I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback and insights on what could improve The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast in this short poll - it takes 2 minutes, and as a thank you, we'll send you a little gift!

Have you ever stood in your own kitchen, holding a perfectly ordinary object (like a wooden spoon), and completely frozen? Not because anything dramatic happened, but because your brain just couldn't work out what to do next.

In this week's episode of ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I have something a little different for you! It’s called ADHD Aha!, by Understood.org, and shares real, relatable stories from people with ADHD, about how their symptoms impact their lives.

In this episode, Laura is joined by Terry Matlen, a psychotherapist, ADHD coach, and one of the true pioneers in understanding ADHD in women. Terry has spent over 25 years helping women make sense of a brain the world never quite designed for them. And in this conversation, she is refreshingly honest about her own brain in ways I think a lot of us will relate to.

In this episode, we explore:

• The moment a wooden spoon became the symbol of a lifetime of undiagnosed ADHD
• Why shame is so deeply woven into the female ADHD experience, and how understanding changes everything
• How ADHD symptoms can be mistaken for anxiety, depression, or personality disorders
• The particular challenges of mothering with ADHD — especially when your children have it too
• Why asking for help isn't a weakness
• Creative ways to access support even when money is tight
• How to gently shift your expectations of yourself without giving up on the things that matter

If you've ever wondered why life feels inexplicably harder for you than it seems to for everyone else, I hope this conversation feels like finally coming home.

Timestamps:

• 00:16 - About our Partner ADHD Aha!
• 01:39 - Understanding ADHD Through Personal Stories
• 10:18 - Understanding Overwhelm and Executive Functioning
• 17:02 - Understanding the Impact of ADHD Diagnosis
• 22:10 - Understanding ADHD and Women
• 27:56 - Moments of Reflection and Connection

This week’s episode is sponsored by Understood.org, the leading nonprofit dedicated to empowering the millions of people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. Their podcast, AHA Aha! Shared candid stories about ADHD realisations, including the unexpected, emotional and even funny ways ADHD symptoms can surface!

The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Event Recording is here!

My first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event sold out, and now the full experience is available to you wherever you are, whenever it feels right.

Alongside three neuro-affirming experts, we spent four hours exploring the questions that matter most to late-diagnosed women. Get lifetime access here!

Inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Recording, you'll find:

• Kate Moryoussef on post-diagnosis growth and her gentle framework for what comes next
• Dr Hannah Cullen on the neuroscience of ADHD and why your brain works the way it does
• Hannah Miller on reconnecting with purpose through a neurodivergent lens
• Adele Wimsett myth-busting on hormones, HRT, progesterone and perimenopause

Understand yourself more deeply, feel less alone, and finally access the expert knowledge you deserve. Because every woman with ADHD deserves access to the knowledge, expertise and understanding that for too long simply hasn't been available to us.

To get lifetime access for £44, click here.

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Foreign.

Listeners.

Today's episode is a little bit different and I think it's going to be one that really will resonate with you.

It'll stay with you.

Over the next couple of months, I'll be partnering with Understood.org a trusted partner in the work I do here at ADHD Women's well being, and an organization I genuinely respect for the way they support people with adhd, families with ADHD and other learning differences.

And as part of that, I want to share an episode of another podcast with you on this feed, and it's called ADHD AHA.

Hosted by Laura Key under the Understood.org banner.

And it's a series of really candid, honest stories from people who were diagnosed with ADHD and how their symptoms have shaped their lives in ways that they didn't understand at the time.

They're really, really fascinating and I've loved listening to them and I wanted to share it with you because it captures something I talk about so often on this podcast.

And it's those deeply personal, those very quiet, reflective moments where things just suddenly click where you realize, oh, okay, so this isn't just me struggling, this is adhd.

And we get that sort of penny dropping moment that so many of us have experienced.

And there's something really incredibly powerful about hearing stories like this so validating.

They help us feel less alone, less confused, and honestly, a lot more compassionate towards ourselves and maybe others, maybe other family members.

And I'm going to play an episode for you now about something so many of you will recognize when simple, everyday things suddenly don't feel simple at all.

And this episode features someone who I know and trust and respect deeply.

Her name is Terry Mat, and she has been a true pioneer in helping women understand ADHD for many years.

And Terry's story about feeling overwhelmed by something as small as a wooden spoon holds so much truth about our executive functioning, the emotional overwhelm, our working memory, and the invisible load so many of us carry.

So as you listen, just notice what resonates and notice what feels familiar for you.

And I really do hope it's a validating list and I really enjoyed this episode.

So here it is, when simple things aren't simple with adhd.

And this is Terry Matlin's story.

I had somebody over the house that I hadn't met before.

She was a chatty kind of gal.

She followed me into the kitchen and she was talking.

And I can't do two things at once in general.

So I remember being at the sink and starting to wash the dishes.

As she's chatting to me, and I pick up the wooden spot that I used for cooking this meal, and I looked at it and I thought, I don't know what to do with it.

I just became overwhelmed by a wooden spoon.

This is ADHD Aha.

A podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have adhd.

My name is Laura Key.

I head up our editorial team [email protected] and as someone who's had my own ADHD aha.

Moment, I'll be your host.

I am here today with Terri Matlin.

Terri is a psychotherapist, consultant, and ADHD coach who's a pioneer when it comes to our understanding of ADHD in women.

Terri is the author of the books the Queen of Distraction and Survival Tips for Women with adhd.

She's also featured in Understood's limited series podcast, Climbing the Walls, which is about the rise of ADHD in women during the pandemic.

Terri, welcome.

How are you?

I'm great, and it's so nice to be here.

Thanks, Laura.

Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to have you here.

I want to let our listeners and viewers know that the show Climbing the Walls, which you were interviewed for and you're featured in, you actually, without knowing it, coined the title of that show.

It came from a conversation that you had had with the host of Climbing the Walls, Danielle El.

And if anybody listening or watching hasn't seen that or listened to that podcast yet, please do it.

It's amazing.

But, Terri, do you want to explain where the idea of Climbing the Walls came from, what it references?

With my add?

I will do my best because this was a while ago.

I work a lot with moms with adhd and being a mom myself, my kids are now young adults.

But I remember how difficult it was being a mom with adhd, raising kids, one who has ADHD and other special kinds of issues, and the pain that I felt and the discomfort and the stress of just being a mom, period, with adhd.

But you add in the two kids, one who had these issues.

I remember saying, barely, because you guys did remind me.

But yeah, I did say I was climbing the walls.

And so many of the women that I work with who are moms will say something very similar.

It is so hard.

Yeah.

I remember speaking to you about how much shame that you were dealing with as a mother, as a wife, I believe.

Are you open to talking about that?

The gender layer for women with adhd?

I'm pretty much an open book because what I find is when I talk about this openly about my own experiences.

It gives permission for other women to not only talk about it, but before that to access those feelings that they have within themselves.

This shame thing just travels with us if we don't understand and work through these feelings.

The big one for me was, why can't I figure out how to make dinner every night?

I would just get so frustrated that I would take a spoon and just slam it on the table.

Because whatever I was able to make, which would typically be pretty simple kid friendly meals, one of my two kids, that's 50% of my kids, would say, ugh, I don't like that, or ew, we're having meatloaf again.

You know, maybe I made it three weeks ago and it was just intolerable.

And because of my sensitivity and all of us, I believe with adhd, are sensitive souls.

I took it really hard because I could see my sister in law is an incredible cook.

I remember thinking, not long ago we were on a phone call and as she's talking to me, she's cooking.

And I thought, how does she do that?

I can talk to nobody, I can have nothing, no tv, no radio, nothing.

And I struggle.

And the shame that I felt back before I understood my ADHD was so immense that I couldn't do what my family, you know, women in my family, neighbors, friends, why is it that they could just seamlessly get through life and feel good about themselves?

You know, we don't really know what goes on, but you know, they could do these things without having to put timers on, make notes, ask somebody, will you remind me to turn the oven off or, you know, any of those things.

It's just, you know, this is what you do that doesn't happen.

It didn't happen for me.

And for many women with adhd, we were not on automatic pilot.

I remember having a conversation with you about that wooden spoon.

Oh, gosh.

And it really resonated with me the last time we chatted, because you've mentioned it as kind of being a big aha moment for you.

That kind of like you're looking at the spoon, right?

Yeah.

So I had somebody over the house that I hadn't met before.

It had something to do with my daughter.

And I had her over for dinner, which was a huge thing for me.

You know, having dinner for someone I don't even know, I was able to pull that off pretty well.

And then, you know, I was clearing the table and she followed me.

She was a chatty kind of gal.

She followed me into the kitchen, and she was talking.

And I can't do two things at once in general.

So when people say that people with ADHD can multitask, well, that's not the case for me and for many of the people I work with.

So I remember being at the sink and starting to wash the dishes as she's chatting to me.

And I pick up the wooden spoon that I used for cooking this meal, and I looked at it and I thought, I don't know what to do with it.

I can't sort things out.

She's coming at me with one side.

The spoon is in front of me.

And I washed it.

I could get that far.

But then what do I do with it?

I just became overwhelmed by a wooden spoon.

Didn't you throw it, too?

I'm sorry, Terry, I'm exposing you.

I don't behave.

I've done that with other things and other situations.

I think this happened before I was diagnosed.

I didn't know what was wrong.

I didn't know what was going on.

The stress of the mundane, right?

The things.

Especially as a woman, and the feeling that not only this is a basic object, any human should know what to do with this right now, but also as a woman, I'm supposed to be really good with this particular object and really good at carrying on a lovely conversation while making a lovely meal.

And then the emotional compounding of all that is just so.

I don't.

I think that people underestimate how overwhelming that can be.

I totally agree with you.

We hide, you know, even after being evaluated, treated, and the understanding that I have because this is my life.

This is not just, you know, my own personal world.

It's the work I do.

But it's something I'm constantly working on.

A lot of it has gotten way, way, way better.

But sometimes I get into a situation where, oh, all those old feelings come back up, like, why can't I figure out what to wear to this event?

I'm going to this actually this Sunday.

I've got an event, and that's one of my areas of non expertise.

What do I wear to these things?

You know, I want to look right.

Is this the right outfit?

Da da, da.

And then I have to tell myself, wait a second, calm yourself down.

It's not the end of the world.

It's because you are overwhelmed by wanting to do the right thing.

Because most women would easily go into the closet, figure out what to wear.

That's this area of weakness for me.

But that's okay.

And this is how I Walk myself down from this is I try to remember the things I do well.

So talk me through the ADHD challenges that might lead to a moment of, what do I do with this spoon?

So executive functioning, which is how to get from A to B and B to C. And it sounds so easy, like, okay, so I have a spoon in my hand.

That means I wash it, I dry it, I put it in the drawer.

I knew to wash the spoon.

I was overwhelmed by another stimulus, and I may have been a little bit uncomfortable because I didn't really know this person.

So there's all these things coming into play.

So for me, and for a lot of women with adhd, we get overwhelmed easily by stimulation.

And that for me, one of them is constant barrage of words and anything having to do with steps.

So in this situation, it's.

I'm a little already uncomfortable.

I have what felt like a hammer, you know, hitting me over the head with all these words.

I'm looking at a spoon.

I want to make a good impression.

I want to look normal because I know there's something about me that's not really normal.

What do I do next when all of these things are hitting me?

Then I have two young kids in the next room.

They're probably making noise.

I have a husband, and I don't know where he is with all of this.

So it was a sense of overwhelm.

And that sense of overwhelm is so common with us, but it generally has a lot to do with executive functioning.

It has a lot to do with self esteem, wanting to make a good impression, wanting to fit in.

And many of us don't feel like we fit in.

Especially if you haven't been diagnosed and treated and gotten support.

Support is huge.

So the executive function challenges causing the overwhelm, but also emotional regulation is another executive function.

So the thing that you're struggling with is also the thing that's causing you to get.

Maybe having trouble managing your emotions around the thing that is happening.

Yeah.

And then as things escalated, like, I'm really, literally looking at a spoon while this woman is talking and talking and talking.

And then I have to start thinking, well, what's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

And then frustration.

Like, she's talking too much.

I want her out of my face.

So you're probably right.

I probably at one point did throw the thing in the.

In the sink because I lost it.

I mean, I wasn't there, Terry.

I just remember you saying something about that.

I don't think I was there.

I was so out of it.

I think I would have done something like that.

There's been many incidents where that sense of overwhelm, this dysregulation of emotions and mood can cause us to do things that we wouldn't dream of doing.

It's like I did that.

I can't believe it.

I relate to that so much.

I would guess that the majority of the shame that I've felt in my life has been around reactions that I've had to that kind of overwhelm.

It's like you get the stimuli that are coming at you all at once and it's almost like you want to swat them away like a fly.

Right.

But it might be there's a person that you care about, there's your child.

Right.

And when I say swat, I don't mean physically swat away.

I mean just like stop talking or stop sending me texts.

You know, I have to take off my watch when I'm doing these interviews because if I get a message, it'll buzz my hand and then I can't unfeel that and I can't get back to the conversation.

What really bothers me is when people assume that you can just turn that switch, because they can.

They think you can.

Well, just don't pay attention to.

Like earlier today I was on a call and the long people were all over my neighborhood and I'm looking out and I'm looking out and you know, just stop.

Just stop looking out the window or, you know, stop what you're doing so you can pay attention to what I'm saying.

With my family, they don't get it.

And that can lead to what you're talking about, a lot of self doubt and shame and that whole thing of what's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

And then the rumination of how do other people view me?

How did other people view my reaction to that?

And then it's just.

It can be vicious.

You eventually did get diagnosed in the early 90s, I think you mentioned it.

Was the early 90s.

And so I live in the Detroit area and I'm very fortunate.

It's just one of these things that there's a number of ADHD professionals who even back then were in my neighborhood practically.

Yeah, Michigan, a hotbed for like the burgeoning study of ADHD back in the day.

And still it sounds like, yeah.

But I should start off with what exactly happened that made me finally go into that search for a professional.

I was on the telephone talking to somebody and whomever I was talking to.

I couldn't hear them.

Physically, I could, but I couldn't hear what they were saying because there was noise on that person's side and noise on my side, and probably one of my kids was doing whatever, and I couldn't filter out again.

Here we go.

And I got.

Talk about emotional dysregulation.

I was furious with myself, furious with the world.

And nobody understood this because I would ask, did you ever have this problem where you can't talk on the phone because you can't really get to what they're saying?

No, I can't.

So that's what tipped it over for me.

I had to figure it out.

Is my hearing wrong?

So I started off.

Forgot about this part.

I started off by going to an audiologist.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I don't remember that.

Okay.

I totally forgot about that until you brought.

Yeah.

So I went to probably an ENT doctor, and they gave me a hearing test, and they said, oh, your hearing is better than average for someone your age.

Wow.

Yeah.

I said, then what is this?

And they said, I don't know.

Because back then, they probably didn't know anything about what we now call auditory processing disorder, which is a separate thing often seen with adhd, by the way.

Again, it's.

The filtering is being distracted, the processing.

And the processing.

It's funny, too, because people.

When we create content for parents, for instance, when we're really talking about, does your child follow directions?

Most parents will say, like, they just don't listen.

It's not really about hearing or listening.

It's really about, like, are they following the directions?

Are they able to process those?

Multiple steps.

Right.

That kind of thing.

Multiple steps, yeah.

There's a lot going on in this thing.

It's not as simple as you're distracted.

So I did well on the test.

And then the next step was, well, I'm getting some ideas from the book I read.

I'm getting some ideas from how my daughter behaves.

I think it's time to find out now that I know a little bit about adhd to find somebody who's an expert.

And I did.

And he was just a couple months away from me, a PhD psychologist who happened to be a pioneer in the field of just adult.

Well, he worked with kids, but he also opened up his practice to adults.

And so I went to him and got the diagnosis of adhd.

Yeah.

And at that time, it was at add.

Was it add?

Yeah, we called it ADD back then, and that's what changed, literally Changed my life.

That now there was a medical explanation for my, what I, some people might have said, quirkiness, what I felt as a shameful, almost disabling.

Well, yeah, sometimes it was disabling and a source of such, you know, bad stuff.

And how did you take advantage of that diagnosis?

Did you tell people about it?

Did it help you access treatment?

Did people take it seriously?

I have so many questions compared to.

The women I've worked with and it's been almost 25 years now.

My story is a little bit different.

So unlike most of the women when they get the diagnosis, shame comes back, disbelief, there's something wrong with me.

And the big one is, look at all the years that I've missed, all the lost years in my life.

For me it was very different.

For me it was woo wee.

Now I get it.

Now I have an answer to my questions.

I didn't look back.

It's, I know what I'm going to do with my life now once I learned more about it first.

So I went and you know, I had therapy, I tried medication, ADHD coaching was in its infancy.

I just took it and ran.

So my decision was I want to help other people, particularly women, because women were really just, you know, weren't acknowledged, weren't understood.

We weren't, you know, all the things we're talking about that cause us such shame.

Nobody looked at that really.

And then eventually, once I felt more confident and did actually went back to the psychologist who diagnosed me, I asked him, can I sit in on your evaluations and can you mentor me so I can learn how to take this into a private practice?

And what were some of the insights that you were gathering from sitting in with that psychologist or elsewhere?

It was really tricky because I have to say a good therapist who does evaluations really has to dig deep.

The big thing is to be able to differentiate symptoms you see in ADHD that can be explained by other conditions.

You can see those kinds of symptoms in depression, you can see them in anxiety, substance abuse, trauma, Trauma I'm very, very interested in lately.

There's so many things in common with a person who's had early trauma.

We would talk afterwards and he would say, see this person we just saw together, she had this happen to her.

And there's some of these other symptoms that might explain it better as let's say bipolar disorder, whatever.

And then he explained how you figure it out.

And you know, it's a tremendous amount of work.

I'm curious if you could give us a few examples of what you learned about how to tease things apart.

And we can call this anecdotal so that people don't, you know, run and diagnose themselves or other people with it.

But like, what are some specific things?

And I will be open in that I deal with anxiety as well.

So one thing that's tricky that I learned is that you can have ADHD and a separate anxiety disorder or you could have ADHD that creates anxiety.

Because we're anxious a lot of the time because are we doing this right?

Are we going to time management issues?

I'm always late.

I can't seem to get it together.

I can't get the laundry done.

I can't.

I'm going to get in trouble with my boss.

So there's a lot of anxiety in adhd, but there's also a lot of anxiety in bipolar.

I think when some people go into a manic state, there is anxiety.

There's anxiety when you go into a depressive episode.

Not for everybody.

I can't put everybody in one category in substance abuse disorder.

This is an area that's really sad because we have this still this attitude of why don't you just get your act together?

So there's a lot of anxiety and depression in that population.

And what they're basically doing is they're self medicating.

And then we qualify that as having a weak character or whatever, and that's so wrong.

So in so many different conditions, we see anxiety, we see depression.

So let's see, impersonality disorders.

That's another one.

ADHD can very much look like a personality.

Oh, you're just narcissistic.

All you do is think about yourself.

It may look like narcissism, but we are thinking about ourselves because we're always, you know, what did I do wrong now?

Who did I let down now?

And it looks like, you know, it's about us.

Well, no, it's not always about us.

We wanted to.

What did I lose?

What did I forget?

Yeah, yeah, I let you down.

We didn't get to the wedding on time because you were figuring out where your lipstick was.

Yeah.

Or the meal I made wasn't good because I threw that wooden spoon on the floor and it got all dirty.

You're stuck on that one fun story.

Oh, my God, you're so funny.

I'm painting this picture.

I don't.

It's just so.

I love, I love a vivid story that we can.

It's a great.

Terri, what do you feel like people still don't get about women with adhd,.

First of all, there's still a stigma.

This is something I've been just hammering away at for all these years.

There's still that stigma.

And what they don't get is ADHD is over diagnosed.

You just say you have adhd.

Well, everybody has a little bit of ADHD and we can still do all these things that you claim that are difficult for you.

They don't understand.

They don't understand how we hide because of the shame that we put on a happy face or we pretend.

You know, there's new hip words that I see in social media.

You know, one of them is masking.

Yeah, a lot of masking.

Oh, yeah, sure.

The teacher said she needs a volunteer to bake brownies for the fundraiser.

And we all with adhd, sure, I'll do, you know, now what, we got ourselves into hot water and if we go to that person and say, you know, I'd like to retract my, my offer because.

And then what do you say?

I have adhd.

They don't get it.

Yeah, Masking is a very real thing.

It's a painful thing.

It's very painful.

And that's another thing that as we, as what you're doing it understood is educating people about something that's not just add.

Oh, so what your kid has add, it can be a huge thing.

It can knock us down.

You talk a lot about and you are a mom with ADHD and you've been a stay at home mom, I believe, you know, we support many, many [email protected] and being a mom with ADHD and if you have kids with ADHD as well is really, really hard.

What you just said was so beautiful about women in general with adhd, but I'm curious if you have any insights or anything that you would share with moms with adhd, because it is, it can be so much to manage.

It is so hard.

That's where my heart really belongs, is with the moms with adhd, because I've talked to many women who have said going to work is a breeze compared to coming home and parenting.

It's a breeze because there's structure.

You get feedback, you know what's expected of you, you come home.

And especially like you said, if you have children or a child with adhd, there are no rule books, there are no ways of dealing with certain behaviors.

And with your own adhd, connecting with a child's adhd, it is really difficult.

So I would say ask for help.

I write about this all the time and I get A lot of flack from it because we know a lot of women don't have the finances, the ability to pay people to help.

But if you can give up the movie that you see at the theater and it turns out 50 bucks because you're buying snacks and this and that and instead get somebody to come into the house once every couple weeks to clean it, I think doing all these things that women without ADHD can do, it's just too much for us.

And letting go of those expectations again on women with ADHD or women in general first, it's just a little too much for us with adhd.

So finding ways to get that kind of help, working with a coach, working with a professional organizer.

Now money is an issue for many, many, many women.

So my take on that is, what about bartering?

Let's say you're really good with animals.

A lot of us are animal lovers.

I don't know why, but we are.

Say, you know, I will walk your dog, you know, three days a week if you could just watch my kids for an hour while I run to the grocery store.

It's too much to take them with me.

They can't handle themselves and then I can't handle them and then I can't handle myself.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

So bartering, what you can do well with someone who can help you to take advantage of family members who will.

But you have to really reach out only to people who are non judgmental who get you.

You don't want toxic help.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, 100%.

Because then it just adds more.

It just creates more overwhelm and it's just one more thing to manage and it's emotionally draining.

It's horrible.

We already have enough of our own toxic self shame.

We don't need it from the outside.

So asking for help is big.

I like what you said about expectations.

I think I've said this once before on the show and I was worried that it came across as like we should set low expectation for ourselves.

That's not what I mean.

I think that we should still want to do great things and we can do amazing things.

It's more about letting that like pressure release valve open up.

Be like, maybe I'm just not going to do the dishes every day and they're just going to sit in the sink and is that causing any major problems?

Probably not.

If they start to overflow and I get bugs, then yeah, then that's a problem.

Yeah, it's changing your expectations of yourself and it's exactly what you're saying, it's not going to kill anybody to hold off washing the dishes for a day or even two days.

It's not going to kill anybody if you don't cook every single day.

But you may get carry out or get ready made stuff at the market.

I talk about all the things you can do now.

You can get bagged salad, you can get a rotisserie chicken, you can get a lot of things.

And then we get into all this guilt, which, you know, you got it.

You just got to push it away.

Well, I'm not feeding my kids fresh food.

I'm not putting the food through the food mill and, you know, making baby food from scratch.

You know, sometimes we just have to take a step back.

We can't be perfect.

Nobody is.

Nobody is perfect.

And you can look at any human being and say, well, why aren't they doing this?

Why aren't they doing that?

Terry?

Somebody got me one of those baby food makers when I had my first child and I just re gifted that thing right away.

I was like, there's no way that I'm gonna do that.

I love you, Laura.

I love you.

I mean, to be fair, I probably put it on my wish list, like for my baby shower with, you know, wide eyes and high expectations for myself.

And then I took one look at that thing, I was like, I don't know where the hell to start with this.

I'm not gonna.

But it's interesting.

The words that you use is really interesting to me.

The wish list.

Moms with adhd, we have a huge wish list.

But you know, we have to do what works for us.

Because if it works for us, it makes our kids and our family happier.

Terri, I love talking with you so much.

I have one more question for you before we say goodbye for now.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I want you to brag a little bit.

I'm proud that I've helped change lives for the better.

I have a Facebook group, it's free and there are 37,000 women in that group.

That whole thing says to me I'm touching people's lives, I'm helping them in some way.

I have a lot of volunteers.

I can't handle that whole group to the volunteers.

But I'm also proud of the two books that I wrote because I get a lot of nice feedback from, especially my more recent book, the Queen of Distraction.

And it's in different languages now.

It's been translated to think that that's out in the world, hopefully forever.

And somebody's going to read it and say, oh, like what we're talking about.

Oh, it's not just me.

Oh, this makes sense.

Oh, I can be okay with this.

I really enjoy helping people.

That's why I'm here.

We're so glad that we get to work with you, all of us at Understood.

And you've just done so much for our community.

We're really grateful to you.

The books for folks who want to check it out, the Queen of Distraction and then your earlier book, Survival Tips for Women with adhd.

And definitely check out Climbing the Walls.

Terry is featured in that limited series podcast.

We couldn't have made it without you.

Terry Matlin, thank you so much for being here with me today.

I'm so grateful.

Thank you for having me.

It was actually a lot of fun, so thank you for that.

I told you, yeah, we were going to have fun.

This was the best part of my day.

Yeah, me too.

Thanks for listening today, as always.

If you want to share your own aha moment, email [email protected] or send a message to our voicemail inbox.

You'll find a link in the show notes along with resources and links to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

If you want to help us continue this work, [email protected] give ADHD AHA is produced and edited by Jessamyn Molly.

Say hi, Jessamyn.

Hi everyone.

And Margie Desantis.

Hey.

Hey.

Video is produced by Calvin Kinnee and edited by Alyssa Shea.

Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show.

Production support provided by Andrew Rector.

Brianna Berry is our production director.

Neil Drumming is our editorial director from Understood.org our executive producers are Scott Cochere and Jordan Davidson.

And I'm your host, Laura Key.

Thanks so much for listening.

So that was an episode of ADHD Aha.

Here on the ADHD women's well being feed.

And I don't know about you, but moments like that one that Terry shared, they stay with you.

I really do think they do.

And it's not really ever about the wooden spoon, is it?

It's about the overwhelm, the pressure and the feeling of why can't I just do this, maybe like other people.

And the layers of emotions and shame that often come with that.

And this is exactly why I've chosen to partner with Understood.org because their work aligns so closely with everything I care about here at ADHD Women's Wellbeing, supporting you with real understanding and practical tools and resources and the reassurance that you are not alone in this.

And if this did resonate with you, the story that Terry shared, I really encourage you to listen to more of the episodes from ADHD aha.

So if you want to find them, you can go on Understood.org's website or just search ADHD Aha in your podcast app.

That's ADHD Aha with AHA spelled aha.

And there are so many other stories that will help you feel seen, understood, and far less alone in your experience of your late in life ADHD diagnosis.

And as always, thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening, thank you for your patience and allow me to share a different podcast here and for doing this work of understanding yourself more deeply.

Take care and I will see you all very soon.