt out, you're exhausted, you're cooked. And I just feel like that. I love to hear. I'm cooked. I am. Yeah. That made me feel seen. Yeah. It wasn't like you're feeling. You know, maybe you're dehydrated in the world is feel, you know, like it's you want someone to just kind of call it like you're cooked. You're cooked. You like it. You're bloody cooked. So I'm going to link that one in the show notes. It's on the inside timer app. It goes for about 20 minutes. Oh, nice long one. Yeah, it's like, I feel like that's a good length. You know, sometimes when they're five minutes, I feel like I want to sink in. Just let it take me away. And when it's guided, you don't have to do any work. Yeah. The inside timer app is free, which is another big thing. Yeah. It's a free one. So yeah, go and check it out. If you're feeling burnt out or exhausted or cooked, cooked. Yeah. That's it. Sounds amazing, babe. What about you? Do you have a wreck for me this week? So my wreck is a makeup wreck. Love. And you know me. Yes. I'm a long time makeup user. Yes. She's a makeup nerd. Big makeup fan. Yeah. I read all of the stuff. She knows all the ingredients. I know the ingredients. I look at TikToks. I listen to reviews. I just if I'm buying something, it's a big deal. You're like a makeup encyclopedia. I will go into a pharmacy or a makeup shop. And I'll be like, I'm just looking for you like this one or this one. Yes. This is why they go and they go with this. This is why I can't do algebra because it got pushed out of my brain so that I yeah. Okay. So yeah. This makeup rack. It's an eye shadow palette. Yeah. And I have used this eye shadow palette until most of the colors are completely gone. Some of them I didn't use at all. Yeah. But most of them are completely gone. And that's never happened to me before. Wow, babe. Yeah. You've literally been scraping the crumbs out of the colors. I have been crumb scraping. So this palette is by Tarte Cosmetics. Yeah. And it's called Tartlet Amazonian Clay Matte Palette. Okay. Which I feel is not that snappy of a name. Yeah. It's giving really like it's I'm not yeah. It's not what I thought it would be. Yeah. What would look good. No, but it does. Okay. So there's a few things. Firstly, Tarte make long wear makeup. Yeah. And it's really highly pigmented. Yeah. And so you just need a little bit. Yeah. But I think the key here is that it's matte. I just feel that I have shiny shimmery eye shadows. Yeah. I don't tend to use them every day. That for more fun stuff. Yeah. And I have always found it quite hard to use a shimmer in a really like daytime every day kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I had to wear glittery eye shadow for Halloween yesterday for my costume. And when I wiped it off, it went all over my face. So it's such an exactly, unfortunately, no, I'm afraid of an ADHD or you're just like my makeup's already hard enough to get off. But now I'm like getting glitter all over my bed and my pillow and it's it's all in my face now. She does look a little bit Edward Cullen today. Oh, I'll do it. This is the skin of a killer baller. Okay. So it's wonderful. It stays on natural looking. Doesn't look like you have makeup on. But that's just beautiful colors. And I highly recommend. And that is a bottom of the pan recommendation. It is not often that you get to the bottom of an eye shadow pan. Yeah. And so when you do what's a pan or you said pilot before it's pan a pan's like the individual one. Oh, like a little square. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not common that people get to the bottom of one of those pans. Yeah. Within like a year period. Yeah. Yeah. But with this one, I did. Okay. Go check it out. We'll link it as always. We will. Because I'm not going to remember the name of that. The Amazonian clay mat clay, Amazonia pellet. Yeah. Remember that? No. No. I don't know. Okay. It's time for our dilemma segment. But today, we're actually going to do something a bit different. Because Ty and I are getting ready to launch a subscription alongside this weekly free episode. People have been asking us for more content. And we are obsessed with this idea. We would love to give you guys more episodes. And we are going to do that with a subscription. So in the subscription, we'll have different types of episodes. Some of them will be Q&As. Some of them will be a regular. Like extended ones that are a lot of fun or maybe reviews of TV shows that we've been watching that kind of thing. Yeah. Interviews with guests. Yep. And we're also going to be doing deep dives. Because we feel like often we'll cover a topic in a dilemma. But we actually want to devote a whole episode to it and really dig deep into the experience of that for an ADHD. And there's also some things that only one of us has experienced and the other one can't really speak to. So today, I'm going to interview Tara about her experience with anxiety and depression as a person with ADHD and look at that across different stages of her life. So we'll talk about pregnancy and prenatal anxiety. We'll talk about postnatal depression and generalised anxiety in other stages of her life as a mother. And we're going to get into it. So are you ready, Tara? I am ready. Let's do it. You're in the pot seat, baby. I am. Let's do it. So Tara. Oh, we're serious. I know. This game phase. Let's start with your childhood. I want you to tell me about the first time or some of your first experiences with anxiety and whether you told your parents or whether you saw a doctor, what was the journey like for you at that stage? So I find it hard to separate out the different parts of my brain, my personality versus my anxiety, my obsessive-compulsive disorder, my ADHD. I've got a lot going on in this beautiful brain that I used to have a really hard time loving, but I am learning to love now that I'm in my 30s. But that separation of traits versus personality that we talked about in last week's episode, I do find that really difficult. And as a young girl, I'm not sure if it was anxiety, ADHD, a combination of both or just me, but I felt that I wasn't able to be a child for as long as I felt my peers were. I don't know if that makes sense, but I felt like I noticed things that were going on. I was much more aware of the more adult themes in life. So things like worrying about finances, worrying about my parents and what they were up to and whether they were okay, worrying about family members, worrying about the state of the world and things like that, I would worry a lot more than I think my friends would, which indicates that I had anxiety from a young age. I wasn't officially diagnosed with anxiety until I was in my 20s, but upon reflection, I experienced anxiety for quite a young age. And that worry was definitely impacted by my ADHD symptoms or traits. So for example, I remember I couldn't keep secrets as a child. I found that so hard. And then I would tell someone's secret because I was really impulsive. And then that secret would get told. And then I'd be so anxious about that that that was going to come out and that that I was going to be in trouble. And it was, it was a really stressful thing for me. As an adult, now I can keep things secret. But I still struggle I think with the concept of secrecy because I think that it can be really dangerous to people. So not talking about certain things. If everyone's keeping them secret, then everyone feels really alone in them. I don't completely connect with the idea of a secret. And obviously if a friend comes to me now and they say, you know, I'm going through this and it's something really personal to them. And if they ask me to keep a secret, I can keep it a secret because my impulse, I now have a fully formed prefrontal court. But I still do struggle with that idea. I don't know if we should be so secretive. As human beings, I think a problem shared as a problem halved, which by the way is a saying that I thought that I made up. And my husband was like, you didn't make that up. And I was like, no, no, I did not. I was like, Tara, you genius. Yes. So I definitely had that. I also experienced a lot of judgment for my physical hyperactivity. And that really impacted me negatively. I also have dysgraphia, which is learning disability that affects a lot of people with ADHD. And basically, you find it really hard to write slowly or to space your words properly or to get a comfortable grip. So even now as an adult, I find writing really annoying if I'm writing handwriting. So it's not so much. My dysgraphia was never a problem in terms of, you know, I've always been able to actually like legibly write. But I find holding the pen properly, practicing that skill of like getting all of your letters the same size and stuff very boring and just frustrating, frustrating, I guess. And that I think is part of the fact that I am really physically hyperactive. Whereas I found a lot of the other girls in my class did not experience that, you know, it was like they could sit and focus and write. But I just don't want to be, I don't want all of the energy in my body to be focused down on one point. Yeah. So that all caused me, that caused me a lot of anxiety as well, just feeling really different in that way. Yeah. I love that you share that Tara because I think that it's really common for neurodivergent kids to sort of have an old soul to have that sort of ability from a young age to see big topics and the existentialism of things or like analyze really adult topics. But they don't have the prefrontal cortex yet to be able to put that in perspective. Yes. And I think that that intensity and the bigness of some of the questions that they ask creates anxiety because they don't yet have, you know, that ability to work through it logically. No. And I see that a lot with my own nine year olds as well. And I relate from my childhood as well, being that kind of kid with that constant worried energy, thinking about things that a lot of my peers, as you said, were just not concerned about. Yeah. I think it also, you touched on the fact that you felt different. And I think that it's sort of like a chicken and an egg thing because when your brain is built that way and you feel different, that difference also causes anxiety. Yes. And then constantly being perceived by people, being commented on, feeling like, you know, in a school environment where there's a lot of structure and a lot of patients required to do book work and stuff when you don't fit that. Yes. It's going to actually, it's like compounded anxiety. And it's sort of hard to see the true root cause of it. So yeah. Also, the combination, I think, reflecting back of anxiety and ADHD together in my childhood was tricky because I think I've ruminated on things for a lot longer than maybe my peers would. So for example, I remember my cousin who's a couple of years older than me. She had a sleepover for her birthday party because I was her cousin. I was coming. But she was, I think she was 13 and I was about 11 and they watch Scream, the movie, the horror film. And it's absolutely traumatized me. I couldn't sleep for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I hear that speaking to a lot of women in the ADHD community that there are a lot more, there does seem to be a higher incidence of things like phobias or things that we can get stuck on because we have those sticky brains. And so that did cause me a lot of anxiety, those things that I would ruminate on and just get stuck in those loops of. So I definitely think that was a contributing factor. And that's where ADHD played a big part. Yeah. Yeah. And often as well adults will tell you, don't worry, don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a high school teacher who would always tell me, don't look so worried. And you, that makes you more worried. Yeah. Could you think you're not worried? Yeah. Yeah. I'm worried. And now I'm worried that I'm worried. Yeah. Yeah. And then I can't stop worrying. Yes. Because I should just be able to switch it off. That was very 90s. You know, don't have anxiety. Oh, okay. Thank you so much. Just like I thought. Yeah. Yeah. Easy and sure. Sure. Done. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So moving forward in your timeline, you mentioned that you were diagnosed with anxiety as an adult. Was that at the same time as your ADHD diagnosis? No. So I just want to take you back a little bit to why I was diagnosed with anxiety. So I moved when I was 15 from New Zealand, where I lived my whole life away to Western Australia with my mum and my brother. And after I finished high school in Western Australia, I moved back to New Zealand because I had all of my close friends that I'd grown up with there. So I didn't have my mum and my brother who were my close family unit. And I moved back there. And I was out of home for the first time. And I just wasn't looking after myself. I was smoking cigarettes and drinking lots of not sleeping and just not not looking after myself. And that led to me being really, really anxious to the point that one day I had my first panic attack. This is after a couple of years. And if you've experienced panic attack, everyone can experience panic attacks differently. But for me, it wasn't what I expected it to be like. Like what you see in the movies and stuff. Yeah. So for me, it's not of this adrenaline filled sort of heavy breathing stuff. For me, it's complete, I'm completely calm. I've been, I've had a lot of adrenaline and been anxious leading up to that point. But I'm completely calm by that point. And it's almost like my brain switches years. Yep. And suddenly I'm calm, but I'm certain that I'm about to die. Yeah. Just there's my every bone in my body is certain that I am about to die. If it's the freeze response. Yeah. And so I made my boyfriend at the time take me to the hospital. And you know, I ended up not going inside because I couldn't work out what actual part of me was the part that was about to die or that what I needed to get checked. Yeah. You gasped like yourself. Yeah. Yes. After that, I had anxiety, which a lot of people will experience about not wanting to have a panic attack again. It's the worst feeling that I've never experienced. And so I was anxious. I was extremely anxious following that about not going back into that. And I was extremely anxious about going to sleep at night because I couldn't connect that when you go to sleep, how do you how are you sure that you're not going to die? So I had this really severe anxiety. I ended up moving back in with my mom. I saw a psychologist and they diagnosed me with anxiety with generalized anxiety disorder. And that was really helpful at the time. It was cognitive behavioral therapy. So a lot of, you know, noticing your thoughts and letting them just be there. It helped me to get a lid on it so that I wasn't having panic attacks, but it still was omnipresent. Yeah. Something that I was experiencing all the time. So the simmering under the surface. Yes. And I had to do a lot to prevent my anxiety from rearing its ugly head. So I had to go for runs every day, not in an obsessive compulsive way. That was a separate part of my life. Yeah. It's all been very fun. It's a delightful little mix. But running every day, making sure that, you know, I wasn't drinking too much, making sure that I was really looking after myself. I'd quit smoking at this point because anything coffee, anything that made me anxious, I couldn't, I couldn't do. I'm very glad that I quit smoking at that point though, because that was silver lining. Yeah, big silver lining. So I got a lid on it, but it was a full-time job managing it. Yeah. I was accepted into uni and I started uni. And then my anxiety was under control somewhat at uni, although, you know, drinking culture and those sorts of things are prominent in Australian university culture. So I was drinking and drinking has a really negative effect on my ADHD brain. Yeah. And it can, on a lot of ADHD brains, where RSD is, goes into overdrive the next day, and you can worry about what you've said because the night before you might have been more impulsive because your inhibitions are lowered, alcohol can magnify ADHD traits for a lot of people. And it makes you sort of drop the mask as well. Definitely. And so I would get a lot of RSD the next day about how I was acting. So that played in with into my anxiety. But the reason I was diagnosed with ADHD is because although I felt that I somewhat had my anxiety under control, looking back now, I would say I didn't, but it was a lot better than it was a couple of years before a New Zealand. So I thought I was doing really well. Yeah. Now I just have no tolerance for anxiety. I just don't want to have anxiety ever at all, but we'll get into that later. Yeah. So I was studying. And to me, it felt like when I was in lectures that I was interested in, I almost felt like I had a like a photographic or a genetic memory for those things, like I could hear the lecturer say the whole lecture in my head it felt like. So I was interested in an architect on board. Yeah. Which is really common for ADHD brains that if we're interested in something we can absorb it really easily. But then doing a dietetics degree there is a big component of human biology, but also biochemistry, microbiology, things like that, which I was interested in. But because particularly chemistry has a specific language to it that you have to learn and you almost have to just focus and wrote, learn these particular parts of the language to then be able to go on and learn the next parts. And it's reminiscent of maths almost because there's a lot of symbols and a bit algebraic. Yes. And that also gave me a lot of anxiety because as I've spoken about on the pod before, I have dyscalculia. I've got all the things. Yeah. I hate that as well. And then I RSD because I'm like, do people think I'm just making up all the words and that I have all the things and blah, blah, blah. But no, I genuinely do struggle with that with numbers in my head. Yeah. And I think people just to validate you there, I think people a lot of the time oversimplify. Yes. And they almost compress something to just one one idea about something and a lot of the time neurodivergence has come with multiple neurodivergences. They do. Yeah. And being specific about them helps us feel seen. Yes. If it's starting to feel overwhelming with too many labels like each person, it's up to them to decide. But I think you feel validated through each new realization you've had about yourself. Yes. It shows that we're all incredibly complex. Yes. Like with dysgraphia, for example, that's not something that impacted me really negatively throughout my life. I mean, maybe when I was six and we were learning handwriting and my teacher would call us up and say, what is this piece of crap that you've done compared to everyone else? That did cause me anxiety. But nowadays, it's just something that I think's funny and almost endearing. I feel endeared to myself that my handwriting's so messy as a 36 year old woman. You know, I'm like, I'm going to look at that through that lens. That's fine. But it does help me. I think deal with some of the shame I had as a six year old that just couldn't sit there and just get those letters perfect. So anyway, back to chemistry, that was really stressful for me. But I really wanted to learn it. I really wanted to be a dietician. A big part of the reason I wanted to be a dietician is I felt that I hadn't looked after myself and that's one of the reasons I ended up getting really sick, which is much too oversimplified. I now know, but that was a big reason for me wanting to do it. And I was really passionate about making sure that I got through my degree. And I just couldn't focus on this chemistry stuff. And I went to my doctor and I just said my anxiety's getting worse because I can't focus. And she must have been light years ahead of her time because she said I actually think that you've got ADHD. She could probably see that I was very physically active in the session. So hyperactive. And I, like Grace always points out, I jiggle my legs. I will ring my hands constantly. There's, I'll be like picking at my nails and those sorts of things. So I'm always moving. And she happened to pick that up. And I didn't, I didn't believe in ADHD at that time. I was exactly what we fear the most when people, when we tell people that we have ADHD, I was like, no, that's just something that little boys do. I'm not a little boy jumping off the walls and you know, running around a classroom and not listening and yelling. And it was a different time. It was a different time. And if I can change my mind guys, so can your relatives and people that you're afraid of telling? Yeah. But I was referred to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist did their measures on me. And I scored really highly for having ADHD. And so the psychiatrist prescribed me with a stimulant medication. And being someone that had experienced extreme anxiety around things like coffee, things like smoking cigarettes, I was really anxious to take it. And so I would take almost 25% of what they recommended to me. And I also was, I've always really struggled with sleep. So I was really nervous about that. I was very anti medication. My whole life, I just thought no. And I think that that was the mentality, especially in the 90s and early 90s, was like, don't have medication. It's almost like you failed if you do it. I don't know. That was the general idea that I had, which is so completely wrong. And we will get to that a little bit later. But I took only a little bit of that, but it did really help and meant that I could focus. It meant that if I wanted to, I could focus on this chemistry and I ended up learning it. One of the most important things to learning it though was learning stories around it. So for me, taking it and making it creative. So a good example for human biology, for example, I was getting past marks in human bio. But once I started taking the pathogenesis of disease and making that into so rather than wrote learning or trying to wrote learn and using things like acronyms, which can be really helpful for sure. But only if you're doing a small amount of stuff. My self and my two best friends would sit and work out stories. And because it was creative, we would be able to take on so much more of the information, which I think was helpful for them, but they don't have ADHD. I think it's helpful for most people because combining the two sides of your brain. But for me, that really thrives in that creative side of my brain. It was so helpful. And to this day, the things that I learned through creative stories, like I can just recall so easily, it's almost like I said before, identical photographic. And that was just the key for me. And I went from not getting what I wanted out of the degree. So was it for lack of wanting? And that annoys me so much about people's view of ADHD is that we can't be bothered. No, we want to. We're sitting there trying, but we cannot get ourselves to do it. And so we end up watching the TV show because we may as well do that instead of sitting there hating ourselves. It's not through lack of wanting. It's through lack or trying. It's through lack of actually being able to connect them, put that into your brain. Okay, so moving forward again in your story to when you were pregnant with your eldest. And I want to know at that stage where the anxiety changed for you again and how that worked in with your ADHD. Can you tell me a bit more about that? So pregnancy was a surprise for me. I was expecting it to be really hard because every other hormonal, big hormonal period in my life had been really hard. And there definitely were hard sides of it, the tiredness, the feeling, you know, the nausea. And I had quite bad morning sickness, but not for my whole pregnancy thankfully. And I can't even imagine how that is for women who go through that. But the one thing that was really surprising was that I was just so much more level in my emotions. And I thought at the time that that was because I wasn't getting my period. But now looking back, it would have been that I wasn't experiencing my PMDD. And before we move on, PMDD stands for pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, which is a far more intense version of pre-menstrual syndrome or PMS. Yes. And so my PMDD is the worst part of ADHD for me, especially before I understood it fully. And so I, yeah, I just had a really level, that's all I can explain it as a level time during my pregnancy, apart from the feelings of feeling sick and those sorts of things. And it was a nice break from the real rollercoaster, that is my normal hormonal periods. And I just didn't see it coming because in the past, any hormonal thing was it really negative for me, like puberty, my ADHD symptoms were greatly increased. And that's really common. Trying the contraceptive pill for the first time, or I tried it two or three times and every time, it just, I felt like I was at going absolutely insane, like just really didn't, didn't work for me and made me feel so, so, so, unwell mentally. And now I know that that's quite common for women with ADHD. So I enjoyed my pregnancy, almost of it. And I had a pretty textbook birth with my first son, but then right after that is when postnatal anxiety hit. And so I didn't experience postnatal depression, I experienced extremely severe postnatal anxiety. Yeah, which is something that probably only in the last 10 or 15 years has been diagnosed by doctors. Yes. It was always seen as just postnatal depression. Yes. And it is much more prevalent in women with ADHD. So if we have ADHD, we're more likely to experience postnatal anxiety. For me, there were two parts. There felt like there was the standard anxiety of not feeling in control. And that was really extreme for me, that I didn't expect that to happen. You know, we're similar to my panic attacks where I just felt like I'd gone into a different part of my brain where I couldn't be logical anymore and I couldn't, I couldn't see the logical side of things. But then there was what was not expected. But what I wish I would have known as someone with ADHD and anxiety, I wish someone would have told me all of these things that you do every day to prevent yourself from being anxious and to manage your ADHD traits. You're not going to have the time for that. And in fact, we're going to put you into a context or into an environment that is going to exacerbate those symptoms to the one of the worst that they could ever be. Yes. So, you know, lack of sleep, you baby not sleeping, your hormones are out of control, a baby screaming. And that baby is, you know, connected to you in the sense that when you hear their cries, it unhinges your brain. I felt nervous when I was in the shower. I felt anxious that my baby was something that was going to happen to him. And that's where my anxiety was. That was the extreme post-natal anxiety was just I can't cope with the fact that there is, that a part of my heart is now living outside of my body and I don't have full control of it. So, did that translate to like extreme vigilance? Like what sort of, because I think a lot of people experience a natural form of anxiety. Yeah. Just especially when it's your first baby. Yeah. How did you know that what you were experiencing was at a different level that was really impacting your life? Like what, what were some of the examples of the hyper vigilance? Well, firstly, my midwife picked up on it. She referred me to the psychologist at the hospital. So, I did intensive sessions with the psychologist at the hospital. And I was just extremely worried about sudden infant death syndrome. So, to my sticky ADHD brain, I couldn't handle the fact that there was that possibility. And I couldn't make my brain relax at night. And so I didn't really sleep properly or go into a deep sleep for a good six months. Yeah. And it just really messed with my hormones. It messed with my emotions. It was very tricky for me. And I also did the ADHD thing of when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I decide to do more extreme things. So, I was like, we need to move back to Western Australia. We were living in Brisbane. We need to move back to Western Australia across the country, back to where our families are. And so, while I was going through all of this, I then added packing up our house and with a four month old and all of these things into the mix. So, often, and often the ADHD brain will do that. We'll add lots more thinking, maybe to distract. I'm not sure why, but I'll often create more complicated situations when I'm in a really anxious situation of setting like that. So, I worked with the psychologist. She was amazing. She worked with me on probability versus possibility and how we can stack those things against each other. And that really helped me. But then, I moved through that and was able to sleep properly again. That's big. Yes, but I had set my anxiety off. I'd broke him the seal a bit. And you don't, when you've got a newborn, have that time to sort of make sure that you're looking after yourself. Because your focus is always on them. And then that led into depression. Yeah, after that. So, I felt really depressed that I didn't enjoy motherhood. And I did. On one hand, I did. And I think this is really common with the ADHD brain. We get so down on ourselves. But I now realize that two things can be true that I found it really under stimulating. I felt that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My son is gorgeous. And just everything that he says and does to this day, both of my kids just make me so happy. And I just absolutely love being their mum. And I love being their person. But I, on this at the same time, I find parenting and parenthood. And all the things that go with that really tricky because they are tricky things for ADHD brands. I find it hard to pack my own lunch. Now I have to pack four, you know, or three, not my husband. In fact, he does the lunch. Because he knows it's really something that I don't like to do. But if it if you have to do them. Yes, we exactly we are the kind of people that will forget to eat snacks. And then you've got a two-year-old and you have to make sure that you're making snacks every, you know, a couple of hours for them. Otherwise, you know, they'll get dysregulated. You have to be managing their nap schedules. When you have a child, one of the biggest things is those schedules and making sure that they eat, you know, and then they have their nap and then they do this and then they do that. And it can be monotonous, but it's also a lot of remembering and there's a lot of stuff that goes with that. And I had a lot of shame when I'd go to play groups and things like that. And I'd be the one that forgot wipes. And I'd feel like people think I'm the worst mum, you know, like wipes the most important thing. And I have to borrow wipes. And of course, I still change my child. And now looking back, I'm like, you did amazing. You changed them. You're all good. But at the time, I thought, you know, I'm not cut out to be a mum because I'd forgotten my wipes a few times or I would forget. I just forget little things that the other mum's just didn't seem to feel like we're a struggle. Yeah. And going back to what you said just before about the severity of self-criticism in motherhood in those first early years with your first child, when you're learning so much and there's so many things to keep track of when you leave the house, it does remind me of you as a six-year-old in the classroom trying to do that handwriting in the way that the teacher expected, like all the other little girls. And comparing handwriting to parenting might sound like a strange connection, but it's really similar. It's having control, being able to focus on boring things, doing things in a certain order. And you receive that negative feedback. And so it's no really no surprise really that as an adult, when you can't do that equivalent of handwriting except for now with taking wipes to baby group and all the other mums can do it. Yeah. You have that voice in your head again that says you're not doing a good enough job, Tara. And it's really severe. And that's why ADHD is feel this across our whole lives. It's because we feel like we're always the odd one out where the most disorganized, where the one that can't do what the rest of the cohort is doing. And we have that lower self-esteem and that self-doubt sometimes. Yes. And that can show up in jobs. It can show up in parenthood. It can show up in in so many areas in relationships. Yes. And to be really aware of them, I think, is helpful as a first step. So we know it's not us. It's actually our brain's programming from childhood kind of rearing its head again. Yeah. And that, yeah, that's really actually helpful to me, Chris, like I just, you're right. It's that internalized ableism. And it's, it gets built upon, you know, you have this, it's constantly kind of reaching a threshold where you're like, it's not just a first experience. It's something you've been experiencing in different ways throughout your life. Yeah. And it's not, and people often think it's just about the handwriting or it's just about the sport. It's actually about how you felt. And that feeling stays with you, even if the actual same feeling. So these are really big moments for children. Spot on. I also want to touch on, you mentioned that you had really intense postnatal anxiety. And then it moved into depression. And I wanted to know a bit more about how many years it took for it to evolve into depression and whether that was diagnosed or whether you received support around that as well. Or if that's just something that you sort of noticed, you'd been in fight or flight for so long fighting. And eventually you got to that futile stage of exhaustion. And it just, you sort of sunk into depression. How did that feel for you? It was only something that I reflected on later on. So I didn't actually realize at the time that I was in a depressive state. How old was your eldest at this point, roughly? About 18 months. Yeah. So around that time, I just didn't want to be a parent that was at home with kids all day. That just wasn't, I wanted to go back to work and I did go back to work. And I felt so guilty. You know, I had these ideas of wanting to be at home with my kids. And I couldn't wait to do painting and all of these different things with my kids. I had these grand plans of what kind of mum I would be. And I went through such a big phase of feeling horrible that I wasn't that kind of mum that wanted to do puppet shows and all of those things. And I think to some degree, a lot of first-time mummers, whether they have ADHD, anxiety or not, will experience that because it's very different to what you think it's going to be like. And there's times when you're just a craving adult conversation. And also with your first child, often people haven't taken that first step into play groups and hanging out with other adults while you look after your kids together. You might not have formed those relationships yet because, you know, your friends didn't necessarily have babies at the same time with people who have kids. And that makes everything so much easier. It's like, you know, we need to find that village. Really important for ADHD mums. And I also, it was my first time around, so I wasn't divulging that things were hard. But as soon as you do that, other mums are like, oh my god, you're so hard. I haven't slept in years. And you're like, oh, what? I thought it was just me or, you know, like, I hate making snacks, you know, and it's, it's, but then I like making this one snack. And you're like, yeah, I actually do like that side of it as well. But now I've heard that, you know, someone else doesn't like a lot, a big part of something. I can see the bits that I like, not just that I hate all of this. And that was a turning point for me. I'm not sure when exactly what the exact highlight was for the depression, but looking back, I was definitely depressed when I compare to what I feel like in my non-depressed state. Yeah. So you weren't able to seek help because you didn't recognise it, yes, which I think is so common for parents in this same position as you totally. And thinking that, you know, my life has just changed. Therefore, I can't extrapolate whether that's my life or whether it's, you know, P and post-added depression. Because maybe this is just what parenthood feels like, but you shouldn't be feeling low every day as a new parent. And we say these things just to indicate, there's nothing wrong with you. People often say that's not normal and it can make you feel shame. But I think when doctors say that's not normal, what they're saying is that's not something that you should have to experience. Exactly. Yes, exactly. And that really helps, I think, to understand. Often we can feel like, oh, there's something wrong with us. Yes. Yes. And that also links as well, Tara. I can see why you're so passionate about breaking taboos. You mentioned secret keeping. Yes. And that idea of privacy versus speaking up about these things. And we're at a stage in inclusion. Yeah. Yeah. We're at a stage in history where there have been some really brave people that have spoken up about this. Yes. First, and they've sort of paved the way. Yeah. And now we're in a place, especially even, you know, first it was talked about with moms, particularly in post-added depression. And now we're also hearing about how duds can experience it too. Yeah. So there's so many amazing progressions here. But just hearing the story of how you didn't realize you had depression till later, my heart really breaks for you because we know how important and helpful anti-depressants like medication can be, how helpful therapy and psychology can be. Yeah. So I just, I'm really sad to hear that that wasn't what you could get help with at that point. Yeah. And that you feel so alone and those things. Yeah. It's funny. With ADHD, I think by the time you're in your 20s, a lot of people will have gone through, you know, I'm not good enough. And then, you know, I've got to embrace who I am a little bit. And then you sort of maybe get to a point where you're quite comfortable in who you are. And even though you've been through these this phase of feeling like, you're not good enough because you have ADHD. And so I was there. And then having a baby, I didn't realize that I would create this whole other side of myself. You know, like my mum always talks about how there's a newborn mother as well as a newborn baby. And like, you know, I'm only seven when it comes to being loved. I love this concept. Yeah. And I was this newborn mother and I just didn't realize that she wouldn't be confident around things. You know, like if someone said, where's your snack, I'd be like, who cares? But if someone says where's your child's like, I'm not fit to be a mum. And I didn't realize I would have this lack of confidence. I would, it was a real shock to me to have this whole new personality born overnight when my child was born. And I think also, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to quickly note that similar to how you're observed in school and you know, everyone makes comments about you and what you can and can't do as an ADHD. Parents are put under the spotlight. Yes. You're everyone from the stage that you actually start showing a bump. Everyone feels like it's their right to make comment on how you look. Yeah. What gender you're carrying, how are you eating? They ask you all these really personal questions. And that extends into people judging you for your kids eating or how you're parenting or what their sleep routines are. It feels like that. It's not always the case. It can just feel like that, especially as a first-time parent and you go, you're comparing, you know, this is the first time you've had, you love this child so much. And it's the first time you've done this. And if they don't grow exactly like they should over, you know, their three-month growth check, you're suddenly like, I've done something wrong and they're dying. Like that's sort of that you go to the worst place. We have so much data as well. Yes. More data points create so much more anxiety. Yes. And I would compare, and I'd be like, he's, you know, my one's not as tall as that one. And he hasn't started walking. And then with, by the second time around, you're like, no, you've seen so many kids, and your friends have got kids and you're like, look, Valor, just do what they need to do in their time. And if there are any real issues, firstly, we've got a massive, you know, net that catches those kids and helps them. We've got speech pathologists and otis and all of those things and physios. And then below that, it's very obvious if there's anything different about a child and they'll get the support that they need. It's not, you don't need to be constantly comparing. Yeah. But that's something you have to learn through experience. And it's a really hard lesson to learn. But you are, you're comparing and you're feeling really inadequate. Well, I was for that first, for that first child, for my first child. Yeah. So I started researching for my two-year-old, around ADHD. And I still, even though I'd been diagnosed myself 10 years earlier, I still didn't believe in ADHD in women or I just, up until that point, I hadn't really thought it was a real thing. I thought it was just an excuse. I just, you know, I'm so sorry to anyone that that's triggering for us. That's what I thought before I understood it. And there was less people diagnosed around you with it. It probably wasn't coming up very often. You were busy, obviously, than having kids. It's not front of mind either. Also, before I'd had kids, another really big misconception I had was that it's just nurture. So I didn't believe there was any part of us that was real nature. Yeah. I thought it's the way that we're raised, right? Which is just so incorrect. And it's been proven now to be incorrect in so many scientific studies. Yes. But this is me, you know, in my 20s, thinking, I know everything. I'll be you do know everything. Don't use your Chinese. And then when I had my first, I was like, okay, you know, these, it's humbling. It's so humbling. And I realized, okay, yeah, people, kids really do have these personality differences and can definitely be neurodiverse. And I started researching ADHD. And that's when I realized, okay, this is me. And maybe the psychiatrist who was a doctor is correct. Yeah. There you go. Which makes sense. And started leaning into my ADHD more and understanding myself. So this was five years ago now. Yeah. So when your, when your eldest son was two. Yeah. Yeah. And so at that point, you had, you know, had a lifetime experience of anxiety in a general sense. And then you'd also been through postnatal anxiety and depression and very, very severe health anxiety. Yeah. So zooming forward sort of to where we are now. You were diagnosed with ADHD again. Yeah. Five years ago. And you did. I accepted my diagnosis. Yeah. And we've also talked about this. If you're interested in this side of the story, both of us shared our stories in episode 11. Yeah. We'll about our diagnosis journeys. Yeah. So you can go back and listen to that as well. But in terms of your anxiety, now, where are you at in terms of how you experience it and how you're currently managing it? So I've worked with a psychologist for the last decade. And that has been sporadic and sometimes more intensive. So when I'm going through a time when my anxiety is acute, when my health anxiety was really acute, I was seeing my psychologist once a week. Now I would see my psychologist once every six months just for a check-in. And that's been for the last few years. The biggest thing for me, and this isn't the right thing for everyone, has been medication. So I started an SSRI medication. Like I said earlier, I had always been really anti-medication. And one of my best friends happened to be anti-medication as well. And she had to go on this SSRI medication to help with something else related to a type of vestibular migraine that she gets. And the experience that she had when taking this anti-anxiety medication just changed her life completely. And because I trusted her so much and because she had been anti-medication, like I had been, you know, but because I really trusted her and had seen her experience and how much change it had made in her life, I was interested to give it a go. And I'd been going through something with my, within my family around someone being unwell at the time. And I just really had hit a real low in terms of how I was feeling in my anxiety. It was quite severe for the first time in a while. And I started on this medication and I haven't looked back. It's just been the best thing that I ever did for my anxiety. And now my anxiety is there and I definitely experience anxiety. And I feel like my exact self, but just when my anxiety comes up, I just feel that I have that probability versus possibility. I can really see that a lot more clearly. So it's like you still see like a weird mole and you go, could that be cancerous? But my brain can go, could be. And that's okay. Because we'll go and get it checked and we'll deal with it. And there's nothing we can do where it's in the past that would not have been my experience. And I would have stayed up all night worrying about it Googling things, just experiencing extreme health anxiety around it. And I think what a lot of people don't realize about medications like this is often they're prescribed alongside psychology sessions. Yes. Because when you're doing CBT or other forms of therapy that require sort of reorganizing your thoughts, looking at some magical thinking or what Tara was talking about with probability versus possibility. If we're overwhelmed by anxiety, we can't even access that part of our brain that helps us with that. And we're trying to build new neural pathways. It's like it's just like there's a fog all the time and you can't see through it. And so often a psychiatrist or a doctor will prescribe anti-anxiety medication and say you also need to go and see a psychologist. And you definitely do both both are integral. They're so important, but trying to see a psychologist without that can sometimes leave you butting your head against a wall. That's how it felt for me. Because you just can't seem to get through that. And then when you have that medication, it allows you to actually create new structures within your brain that supports you. Yeah. And you're learning these healthier thinking patterns. And so once you've learned them, they're with you for life, whether or not you stay on that medication or you need to dial it back in the future. So I think that's important to note because people often think it's one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely both have been crucial for me. Another crucial thing has been managing my eating, managing my fluid intake and managing my caffeine intake, caffeine intake for me. It's massive and also ADHD medication is something that I have to manage quite carefully around anxiety. Because stimulants activate the central nervous system and that can mimic for me what anxiety feels like. And so I have to remind myself that I'm not feeling anxious. Yeah. The biggest thing for me is around sleep. I'm high-per-sensitive to stimulants when it comes to sleep. So a lot of people with ADHD will feel that coffee comes them and they can think more clearly. And it can. And it does for me, it does help me to think really clearly, but it stimulates the central nervous system and it can reduce our ability to go into REM or deep sleep as well. And so I always like to recommend to my clients to just be really careful around that. For me at some points, I'll be so sensitive to caffeine to stimulants in general that I will go off coffee completely. I go through periods where I don't let myself have it. I'm going through one at the moment because I'm feeling anxious again. And also where I'm so sensitive to stimulants that if I want to take my ADHD medication, which I don't every day, but if I want to, I will send an alarm for quite early, the 5am, take the medication, go back to sleep. And then the medications out of my system well before I go to bed. Because otherwise I just can't sleep when I've taken that medication. Yeah. I want to finish this amazing deep dive with something that you told me a long time ago, Tara. And I think it's really important for people to hear because anxiety is really dynamic. And it can feel like times in our life, it's been so severe that if it's sort of half of that we can feel like this is nothing. This is nothing, but it's really still affecting us. And I had that experience about a year and a half ago where I was sort of having 50% of the anxiety I had had at the 100, but my 100% was catatonic, like it was extraordinarily bad, so my 50% was still really bad. And Tara said to me, no amount of anxiety is okay. And it was the first time I'd ever heard that, because I think growing up in the 90s, as we already said, there's just this thing of like, that's just the way you are, you're going to have to deal with that. And for me to hear that from Tara was really powerful, because I sort of let go of this feeling that I was so strong to be able to deal with this anxiety. This is my life and this is how I'm going to have to white knuckle it, but this is not nearly as bad as it used to be. And to go, no, actually, I can go and see somebody, see a doctor and get a break for the first time in my life. And so now I am also on anti-anxiety medication and similar to Tara. It's been absolutely life-changing. It's like going from driving a manual car to an automatic. It's such a good analogy. It really is like that. And so like, if you use that analogy as a parent and you're having to drive a manual car while also having to pass snacks to your kid in the back. No wonder your brain's exploding. And if you can automate that, it just gives you that ability to make decisions a little bit differently. It gives you clarity in the moment to utilize some of the skills you've learned with a psychologist. To remember those little moments of, let's take a deep breath and let's ask myself, is this help for helpful? Yes. Let's stop the spiral here. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, if you haven't heard that before, I want to just really make it clear to listen is that no amount of anxiety is okay. No. It's normal to feel anxious. Yeah. It's a normal human experience to feel anxious, but not to feel anxiety that is something that you're having to manage in your everyday life. Yeah. All day, every day. Yeah. That's not normal. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much Tara. Yes. For opening up and sharing. I do feel exposed. It's the ADHD, you know, I feel, I want to overshare and then I feel really perceived. And I just, I am going to probably RSD about everything I've said today, but I know that these conversations are really helpful to hear and to hear other people's experiences. I just feel like people are going to go, oh, she's got so much going on in her brain. But no, I think the opposite. I think people are going to feel very seen. I hope so. Definitely. And I think it's rare to hear somebody take such a deep dive into all of the ways that anxiety can manifest. And yeah, there's just so much to relate to here. So thank you for giving yourself. You're welcome. I had the best interviewer. So, this has been a taste of what is coming in our subscriber episodes. Yes. In our Thursday episodes, we like to do our usual wrecks, dilemmas and finish within a regular seggy. Yeah. But we wanted to do an extra long episode today and just focus on a whole story so that we're not rushing through it. And so we're going to leave the episode here. And I know that everyone's like, we want the rege seggy. We promise we will do a double length rege seggy next week for you guys. We will. The Thursday episode is our fave. But we really want the subscriber content to give a different flavor. Yes. And to really allow breathing room around stories like this. Yeah. Just to let that sink in for people. Because that's pretty huge to talk about anxiety in this way. Yes. So on that note, we had done with the episode today. I am exhausted. Yeah. I'm going to go and have a little sleep now. Yeah. Yeah. You deserve it. Please, if you love today's episode, please rate, review and follow us on Spotify or Apple podcasts by pressing the little plus. And that'll mean that our episodes automatically are downloaded to your podcast feed every week. So you don't have to go and find them. You won't miss them. You won't miss them. We see all of your reviews. They mean the world to us. So thank you so much to everyone that's reviewed on Spotify and on Apple podcasts. Yeah. And we've had a lot of questions about the subscription that we're starting because people are saying, am I already subscribed? I already follow subscribing will be an opt in choice for people. It'll be an affordable monthly cost. Yeah. To get those extra episodes every week in your feed. Yeah. By no means do you have to? We've always got the free apps for you. And we haven't launched it yet. So if you're wondering, where is it? I want to join now. Tara and I are working on it. Yes. Getting all the wheels in motion on our end. So it'll be here in the next few weeks. Yes. Very, very, very soon. But until then, we love you guys. And we will be back in your gorgeous neurodivergent ears next Thursday. Yeah. And you don't need to RSD because I'll be doing all the RSD after that episode. And you also don't need to RSD. You're going to take your own advice. So with that, my loves. We will see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. This podcast was recorded on Wadundi, but your land always was always will be Aboriginal land. It's integral that we acknowledge the original owners of the land, seas and waterways in Australia. And that we remember the devastation that happened on this land to validate the history of Australia's indigenous people and to ensure devastation like this never happens again.