How ADHD Women Are Vulnerable to Toxic Partners, plus a Book & Life Update #278
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Ever wonder why so many women with ADHD end up in relationships that drain them? You’re not alone—and it’s not a coincidence.
After hosting another magical ADHD moms’ retreat, I couldn’t shake the conversations we had around partners—some amazing, others... deeply painful. In this episode, I’m sharing the patterns I’ve seen over and over: women with ADHD stuck in emotionally abusive relationships, often with narcissistic partners. And honestly, it makes me furious.
We’re digging into why this happens, how low self-esteem and a lifetime of gaslighting make us vulnerable, and how abusers prey on our empathy and longing for stability. I’m not a narcissism expert (yet), but I’ve got a stack of library books and a brain buzzing with questions. If you’ve ever doubted your gut or felt like your relationship was slowly chipping away at your sense of self, this one’s for you.
Plus, I give a life and book update, talk about the whirlwind of writing with ADHD, and how I'm navigating deadlines, stomach flu, identity theft, and everything in between.
Want to be part of the book’s beta reading team? Sign up at patriciasung.com/book
Add your name to the 2026 Retreat Waitlist: patriciasung.com/retreat-waitlist
Feeling overwhelmed? Grab my free reset video at patriciasung.com/calm
Big hugs, Successful Mama. You’re not crazy – and you’re not alone either.
Looking for support on how to treat your ADHD beyond medicine?
Grab my free list of strategies and ADHD treatments at patriciasung.com/beyond-meds
Patricia Sung [00:00:00]:
If you want to join the beta reading team, I'm going to be sending out some portions for my beta readers to read through and give feedback. So if that's something you're interested in, please head over to the website at patriciasung.com/book.
Patricia Sung [00:00:14]:
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? I get you, Mama. Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit 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 well. At the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. But spoiler alert, you are already a great mom.
Patricia Sung [00:01:05]:
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. It's your friend Patricia Sung.
Patricia Sung [00:01:23]:
Oh my gosh, I miss you guys so much. As much as I'm loving writing this book, I miss you. Like my first love, the podcast and hanging out with you every week. And so I'm really, really, really glad that I'm recording this episode because I missed you guys and I love talking with you every week and it feels weird not to be doing it. I'm really excited about the spring when I get to hang out with you every week again. But right now I got my head down and I'm clickety clacking away on the book. Or at least I will be next week. Little life update.
Patricia Sung [00:01:56]:
Like, the last month has been so much fun, but a lot of work. We had our ADHD mom's retreat last weekend. No, two weekends ago. Now that I'm like, oh, what day is it? What day is it? My kid had the stomach flu for several days and so it's like, what his time? It was two weeks ago and it was an amazing weekend and the moms were all just in awe of how much at home you can feel when you're with the people who really get you. And this year we changed it up so we were out in the country and in nature and it was peaceful and calm, and we had such great conversations around picnic tables and Adirondack chairs and around the fire pit, and it was just really, really peaceful. Really, really lovely. And yet all the moms have their very own tiny home. So, like, you still go inside and be in the AC and be in the peace and quiet in your own space, but yet there was so much more connectivity because, you know, I rented the entire property, so it was just us.
Patricia Sung [00:02:57]:
And it was really, really wonderful to spend a weekend with my people. And I hope that you're gonna come. If you are not on the waitlist already, go put your name on the wait list. You go to my website, Patriciasung.com/retreat, and you'll see the waitlist. Just click. Literally, you click on any button, it'll take you to the wait list because the tickets are not on sale right now. But if you want to go right there, it's patriciasung.com/retreat-waitlist, and you gotta come. It's so good.
Patricia Sung [00:03:27]:
Like, I'm bad at tooting my own horn. So this time I, like, went and, like, put some of the sweet notes that the moms had sent me on the website so that you can see, like, the moms are having an amazing weekend. I know you're like, Patricia, I don't really need to be convinced of going away for the weekend would be a good idea. I get it. I get it. But it really is truly worth it. About half the moms have already signed up again for next year. Like, it's just like, when we were there, I literally.
Patricia Sung [00:03:51]:
I signed the contract and put down the deposit for next year's retreat. So we have dates locked in. It's October 16th through 18th in 2026. Like, it is happening. Point being, I don't toot my horn enough. I don't tell people. Like, I am really excellent at what I do, the events that I host. Like, I go above and beyond for you when you're with me.
Patricia Sung [00:04:13]:
Like, when I say I'm gonna take care of you, I take care of you. I make sure that you have the most excellent weekend possible. I go above and beyond on food allergies, and I check all the rooms when we get there, I make sure everything is in place. Like, I want you to be so relaxed and taken care of in that weekend that you really get to take a deep breath in an exhale fully, to be like, ugh, slow down and just be you. And that's what these moms had two weeks ago. It's really Life giving to be around people who understand, who get you, who you can be fully yourself. Like, you literally can like take off the mask and just be yourself to talk about all of your hyper focuses and special interests. And there were so many times the phrase was uttered, well, you guys would understand and then like go on to like, say something that's like, kind of weird and you're like, nope.
Patricia Sung [00:05:14]:
Yep, we all, we all get it. We've all been there. And I want that for you. I want you to be among your people. So go pencil me in for that weekend in October, October 16th through 18th, put on your calendar. The tickets will probably be on sale in May, but anyways, you put your name on the waitlist. That way you will know when it happens. But I really walked away from the weekend being like, I have so much food for thought.
Patricia Sung [00:05:38]:
So many things that come together. It's like, as much as I know about adhd, the more time I spend with you, it's like my brain just like is putting the pieces together and there are so many things I want to like, hyper focus research into. And I'm like, no, Patricia, stay on the book. You gotta finish the book. But I do want to give you all like a life update and book update. And one of the things that I've been pondering, so one of the things that I walked away with was marveling at how about like half the group has really excellent partners, Husbands, spouses, life partner people, like really wonderful people that they are going through life with, who understand as best they can, who are like very supportive partners. And like the other half, who y'. All, the amount of terrible husbands slash ex husbands, like, blows my mind.
Patricia Sung [00:06:33]:
The amount of narcissists, the amount of emotionally abusive partners for women with ADHD is like, this is not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that like, narcissism's probably affects like half a percent of the population, I think is what I. When I looked up the stat, maybe it was like half to 1%, something like that. And yet I have so many clients with narcissistic partners. It's not half a percent, I can tell you that much. It's. It's a lot. And the like, emotionally abusive partner, I'm like, I feel like there's like so much there that I want to dive into and research.
Patricia Sung [00:07:09]:
Cause I'm like, this is not a coincidence. And like wanting to put that into the universe and be like, it's not a coincidence. And there's, There's a lot to it. And my like, preliminary thoughts of doing just minor research. I'm actually like, I've got a bunch of books, the library I'm going to go pick up today about narcissism. Because I'm like, I feel like I need to like, understand this better. And then the part of me is like, Patricia, just write the book. Stop going off on a narcissism rabbit hole.
Patricia Sung [00:07:32]:
But either way, we'll see what happens. One of the moms asked me like, why do you think that is? I mean, I said this out loud at the retreat. I was like, this isn't a coincidence. And granted, I'm not an expert on narcissism and I'm very intrigued to do more research on this. But from my limited knowledge of narcissists, they have very low self esteem and they are crying out for help in like the worst way possible. And they feel better about themselves by making other people feel worse or by like vampiring the other people's power from them. And they feel better about themselves by taking from others or putting others down. And they reimagine the situation in the way that they wanted it to go.
Patricia Sung [00:08:16]:
And then that's their new reality. So when they speak to you, it's with the conviction of truth because they have like rewritten their mind to believe what they believe. I think that women with ADHD are easily prey to that because of low self esteem, because we don't trust our intuition because we have had so many negative messagings along the way about how our perception is not correct. And so we easily fall prey to someone who's a narcissist or who's an abusive person because we don't believe in ourselves and we're looking for somebody sturdy to believe in. And somebody who's a narcissist is gonna make their own reality and believe it with conviction. So they're very sturdy in their opinions, even though they may not be accurate. They're very sturdy in them because they've convinced themselves that it is correct. So we are drawn to somebody with that level of confidence that we don't have in ourselves.
Patricia Sung [00:09:12]:
And yet the abusive person is like, well, this person's really easy to take from this person builds me up. Because remember, they have low self esteem. So their ADHD woman partner is like there to build them up and support them and take care of them. So it becomes this like unhealthy balance and perfect storm of somebody who is hungry for validation and power with somebody who is also hungry for validation, but empathetic and kind and looking for sturdiness. And I think it's just like these two together create this really awful imbalance where they feed into each other. And like I'm saddened by it. It makes me angry. Like when I look into my clients eyes and I see all of the pain and negativity that has been poured into them.
Patricia Sung [00:10:05]:
And I'm really thankful that I get to speak truth into women's lives to build them up. Like to help you know what's true about you, to help you know that you can trust your gut feeling or your intuition or, you know, whatever you want to call that, like inner knowing that you have that I get to pour into women and help you feel confident in who you are, help you trust who you are and your beliefs and your values and stay aligned to them and persevere. And so that's something I'm really thankful for, that this is my job. I literally get paid to help people. I also get to help people for free through this podcast. And I get to do a job that I love, that really matters to people who are hurting. And with that, like writing this book will allow me to reach so many more moms to be able to extend out how to help others in a book format that can be accessible to so many people that for, you know, 10, 20, 25 bucks, however much the book's gonna cost like that, so many people can get help, they can go to the library and get it for free and read the book and get help. And I'm really thankful that I get to do that.
Patricia Sung [00:11:18]:
And hey, if you want to join the beta reading team, now that I'm getting close to the rough draft coming together, I'm going to be sending out some portions for my beta readers to read through and give feedback. So if that's something you're interested in, please head over to the website at patriciasung.com/book and fill out the form and click that you want to be a beta reader and I would love to have you contribute and make this exactly the book that you need to read so to be a beta reader or just find out what's going on with the book? Patriciasung.com/book and fill out the form.
Patricia Sung [00:11:53]:
What do you do when you're really struggling to calm down? When you're dysregulated and your brain is offline, when Medusa mom is about to rear her ugly head and you don't want to yell at your kids again, but you also don't desperately need some time and space to yourself? Well, you're in luck, mama, because I've got a free video resource waiting for you. I'm sharing my top 10 tips for what to do when you're losing your cool and you need a reset. Each of these things you can do in under a minute with no fancy prep so that you can calm down enough to make a different choice than exploding like a volcano on everybody in the vicinity. Now, since it's a video, you can watch what I do for easier practice. And of course there's audio plus captions to read it. I also have a little cheat sheet underneath of all the ideas so you can grab that list, stick it in your phone somewhere so that on the time where you're like totally freaking out, you can go to that list and quickly pick the idea that's going to.
Patricia Sung [00:12:48]:
Help you calm down in that moment.
Patricia Sung [00:12:50]:
Head over to patriciasung.com/calm, that's C A L M and download your free video on how you can keep your cool when you're overwhelmed. That's patriciasung.com/calm because you can learn how to take care of yourself so that you can take care of your.
Patricia Sung [00:13:08]:
Family so it is book crunch time in ADHD Time math, it sounds like the book's really far off. It's not due till February 1st, but in ADHD math, February 1st, if I just say it's due in February, it makes me think I have all of February. I do not. It's due the first day of February, which is a Sunday, so I'm not even working over the weekend. I gotta turn it in January. Right now I'm recording this. It's towards the end of October. That means I have November, December and January to finish this book.
Patricia Sung [00:13:35]:
But let's be realistic. Once Thanksgiving hits all through Christmas, all bets are off. I don't know how much is going to get done, so my goal is to finish the rough draft by the end of November and then spend all of January editing. Now I'm not quite sure if that's a realistic goal anymore because the book's about half written, but I did take off almost the last month from writing between prepping all the stuff for the retreat and then I gave myself a week of recovery after the retreat. I'm an introvert and I always have to like recharge well. Then in that week my my youngest got the stomach flu, which was like a nasty stomach flu. He was down for several days and even that like he's still not really back to himself to be honest. Like just so tired.
Patricia Sung [00:14:13]:
Still, like still recovering. And so, you know, part of mom math. It's like, today and tomorrow, my kids have a half day from school because it's teacher parent conferences. And then, you know, actually have to go to the conferences. And we filed a tax extension, so all of our stuff was due October 15th. Well, then I had to spend hours organizing paperwork, figuring out, when does this get mailed? Does this one get electronically sent? Is this one get a paper copy? Do you have to go to the post office? Do the certified mail, make sure you have a. I mean, it's just. It's a lot.
Patricia Sung [00:14:43]:
And so this week after. The week after of the retreat, I thought we had to be back to writing. And yet it was like, oh, wait, hold on, Patricia. You just, like, kept pushing things back until after the retreat. But then I did a good job. I didn't schedule anything during my rest week. But then I realized then the week after that, I put a bunch of stuff on. So I.
Patricia Sung [00:15:01]:
I had, like, my dentist appointment and, you know, my monthly check in with my psychiatrist for my med appointment, and they're just like, oh, my gosh, my kids are only in school half a day, two days. I got all these doctor's appointments going on. I had the tax people. It was just like, so many things to do and so little time. Not to mention, like, cleanup from the stomach flu chaos, because not much other stuff got done. This is why being parents hard. Because it's not just like, oh, well, now my kid was sick for three days, vomiting. It's like, well, yeah, I know I got extra laundry to do.
Patricia Sung [00:15:31]:
Hey, all the stuff that I didn't do while my kid was sick is now piling up like, you know what I mean? But I just want to recognize that and say it out loud, because there's so many times where we don't think we're doing enough. There's still so many things left on the to do list. And it's like, there is. There's always stuff like, motherhood's never finished. And I have to repeat that to myself a lot because otherwise I get frustrated that I can't, like, check off something. But literally, the work of motherhood is never done. There's always more dishes. There's always more laundry.
Patricia Sung [00:15:58]:
There's always more lessons to teach, values to impart. There's no end to this job. And while that can be beautiful, it also can be exhausting. So know that even in this day where you're like, I don't think I got a lot of stuff done. You did. You Did a lot of stuff, and it makes you feel better. Write it all down on a piece of paper and, like, cross off the stuff that you already did and so you can see what you have accomplished. Because in the last two weeks, they did not go at all like I planned.
Patricia Sung [00:16:26]:
I mean, I did plan to have some rest days in there, but I wasn't planning on all this two hours of tax paperwork and running to the post office. I wasn't planning on a stomach bug. We also had this other, like, just weird thing happen that we had to deal with. It was, like, so bizarre. It was like, what. What is. What is going on? And I think I mentioned this in an earlier episode of, like, when you start living into your mission and your values, like, pickups are gonna happen. Like, I don't know about your faith beliefs, but, like, I am a Christian, and I'm like, listen, if I'm following God's plan, I know that Satan's gonna come in and cause a bunch of ruckus and make this more difficult for me because he doesn't want me to do what I' do.
Patricia Sung [00:17:04]:
He wants to make it hard. So I know that, like, when things pop up, then they're like, seriously, like, I had my identity stolen. And so now I'm trying to figure out, like, well, how do I get this lien off my credit? It was for a payday loan. I was the stay at home mom at the time. I didn't even have paycheck. I don't know how y' all gave a payday loan to somebody who has no job, but, okay, anyways, like, this is just, like, the stuff that happens when you're living out what you're meant to do. Like this life on Earth was not.
Patricia Sung [00:17:33]:
Built to be easy.
Patricia Sung [00:17:34]:
And one day I'll be in heaven, living it up in perfect world. But it's not today. Today I'm dealing with stomach flu cleanup, bizarro identity theft. I forgot it's Thursday and the yard guys are here lawn mowing my yard. And so I had to wait, like, 15 minutes because I forgot, apparently, that it's Thursday for them to finish mowing outside my window. Like, it's just. Life happens. We are not robots.
Patricia Sung [00:18:00]:
We don't live in heaven. We're here on this earth trying to do our best. Even when it feels like the earth is falling apart. What I can control is what's going on in my heart, in my attitude. I can do my best to rest and take care of myself so that I can then help others around me. And keep putting goodness out into the universe, into the atmosphere around me. Because we could all use a little more goodness these days. So that's my life update.
Patricia Sung [00:18:30]:
Right now I'm going into hibernation mode to write this book. Hopefully get the draft done in the next. What is that, five weeks. I got five weeks to try to get as much as I can done so that hopefully my Christmas season is quiet. And then January is head down editing, which I find writing to be actually quite easy for me. I don't find writing hard. Once I get on a roll, I have to get on the roll, which is generally how ADHD productivity works. Like we need to get going, but then once we get going, rocket speed, which I do find is true.
Patricia Sung [00:18:59]:
However, editing is the part that scares me. That's why I gave myself an entire month to just work on editing. Like I even had to close my schedule to clients cuz I had a full roster and I was like I gotta leave space to write the book. So I'm not taking new clients until January or February depending on how the editing goes. Which is amazing. It's really awesome to know I'm helping so many moms to the point where I'm like I have to close my schedule down cause I still gotta write this book. And I thank you, thank you for being here. I thank you for reading this book when it comes out.
Patricia Sung [00:19:28]:
I thank you for listening to podcast, I thank you for trusting me to pour into you and offer wisdom and sometimes my random babbles. But like I appreciate you being here so much. So I have kids coming home in an hour because it's early release day. So I'm gonna shift into mom mode and I will probably see you. My guess is either February, maybe March depending on how the edits come together on the book. But I'm hoping to get in there in February because it is the seven year anniversary of the podcast in February. So hopefully I'm get at least one episode in there to celebrate the seventh anniversary and then yeah, back to back to the podcasting life come March. I really miss hanging out with you and I've got some really great guests lined up too.
Patricia Sung [00:20:12]:
But hey, if you have anybody that you think I should talk to, send me a dm. Email me, let me know who you want to hear on the podcast because I really love talking to people who love to talk about adhd. So have an amazing holiday, big hugs and I'll talk to you soon. Successful Mama.
Patricia Sung [00:20:31]:
For more resources, classes and community, head over to to my website Motherhoodinadhd.com.