ADHD in Motherhood from the Parenting Coach Podcast with Guest Host Crystal Haitsma - Best Of Friends Series #275
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Meet my friend Crystal Haitsma, host of the Parenting Coach Podcast. In this episode, Crystal and I dive into an honest conversation about balancing motherhood, parenting, and constant to-do lists with a neurodiverse brain.
Crystal, The Parenting Coach, is a Certified Life Coach and Canadian homeschooling mama who just got back from travelling the world with her family of 6. She combines her background in Psychology with helpful coaching tools, to help moms and couples with shame-free, connection-based parenting (aka ditching the 1980s parenting style, and adding in a hefty dose of connection and presence).
She hosts The Parenting Coach Podcast where she shares helpful parenting tools and support each week. Be sure to subscribe to the Parenting Coach Podcast!
Crystal’s website
Crystal’s instagram
Find our episode details here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s09-09-adhd-in-motherhood-with-patricia-sung/id1555361139?i=1000672013755
Welcome to the Best Of Friends Series, where you are meeting a few of my friends in the podcast community. While I’m writing the first book for Moms with ADHD, coming February 2027, I’m sharing interviews that I have done on friends’ podcasts. Not only do you get a new episode, I hope that you’ll find a few shows to add to your podcast queue. Keep up to date on all things book writing and/or join the beta reader team here: patriciasung.com/book.
Free ADHD Resource:
If you’re wondering whether you have ADHD and want to better understand the signs, grab my free ADHD Symptoms in Women Checklist here: patriciasung.com/adhd-symptoms.
Patricia Sung [00:00:02]:
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy? You can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family.
Patricia Sung [00:00:17]:
I get you, Mama.
Patricia Sung [00:00:18]:
Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fitness for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life. Creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully and in turn, lead our families.
Crystal Haitsma [00:00:44]:
Well.
Patricia Sung [00:00:45]:
At the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. But spoiler alert, you are already a great moment. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess, Mama. You can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story, and I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to Motherhood in ADHD. Hey there, successful mama.
Patricia Sung [00:01:09]:
It's your friend, Patricia Sung. I am still over here trucking along on this book and making better time than I thought. Given all of the craziness that has gone on in our lives the last couple months. I'm really proud of myself for creating the space to be able to handle all of these weird things that have popped up because old Patricia stuffed her schedule to the gills and there's no way I could have done all this running my life the way I used to. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I have been feeling the heat, which means I am purposefully scheduling breaks in and spending time with friends and being super purposeful in how I spend my time because otherwise I would absolutely go insane. This has been a lot, but it also makes me really thankful because I have a job that I get to choose my hours and that I can work when my kids are in school. And it also allows me to still write this book. And I'm just feeling really lucky, even in the chaos, that I'm able to take all of this stuff in my brain and put it on a page and and be able to share it with hopefully millions of moms.
Patricia Sung [00:02:22]:
Just like millions of moms have listened to this podcast, hopefully millions of moms are going to read the book. But this is certainly not for the faint of heart. Because once you start stepping into who you really are and listening to yourself and learning how to trust yourself and becoming the person that God created you to be, let me tell you, that's when Satan shows up and Makes things really hard because whenever you are walking the path that you are meant to walk, he's gonna do whatever he can to get you off track. And it has been a constant reminder to myself, like if this many like almost comical things are going wrong, clearly I'm on the right track because I know that this is what I'm meant to be doing right now. And it's clearly irking Satan a whole lot cuz he's staring up a lot of trouble. I won't go all the nitty gritty details here, but if you're on my email list, you've been hearing about it. Cause ha ha ha, I'm holding it together through purposefulness, through rest, through self care, through breaks, through my friends, through my family, through support, through using all the strategies that I'm gonna write about or have written about in this book. That's what's holding everything together right now.
Crystal Haitsma [00:03:32]:
And it will get done.
Patricia Sung [00:03:33]:
So this next set of episodes are what I call the Best of Friends series where I am asking friends who I have spoke on their podcast or at one of their events or at one of their summits or in their communities.
Crystal Haitsma [00:03:46]:
And taking that recording and then sharing.
Patricia Sung [00:03:48]:
It with you so is something that is not something that I created for my community. It's something that I created for someone else's community. But I want to share it with you because the reason I was talking to their community is because they're our friends. They're our people. They get us. So thank you to those hosts who are sharing these recordings with me so.
Patricia Sung [00:04:08]:
That I can share them with you.
Patricia Sung [00:04:09]:
And keep on trucking on this book. Today's conversation is from the Parenting Coach podcast where with Krystal Heitzma. Now, Krystal and I actually met in person at an event last summer and I just, I fell in love with her personality and her bubbliness and her like the light that she shines when you're around her. And actually Mary Van Geffen, who's also been on the podcast, is the one who introduced us. And I was like, oh my gosh.
Crystal Haitsma [00:04:37]:
I would love to chat with you.
Patricia Sung [00:04:39]:
So this is a clip from her podcast where we talked about being a mom and having adhd. And so Crystal is our guest host this week. So I will link in the show notes Crystal's podcast as well. Go listen to it and let's dive into this conversation with Crystal.
Crystal Haitsma [00:04:57]:
Welcome to the Parenting Coach podcast with Crystal. Over seven years ago, I felt like I was stuck in this cycle of yelling and reactivity in my parenting that I did not want to be in, but I didn't know how to get out of. I knew how I wanted to parent pretty much exactly. And I'd spent hours reading books but not finding a way to show up how I wanted to. That's when I started to turn inwards. My own inward journey was what my family needed. As I changed, everything around me changed. My kids meltdowns decreased by 90% or more with no medications or therapy.
Crystal Haitsma [00:05:25]:
I stopped yelling. Sibling fighting became almost entirely non existent and I found that this change flowed into other areas of my life too. My intuition increased. I started to run my life and business in a very different way. If this sounds like something you want to, I can help. Join me each week as I share my journey, including the laughter, fun, hard times and tears. Tune in for support, guidance and fun conversations with my favorite experts. And really anything else that interests me too.
Crystal Haitsma [00:05:52]:
ADHD in Motherhood with Patricia Sung Are you an ADHD mama that is finding it hard to balance motherhood, parenting and constant to do lists with a neurodiverse brain? This conversation is for you. Patricia helps moms with adult ADHD work with their unique brains and get their ish together one step at a time and feel confident running their family life. She's a hobby hopping, anxious adventurer willing to try almost anything. Once a Midwesterner at heart, she reluctantly has adopted the word y' all and lives in Houston with her husband and two young sons. In this episode we are going to talk about childhood griefs that make him up with an ADHD diagnosis, what to look for in adult as an ADHDer and the importance of understanding yourself more and how ADHD can affect your motherhood and parenting and what to do for support when you're in the middle of it. Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. Today I am excited to bring you my friend Patricia and I have loved digging into ADHD recently, learning more about it for me and for my kids and all the things and I was able to meet Patricia in real life and I was like, ooh, we need to have this conversation on the podcast. It's going to be so good.
Crystal Haitsma [00:06:54]:
So thank you for coming on today.
Crystal Haitsma [00:06:57]:
Thanks for having me.
Crystal Haitsma [00:06:58]:
Yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about your experience. Have you always known you had adhd? Is it something that came as an adult? What happened for you?
Crystal Haitsma [00:07:06]:
So I'm like this like in between where I did not get diagnosed until my freshman year of college so it was still a late diagnosis because I didn't get diagnosed until I was 18, but by the same token, like I'm 42 now, so I've known for over 20 years that I have ADHD. So I am not a newbie to the game. But I also didn't have the benefit of knowing as a kid either. So I'm in this weird in between place where yes, I've known a long time, but I didn't know. But at the same time it's like I grew up in the 80s and 90s and they really didn't know as much then. And even when I got diagnosed in, you know, when I was 18, the quality and the depth of knowledge that we have now is nowhere near what we had, you know, almost 25 years ago. So I always tell moms, like, even if you didn't know, that doesn't necessarily mean that life would have been extremely different because we just didn't have the resources available back then. Men, yeah.
Crystal Haitsma [00:08:04]:
And I think especially with women in adhd. Right. And I've had conversations with my friends about this before where they were like, yeah, it was just like little boys that were really hyperactive.
Crystal Haitsma [00:08:13]:
Exactly.
Crystal Haitsma [00:08:14]:
And like, if you didn't have that, then you didn't have ADHD. And even now people are like, what is 80? Like, I think that there's still some. Yes, I think there's be getting to become more communication, more information, which is great. But I remember a friend of mine having this experience where the first day that she went on ADHD medication, she actually felt so much grief because it changed her life so drastically in that short amount of time that she was just like, what? This is what it could be like this is what other people's brains are like. And also just feeling so much grief from her own childhood of like the things that she probably thought were wrong with her that people got mad at her about and then she held on for so long were just the ways that her brain worked or didn't and that there was just a lot of grief in that process. So I think that what you said is true. I think that when we were little, even if in the 80s or 90s, like we were growing up, there probably wouldn't have been that different. There probably wouldn't have been great support for us.
Crystal Haitsma [00:09:03]:
I had a brother with autism, high functioning autism. There was not great support for him back then. Yeah, it probably wouldn't have been different. But what we really wanted was to feel loved and accepted and okay for who we were and to have that grief of like, that's what I needed and I didn't have that is. I think there's some grief for sure.
Crystal Haitsma [00:09:21]:
Going through that process and that is so valid. And that's. I always tell people like the first two years after you get a diagnosis, like it's a deep and long and painful grief process. Just as in like when you lose somebody who's really important to you, like that what if of like what it could have been and how it could have been different is really hard to sort through. And it's so valid and at the same time it's like we're. We compare what we have right now as if we would have had the same thing back then. And the way that we can, like as parents who are now changing the narrative and like breaking generational cycles, the way that we can support our kids and ourselves is very different than tools and strategies and like ability that our parents had. So like, it's at least a good two year process to like work through all that.
Crystal Haitsma [00:10:10]:
And the beauty of like hindsight 20 20, it's like now we can actually show up for our kids in that way and we can do all that effort then because we have that information that wasn't available in 1985.
Crystal Haitsma [00:10:22]:
Oh, absolutely. I think that's why it's so powerful to do it. Because like, I mean, ADHD is very genetic. Probably if you have it and you're listening to this episode, some of your kids have it, maybe all of them, who knows? But I think that that understanding and acceptance of like what I needed back then, giving that to myself now then helps me to be able to better support and empathize with other people that do have adhd, especially with my own kids. Because I know what I would have wanted, I know what I would have needed. Um, yeah, so I definitely think going through that kind of grief process, understanding, acceptance process for sure, I would love to hear how did it come about for you and when you were in your freshman year, like, how did you even think about that? Because I still think it wasn't very common in that time.
Crystal Haitsma [00:10:59]:
No, I'm really lucky. I had, I mean on one hand I'm like, it was terrible. I basically, I just fell apart freshman year. I went from being a National Honor roll student and like I was on a, an academic scholarship at Tulane, which is a very good university. And I thought that I was really good at school and I lost a lot of my identity when I struggled so hard freshman year because it was such a huge difference from how it had been in high school, which is very for.
Crystal Haitsma [00:11:31]:
I'm just Gonna say that is exactly my story. This is so funny. Yeah, keep going.
Crystal Haitsma [00:11:34]:
This is where we see these big shifts, and this is usually where women will get diagnosed, is either in big life shifts. Like, you know, a lot of time girls will get, like, seen between elementary to middle or middle to high school, because your structure is changing a lot. High school to college, college to getting a real job, and all of a sudden being the adult in charge of things. And like, the life shifts of, you know, having a partner or getting married or having a baby, like, there's big shifts in the way that your life functions. A new job, moving to a different city and having to do things in a different way. And then we also usually will see it in the hormone shifts. So puberty, matrescence, which is when you become a mom, perimenopause, menopause, those are the times where we see there's a problem here and we don't know what's going on, is usually related to one of those two shifts, a hormone shift or a life change shift. And so for me, that was the difference between.
Crystal Haitsma [00:12:26]:
In high school, everything is very structured and organized for you, and they tell you exactly when to turn in the homework. And here's how you get an A. Here's the rubric. And then when I went to college, like, there was nobody there to wake me up for 8am class, and there was nobody there to help me figure out, like, you, hey, you need to read 300 pages over this next three weeks. How are you going to break that down?
Crystal Haitsma [00:12:44]:
Nobody taking attendance. It was just like a free throw. You're like, you get to do whatever you want. Yeah.
Crystal Haitsma [00:12:49]:
And I have a lot of sleep issues, which is very common for those of us with adhd. And it. They. They all just. They all came to a head. I almost failed out. I almost lost my scholarship. I really struggled hard in there.
Crystal Haitsma [00:13:01]:
And I'm just so lucky that the doctor at the student health center saw in me and she was like, I think you have adhd. I want you to go to the student services center and get tested. And I was just like, what? What? What? What, what? Because having so much of my identity and being a very good student and being very smart, I never would have thought that I would end up at the student services center asking for help because I was a good student. I didn't need that. And, like, shame on me. I just thought the student services center was for dumb kids. So I didn't ever contemplate that I should be there and that it's not True, it's for a whole lot of people. And that process of getting the diagnosis was very in depth for me because I was at the student services center and they obviously have a lot more like resources there.
Crystal Haitsma [00:13:46]:
But I was also part of a young lady's master's program, her dissertation. So she studied me as part of her advanced career. Which means, I mean, very cool. Like, I got a ton of testing done and really got to see a lot of the vast variations in the way that my brain works in the things that I was excellent at and had these high level, like, I'm at the 99th percentile of this thing. And then you turn around and I'm like, I have the like recall of a third grader. My like short term memory recall. Like if you name off a list of numbers for me to repeat back to you, I cannot remember them. And it's on the level of a third grader.
Crystal Haitsma [00:14:22]:
So like that seeing that difference was eye opening. Now by the same token though, this was still the year 2000 and there wasn't a lot of resources in terms of like, well, what do you do now? Because I really thought it was just how I studied. So you just need to study differently. You need to do homework differently. And thankfully, a lovely young lady in the law school took me under her wing. She had known that she had had HD her whole life and she had so many skills in place to be able to like do well. And she took me under a wing and she helped me figure out like, how to do study skills and like all that. But I truly did not understand the levels underneath that come with energy regulation and emotional regulation until I became a.
Crystal Haitsma [00:15:04]:
And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, wow. All these strategies that I put in place are again no longer working because my life has totally shifted. There's all these hormones going on and all of a sudden it was like a whole big hot mess again. And I'm like, what was even the question? I was like, did I even answer the question? I just talked.
Crystal Haitsma [00:15:20]:
This is so good. I mean, I don't know. That's what happens when you listen to two ADHD people having a conversation about something. I want you to tell us what those things are. So I love that you had such a good glimpse of this. Like, I did not my first year, I did almost fail out. I almost failed several of my. And I don't even know how I turned it around.
Crystal Haitsma [00:15:38]:
It wasn't until like year two or year three that I like started to do stuff differently. I think it was because I got married and was having a baby and was like, well, I gotta. I gotta do stuff differently now. Um, and then did really well. But it was either, like, really, really poorly or 4.0. Like, there was no. There was no middle ground ever. So.
Crystal Haitsma [00:15:55]:
And actually, I wanna pause you there. Cause, like, that's one of the telltale signs of ADHD is if you have these huge dichotomies where it's like, you're really good at this and terrible at this, and they don't seem to make sense. That's one of the best ways that we can spot ADHD because of that, like, huge discrepancy. And like, that doesn't.
Patricia Sung [00:16:13]:
That doesn't jive.
Crystal Haitsma [00:16:14]:
That doesn't make sense. Those are the things that help us clue in that this isn't just hormones and it isn't just motherhood's hard. Those are the things that help us identify that it's something more than that.
Patricia Sung [00:16:27]:
Are you curious if you have adhd? Like, you're still just not quite sure. Is this me or not? Maybe you're getting ready for your diagnosis appointment, or maybe you want to bring it up with your gp, but you're not quite sure how to talk about it. I put together a checklist of symptoms. That's not your average boring list of symptoms. It's the Patricia take on, from what I've seen of working with thousands of women, ways that I see these symptoms actually showing up in real life. I put it all together in a downloadable check checklist, and I want you to go get it, download the checklist, go through and check off. Here are the things that show up in my life. And there's space in there for you to write in where you see these things showing up in your life.
Patricia Sung [00:17:06]:
And then you can take that list to your doctor's appointment and show them. Like, when I say I'm being forgetful, here's what I mean when you ask me, like, are you hyperactive?
Patricia Sung [00:17:17]:
This is how hyperactivity shows up in.
Patricia Sung [00:17:19]:
My life, in my brain, so that you have concrete examples and you don't freeze up when it comes time to talk about it. You have your preparation there and you feel confident and capable and talking about you because you know yourself best. So head over to my website and you can download the free checklist at patriciasung.com/ADHDsymptoms. And that'll go right to your email and you can take that with you and be prepared for that tough conversation. Again, that's patriciasung.com/ADHDsymptoms.
Crystal Haitsma [00:17:54]:
What were some of the things that you noticed your brain could do really well at versus not really well at back then, but also now. Like, for people that are kind of listening in, that want to know a little bit more about either themselves or somebody that they love that has adhd, what are some of those things?
Crystal Haitsma [00:18:07]:
So when I have a system in place, I'm excellent. And so I am the one with all the color coding and every. Like, I know where all the things are, but the things are all in piles. Like, if you want to get, you know, dinner with friends together, I'm the one who's going to make sure that everybody can be there, tell you where to be, what time, but then I'll be the one who's late because I have no sense of time. Like, if you stuck me in a room with no windows and just like, came back a little while later and you're like, trisha, how long you been here? I would have no idea. I couldn't tell you if I had been there 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 hours. I have no internal clock. And like, how is somebody this organized always showing up late or things like, I'm getting ready and I seem super chill and I'm moving around, and then all of a sudden when I realize I am behind, as one of my my exes told me, I take off like a bad at all.
Crystal Haitsma [00:18:57]:
And then I am running, I'm speeding, I'm driving too fast. Like, it's like, everything's fine, fine, fine. Ah, we're late. And then like, you know, running around like a chicken, my head cut off. And this, like, constant confusion of like, well, why is it that I can be so organized but then forget to tell the person the details of the dinner? Even though I had the whole dinner planned, I forgot to actually say, by the way, dinner is Thursday at 7pm or, you know, I know, like, I can juggle all these things, but I'm running late all the time. Or if you're somebody who's like, I have a great job and I have a lot of money and yet I always forget to pay my bills. Like, these things that don't make sense.
Crystal Haitsma [00:19:36]:
Yeah, I love that you become widespread.
Crystal Haitsma [00:19:38]:
Because it's not just like one thing. It's like, ADHD affects every part of you. So, like, you know, you might be an excellent person at dating because, you know, you fall head over heels and you're so infatuated and you're paying all this attention to the person, and I just adore you and I want to spend all my time with you, and I just think you're wonderful. And then you get into a steady relationship and there's like, a lot of that fun excitement is gone, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, right, you. I forgot about you. I should pay attention to you again. Like, I forgot to ask you how you were doing for the last three days in a row. Like, those things that don't make sense, but they follow, but they're everywhere.
Crystal Haitsma [00:20:11]:
It's not just school, it's not just relationships, not just money. It's everywhere in our lives that these things are coming together and being like, what?
Crystal Haitsma [00:20:19]:
I love the example you used to have memory recall. Because I feel like that's been such a big one for me and I couldn't figure out why. When we were traveling, it bothered me so much that my kids would come and, like, give me their. So we were traveling full time for eight months, and so I'd be like, at a restaurant or whatever, and my kids would come, give me their order and then, like, run away. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Why did you just like. And I would be so frustrated every time that they would give me their order and then leave. And it wasn't until I realized, like, oh, it's actually because I'm already frustrated at myself that I know I'm not going to remember anything they just told me.
Crystal Haitsma [00:20:47]:
And the person's going to be like, what's the order? And I'm going to be like, I don't know any of them. And now nobody's around for me to. So now I'm just like, hello. Like, if you want a meal, you're going to have to stand here in line and you're just going to have to tell them because I'm not going to remember. Or you're going to have to write it down on a note or you're going to have to text me or something. And I think that just noticing those little, like, parts about myself over time, I was like, oh, yeah, I do do that. For me, it was more just like watching other influencers talk about it and then having people on the podcast and learning more about my own children and learning how to support them, that I was like, oh, wait, this actually sounds a lot like me as well. But again, I thought of it as, like, ADHD is this, like, little boys that are hyperactive in school and don't do well.
Crystal Haitsma [00:21:22]:
Now people that do really well. I did extraordinarily well until university. And so I think your story, I relate to that Story a lot. I would love for you to share with us what you feel like are the most, I guess, difficult spots when it comes to mothering. So why is ADHD so difficult in motherhood?
Crystal Haitsma [00:21:37]:
I mean, the list is long, but I think, you know, when I look at, like, when I'm working with my clients, like, the things that are always popping up the most frequently one is around energy management and energy regulation and not understanding why there are some times where you have so much energy and you can get so much done, and there's other times where you're just like, I have nothing to give. So that huge shift in your capability to be able to do things when you don't know why, you think there's something wrong with you, you think you're lazy, you think you're maybe you're, like, losing your mind a little bit. Like, you're like, what's going on? No, when you understand that that's part of how we function and you start to learn the skills, it starts to make sense. Like, that's not to say that you're not going to have these big swings of like, oh, wow, I managed to, like, clean and reorganize my entire garage, you know, yesterday, and that means today I have nothing to give. Or I cleaned the garage 80% of the way, and now there's a big, giant mess and I don't have the energy to finish it. And so now it looks like my garage vomited on my driveway and all my neighbors are going to look at me and judge me. And then you start thinking about all the people who are looking at you. Like, there's that portion.
Crystal Haitsma [00:22:40]:
There is that that I just touched on the criticism and the negative self narrator that we have for ourselves and how we perceive others judging us and how we take on that as if it's fact. And we start imagining the what ifs of like, well, what if my neighbor is looking out the window at this disaster I made and now they're judging me for it. They're probably not gonna hang with me, oh, I should never text them again because they think that I'm a horrible person who can't keep it together. And then all of a sudden you have just cut off your neighbor because in your mind you decided they hated you because you didn't organize your garage well. Like, but our brain does not see that progression because it happens so fast. A lot of times we don't catch that. We just, like, made up a thing in our heads and got upset about it based on the fact that Your neighbor drove by while you were cleaning up your garage. Now there are times where people are quite rude and your neighbor does give you a side eye.
Crystal Haitsma [00:23:31]:
And how do you deal with that? Like the criticism piece of it. And then the, I'd say number three would be the like anger management and the energy regulation between like just, I mean, kids are frustrating and they know how to push your buttons and even if they're not doing it on purpose, like they can be really difficult. And then we get difficult and then we play off each other and everybody's yelling all of a sudden or everybody's ignoring everybody all of a sudden. Like depending on which way your coping mechanisms tend to swing. Whether you're more of an exploder or you're more of like a turtler. Like that being able to show up well and be the kind of parent that you want when it's been a really hard day and not just avoiding the world because you're like, I can't do anymore. The underlying thing to a lot of that is actually our self trust and being able to recognize the signs within us of knowing what we actually want. What do we believe? How do we know that we can trust ourselves? And so things like making decisions can be really hard because we start thinking about, well, what about this and what about that? And we like talk ourselves out of stuff because we've spent a really long time ignoring our internal signals and not really knowing them.
Crystal Haitsma [00:24:35]:
And like, I won't get on my trauma soapbox, but that has served us well over time to take care of ourselves. But at some point we realize it's not serving us anymore. And we're like, I want to be able to listen to me and know what I believe and what I want and then hold firm on those decisions based on what I know is right for me or my family. And when we can like root into that self trust of ourselves and know like, well, how do I feel when, when I know that like this is the right answer? Or how do I feel when that creepy person is like being creepy and not saying like, oh, that's just, you know, uncle so and so just ignore him. It's like, no, that those signals important and they matter. And so when we learn to listen to ourselves after we have spent a long time ignoring ourselves, that's when we can actually get sturdy into like, oh, this is what I believe. And therefore I can then make decisions that fit me and my family better because I know that that's what's true for me, which then, you know, helps the Rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, and it helps the emotional regulation and they all kind of layer in on each other. And the better we get at emotional regulation, the better we get with our energy regulation, the better we get at listening to ourselves.
Crystal Haitsma [00:25:44]:
All of those layers start to build in and make being a mom a whole lot more doable. I won't say easy because I don't feel like motherhood's ever easy. I mean, granted, I'm only, you know, 10 years in, so who knows, maybe the older, more experienced moms will tell me that one day it does. But so far I have yet to find too many moms to tell me that. And like, it's never going to be easy, but we can find ways and strategies that fit us so that it can be more doable for us and we can actually be present in those moments that we want to be present and like, not, you know, running this 73 point to do list in our back of our minds and realizing, wow, I have no idea what my kid just said about their day because I was too busy worrying about the fact that I think I forgot to defrost the chicken. So we're gonna have to have a plan B and I think we're gonna have to do takeout again. I really said I wasn't gonna spend any more money. And also that's not healthy.
Crystal Haitsma [00:26:27]:
And like, all of a sudden we're off on this tangent of like, no, I just asked my kid how their day was and I'm not showing up and being present in that way. And like, yeah, life happens. But if that's your normal and you don't want it to be your normal anymore, that's where I come in.
Crystal Haitsma [00:26:39]:
Yeah. Okay. I love all of that. I will say. I mean, I'm not a super experienced mother so far as far as adult children, but I do have a 17 year old now that I just dropped off of college this weekend. So I have, I have a few. Yeah. Which is made it through the weekend.
Crystal Haitsma [00:26:53]:
Those are hard.
Crystal Haitsma [00:26:54]:
I made it through the weekend. I just got back last night. But I do think that it can be enjoyable. And I think that we can learn how to learn systems in order to make it more simple. I don't think it gets to the point where you're like, oh, this is easy. And I'm just like so great at it all the time. But for sure we can have a really healthy, strong, connected relationship with our kids and with ourselves. I would love to hear your take on where people should start.
Crystal Haitsma [00:27:19]:
So if they're like, yep, that sounds like me. Yeah, you described me. This is helpful. Maybe they already know that they're adhd, maybe they're self diagnosing. But some tips for them to help support themselves within their motherhood specifically.
Crystal Haitsma [00:27:32]:
So I always do the same. Three, Number one is learning about adhd. We can't like assume that because we knew a few people with ADHD that we get adhd. Like, it's a very much an individual thing. Like for me, I really struggle with timeliness. Not everyone's like that. And there's some people who are like super anxious and will be somewhere like an hour early. They also have adhd.
Crystal Haitsma [00:27:52]:
But just because that person showing up an hour early and I showed up 20 minutes late doesn't mean that one or both of us does not have adhd, because the other person did the opposite. So it's understanding adhd, but like specifically how it affects you. What are the things that you struggle with? Because there are so many different facets of it. Some are going to apply to you more, some will apply to you less. And so doing that research to understand what does it actually mean for you in your life. And knowing that like, we don't just have to say like, oh, well, everybody's a little adhd. No, they're not. You probably just have a lot of.
Patricia Sung [00:28:24]:
People in your family that too.
Crystal Haitsma [00:28:26]:
Side note, like understanding your ADHD and ADHD as a whole and using quality resources. Cause unfortunately there's a lot of garbage on the Internet and there's a lot of people with a lot of theories. So do your research. Make sure you're following and using resources you trust.
Crystal Haitsma [00:28:40]:
The second that ties into the self trust piece that you were talking about too, right? Listen to yourself.
Crystal Haitsma [00:28:44]:
And yeah, yeah, because I mean, if you want to, you can find an article on the Internet that says ADHD is caused by fruit Roll Ups and Teddy Grahams. And I'm like, listen, if diet is a huge support for adhd, but like.
Crystal Haitsma [00:28:56]:
If you, everybody was eating Fruit Roll Ups and Teddy Grahams in the 80s.
Crystal Haitsma [00:28:59]:
Like, yeah, and not everybody has ADHD. And also if you can cure ADHD through cutting out, you know, red dye 40, then you may have cured something. But it wasn't ADHD. Like, but it is a huge support. So that it goes into number two, which is put your oxygen mask on first. Like when you go to the airplane, they always say, put your mask on first and then help all your kids. And moms were like, no, I will save the 73 people on this plane before me. And I will manage to hold my breath the whole time so that I can make sure that everyone here has got a mask on.
Crystal Haitsma [00:29:32]:
And then I'll go find one for myself if there's one left over. Like, no, you cannot function like that. I wish we could. We moms have tried probably for eons.
Crystal Haitsma [00:29:39]:
At this point, and it is not working. You're likely in a real bad spot if you are still trying to do that.
Crystal Haitsma [00:29:44]:
No, it doesn't work. So you have to put your oxygen mask on first and take care of you. You have to be able to have the capacity in order to take care of those around you. And especially as moms, we tend to be the emotional leaders in our household. So if we're not in a good space, everyone else is going to not be in a good space, too. So it is not a selfish thing for us to take care of ourselves. It's actually like, the way we can be most selfless is to actually take that time to make sure that we're in a good place so that we can show up for others. Because if we are giving everyone else our best and we're just eating the scraps and like the three soggy goldfish your toddler handed you for, like, after their lunch, and that's your lunch, like, you are not showing up in the way that you want to or that you could.
Crystal Haitsma [00:30:30]:
And so, like, I understand that sounds like a lofty goal, but we have to take care of ourselves first. And I'm not saying, cool, just book yourself a week at the spa and everything will be lovely. That's not it. Like, the ways that we care for ourselves are very varied and different, depending on what you need. But, like, we have to be on the priority list. You are a member of the family. You need to be on the list of who gets taken care of in the family.
Crystal Haitsma [00:30:51]:
And the top. The top of the list, right? Like, how can I take care of my needs so that I can then better care for the people I love so much? Okay, what's number three?
Crystal Haitsma [00:30:59]:
Number three is asking for help and going and finding the resources that are available to you in this moment. So I know that some of us don't have great support systems. Some of us don't have a partner to lean on. Some of us don't have, like, there's always things that we're not going to have. So I don't. I want to recognize, like, some people have far more privilege in this area than others. So we got to work with what we got. But how do you get help for you in the season that you're in that is actually doable.
Crystal Haitsma [00:31:26]:
So, like, if that means listening to, like, you're in my podcast, and that's what you have the time and you have the funds to listen to a free podcast, like, do it. But what are the things that you can do to ask for help? Like, we can't do this alone. We weren't meant as mothers to raise families by ourselves. Like, we were meant to have villages. We are meant to have partners. We are meant to have extended family. We are meant to have a lot of things that we may not have. So what can we use based on what we have here and start getting that support? So if you're looking at, like, my life is a mess and it's all falling apart, and I don't know where to start.
Crystal Haitsma [00:32:00]:
Okay, well, we're not going to solve all that today. Well, I sure wish I could, but, like, what's one thing we can do right now to get you some help?
Crystal Haitsma [00:32:07]:
Like, I would also look into community resources, because I know it's different in every state, every country, every province, whatever. But there's some really great resources available, and oftentimes they're free or low cost. So if you feel like you can't do something that's, you know, you can't pay for your own therapist or coach or whatever, right now there are free podcasts, and there's usually community resources that you can lean on as well.
Crystal Haitsma [00:32:30]:
Yeah. And part of that is saying, like, I need help. You don't have to divulge your entire medical history in order to get help, but you can say to a friend, hey, I'm really struggling right now. Do you know where I could get help with this? And maybe your friend doesn't know, but maybe she's like, well, you know what? I have a friend who's a therapist, and she is really helpful. Let me ask her if she knows of anything. And then that friend might be like, oh, right, you know what? The community center here has this blah, blah, blah on Tuesday. So it's like, we have to start speaking that we need assistance because no one's going to magically know that we need help. They can't.
Crystal Haitsma [00:33:05]:
But also, like, again, we're not meant to do it on our own. So if we start saying, hey, like, I'm a single parent, and I. I'm not a single parent, but I'm just giving these here. I'm a single parent, and I want to have a break for myself. Like, does anybody know where there is A like, something for that. And someone might be like, oh, you know what? My church has a Bible study on Wednesdays that has childcare. Cool. Like, there's a time where you can be by yourself and have that.
Crystal Haitsma [00:33:27]:
Like, there are just so many places and, like, help that exists. But we don't know that until we start putting it out into the universe of, like, somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who can be like, oh, hey, what about this idea? You'd be like, wow, I didn't know that your best friend had a club for the Blob. That's exactly what I needed. Like, we don't know until we say it. So just speaking it will allow those wheels to start turning. And for there to be help, we have to say, I need help.
Crystal Haitsma [00:33:57]:
Yeah, yeah, I think it's okay. Understanding we put ourselves on a priority list and speaking out those needs so that we can get the support we need. Okay, thank you. Thank you for all of this. This has been very informative. If people want to connect with you, get more support from you, where would find you?
Crystal Haitsma [00:34:12]:
So I am the same everywhere. It's Motherhood in ADHD. That's saying my podcast, my website, any social handle, they're all in the same place. And if you're like, hey, this kind of sounds like me, I wonder if it is. I have a checklist on my website that you can download. It's patriciasung.com/ADHDsymptoms. And it is like, I call it like my real life symptoms list. Is that like, it's.
Crystal Haitsma [00:34:36]:
It's based on the list that the doctors use to do diagnosis, but I give you real life examples of like. Like, what does it actually look like to struggle with prioritization as a mom? And like, real. That's a great resource, life examples. So that you're not just guessing. Because when you look at, like, a lot of times when you look at the paper, we don't seem to have ADHD because we have figured out how to function up until this point. Like, you have put the things in place to make it through the first, you know, 20, 30, 40, 70 years of your life. So it doesn't feel like you have ADHD because you have supported yourself through that. But if you start looking at like, well, if I take away your systems, how would you do then?
Patricia Sung [00:35:14]:
If you ever lost my journal, I would die.
Crystal Haitsma [00:35:17]:
Like, that kind of stuff. Like, that's where we want to look at the real life symptoms. So that is available there. And I have a ton of free resources on my website, so you don't have to do this by yourself. You don't have to struggle on your own. It is a rough road on many days, but we're not by ourselves. There are millions of us moms that have ADHD out there and if we band together, we're gonna get some stuff done. So come find me.
Crystal Haitsma [00:35:42]:
I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you Patricia.
Crystal Haitsma [00:35:44]:
Thank you so much. Crystal.
Crystal Haitsma [00:35:48]:
If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, I would love for you to help spread the word by getting this message of support and guidance out to as many people as possible. So text it to your best friend or tag me on Instagram and share it. Leave a review, rate it, subscribe it, or follow on your favorite platform. Send me a DM on IG letting me know which parts have impacted you or what you'd like to see on future episodes. We'll see you next week.
Patricia Sung [00:36:12]:
For more resources, classes and community, head over to my website, motherhoodinadhd.com.