Podcast Episode 311: How to Tell if You Have Mom Brain, Organized Chaos, or ADHD Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn (00:00.892)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:08.361)

Hello, hello everybody, how are you? I’m trying to get creative with my intro. I don’t wanna like change my tagline, but I need to pizzazz it up somehow. Yeah.

JoAnn (00:09.92)

Yeah.

JoAnn (00:15.53)

Yes, you need to pizzazz it up. You can add some jazz hands, maybe a little top hat. Yeah. If you’re watching us on Instagram, you’re seeing Breeze dance right now, right now, which kind of gets us to another topic because we squirrel a lot here on this podcast. And it’s the subject of today’s episode about why we think, well,

Brie Tucker (00:21.48)

Why?

Brie Tucker (00:26.513)

you doing today?

JoAnn (00:44.002)

kind of like diagnosed to have we have ADHD. We do. It’s serious. It’s a serious, serious issue. And Bri, I do not know how long that you have been telling me that you’re gonna go get tested and you have not.

Brie Tucker (00:55.759)

No, but I do have the name of your, what’s it, psychiatrist, nurse practitioner. Yeah, and I wanna do it. really do. So maybe, maybe that’ll be my goal. Like, because obviously we’re recording this beforehand. So I’m putting this out there in podcast, land people. I’m giving myself one week from the date this episode airs. Check in with me.

JoAnn (01:00.072)

Yes, yes, Elizabeth, amazing.

Brie Tucker (01:19.281)

about how my appointment has gone, even if it’s just scheduling the appointment, it’s not actually happening. It’s still at least moving in the right direction.

JoAnn (01:25.988)

so you don’t even have to schedule it until the podcast episode airs?

Brie Tucker (01:29.769)

giving myself some self-compassion, It’s rough this week.

JoAnn (01:31.36)

Okay the little seed behind the curtain. The reason I give Brie so much crap about that, it is currently a month from when this podcast episode is airing. And I’m like, what? It is a month.

Brie Tucker (01:44.945)

Is it really? I didn’t notice. okay. All right then. So I’ll give myself a little bit. Wait a minute. Okay, I will give myself a shorter timeline, isn’t this about both of us? Okay, fine. Fine. Breed her issues that are very, very apparent. I am, like I am, the one thing I suck at is follow -up for medical appointments.

JoAnn (01:57.506)

We’re talking about you right now, Brie. Right now.

Brie Tucker (02:11.217)

And I will like beg my doctor when I’m in an appointment, like please, please just like make me make the appointment now. Cause I will walk out of here and be in my car and it’ll be like poof, gone. well, who cares about that? I don’t need any followup.

JoAnn (02:23.607)

Yeah.

JoAnn (02:27.296)

I do too. I do that with my kids follow ups too. Like my daughter still doesn’t have a well check scheduled. It’s been a few years.

Brie Tucker (02:32.841)

I’ve gotten better about that with my kids, but I’ll be honest, being a divorced parent kind of gets you on the butt with that one. yeah, with myself, I keep telling myself I’ve got more time. It’s not a big deal. It’s no biggie. And in the meantime, I am flailing around like a fish out of water trying to get stuff done.

JoAnn (02:52.364)

But let’s just say like there’s some things with ADHD, especially with girls and women, they go highly undiagnosed because women usually do not have the same symptoms as hyperactive boys who are like running around the classroom, obviously not paying attention. The girls are more the daydreamy type, the ones who get lost in their own thoughts, who…

Brie Tucker (02:57.065)

you

JoAnn (03:17.89)

are trying to listen during class, but then realize 25 minutes in, they haven’t heard a damn thing that’s been said. Like that was me all through high school. I used to give myself so much like hell for that because I’m like, my gosh, I’m just not a good student. I can’t pay attention. Lo and behold, like 15, 20 years later, I finally occurred to me, hey, I might have ADHD and I do.

Brie Tucker (03:42.568)

You

JoAnn (03:46.44)

If you are listening right now and you feel like you describe yourself as flighty or distracted or bad at follow -up, listen to this episode because it is not you. It could be ADHD. So now let’s get on with the show.

JoAnn (04:05.772)

So first before we start this ADHD talk, I have to say that moms have a lot of responsibilities upon them, a lot of responsibilities, like so much more than we put on men.

Brie Tucker (04:18.333)

yeah, totally. you know, I’m also, I don’t know if I’m going to go off on a tangent here, so, but I feel like too, in the intro, you were talking about how girls and boys present differently. I feel like for us as women, like we have just been told to suck it up and figure it out our whole lives. So.

We kind of assume that everybody has these same, and I’m saying we as the undiagnosed ADHD community, we sort of feel like everybody must have these issues that they’re struggling with. Every mom is busy. Yeah, every mom is busy. Sure, I’m not any different, but I think kind of my brain is. And I think that’s rough, yeah.

JoAnn (04:58.241)

Mm

JoAnn (05:05.802)

Yes. That is something I am realizing too. Like there is a point where all of our strategies that we put in place to deal with ADHD for years, a point where you get so busy that all those strategies fail you. And that doesn’t happen in normal people, honestly. I was, like, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but like,

Brie Tucker (05:27.907)

Yeah! Yeah, totally!

JoAnn (05:34.558)

If you have been like functioning with ADHD and you probably have systems in your home for like what you have to do to deal with things and how you remember things. Like for instance, my keys, I don’t really have keys anymore though, cause I have a Tesla. So I like drive it with my car, with my phone, I mean. So I have that phone with me all the time, but like car keys and stuff, they go on the door, right? They’d go on the hooks right by the door.

They have to go there. When my daughter started driving, she walked in the door and she would still carry her keys. I’m like, no, stop. They go right there. And I don’t realize that until I’m starting to teach them to like my daughter. And it’s how I keep myself sane. And then you actually go and you get mad at other people when your schedule and your systems are messed up.

Brie Tucker (06:12.478)

Yep.

JoAnn (06:30.568)

even though they were in your head all along, these people had no idea that you were thinking this way. You end up forgetting a lot of things or like it could happen a lot with moms with kids. I mean, you have no control when you have children. They will make you late. They will need things at the last minute that will take you in a totally different direction. Brie’s like, and I’m here.

Brie Tucker (06:37.619)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Brie Tucker (06:47.538)

Right?

Brie Tucker (06:56.935)

because okay, some struggles are universal in parenting. Like you just said, kids will be unpredictable, you will be running late, you will have things pop up out of nowhere. Systems in general, routines, child development, psychology, developmental psychology, they have shown and proven that routines do help reduce stress and make things calmer. But there is a difference between reducing stress and making things calmer

and you’re gonna lose your ever loving schiznit if somebody messes with the routine. And that is Brie. Don’t you remember what’s my nickname on the team? Brie. Don’t move my cheese Brie. Cause I can’t find it if it gets moved. I don’t.

JoAnn (07:32.532)

Yes.

JoAnn (07:36.982)

Don’t move my cheese brie.

JoAnn (07:43.158)

But yeah, yeah, it’s interesting how that works too, because I remember one situation. I didn’t realize I did this because like, I feel like my entire family, have ADHD. Like we, it does run on both sides of the family. Diagnosed.

Brie Tucker (07:52.849)

Well diagnosed, I was going to say diagnosed formally in your family. You do have the higher end. Yeah.

JoAnn (07:59.668)

And so we have like, like my husband and I have like systems and structures in our house and some things that I’ve had to fight back against him because how he deals with it is he thinks about one thing at a time. And I’m like, no, no, no, that does not work. Like you’re getting some other things on your plate. Like, no. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (08:08.06)

Mm

Brie Tucker (08:14.643)

Well, you don’t have that luxury. I’m sorry. That’s another thing, another podcast episode we have about how moms, like the one with the marathon and the viral clip, like mom had to stop the marathon to grab the damn cup. Because we’re not given that luxury of only having to worry about one thing. We’re just not. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t push back against it. We should, but go on. That’s why I’m stepping off my soap box. Tell me more about what your husband, one thing at a time.

JoAnn (08:25.834)

Yeah, the cop, yes.

JoAnn (08:33.962)

No.

JoAnn (08:43.328)

Well, yeah, so we have like all of these things that I think we communicate pretty well with. Like we all do our own laundry, for instance. Nobody touches our clothes because it’s not from some like high and mighty, yes, we are so self -sufficient. No, like we honestly go crazy when we can’t find something. Like the way that we keep things organized is we’re like, that’s in my clean clothes basket in that one right over there. And it’s like, you know it, but you cannot have someone move it.

Brie Tucker (08:53.511)

Mm

JoAnn (09:13.362)

we have, cleaners who come to our house every two weeks and I love them. love them to pieces. Marisol and Dulce, I love you. But like some things that I started to do is like, they will put away, items in the kitchen if they’re out on the counter. And so now before they come, I am one of those people who has to clean up and put away everything because I will go totally insane. Not like trying to find something. It’ll get me.

Brie Tucker (09:42.221)

yeah!

JoAnn (09:43.262)

off my guard and I will like it’ll raise my anxiety levels to a point where I just can’t control it. And I don’t feel like, yeah, and I feel like other people roll with those things a little bit more. They’re like, someone’s cleaning my kitchen. It’s great. this is over in this cabinet. No big deal. And I’m like, it doesn’t go there.

Brie Tucker (09:50.023)

there with you. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (10:04.373)

Right? Like I think that that’s, that’s kind of like the point that we’re trying to make is that everybody has difficulties, everybody and nobody likes it when their stuff is moved. All right. Let’s just be, I don’t think anybody doesn’t care at all. It’s a zero on the spectrum of cares when their stuff is moved. But we’re explaining to you that because of the fact that it causes so much anxiety.

JoAnn (10:09.89)

Yeah.

JoAnn (10:14.657)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (10:32.943)

It makes us immediately go into catastrophe center. And think about it. If you’ve ever been around a kid with ADHD, especially again, like we were talking about boys, I feel like you can see that with them because when their routines get messed up or when they’re feeling out of control, they do tend to have more of those explosions. And girls, we’ve held it in. But I feel like as you get older as a mom and don’t even get me started on perimenopause, like you just lose your schiznit.

JoAnn (10:33.218)

as long.

JoAnn (10:42.732)

Mm

Brie Tucker (11:02.811)

when when you had a system in place and now it’s not working like like It’s that whole rome is built in a day rome can be destroyed in a second if somebody puts my spices in the wrong spot Because I can’t find them then and then it’s just all hell’s broken loose There’s no damn dinner that at like the dog is gonna like starve the kids are gonna run away like it’s done. It’s done That’s where my brain goes because my spices got moved

JoAnn (11:26.004)

It’s hard. It’s really hard to deal with breaks in the routine too. It affects you. I’m talking from experience. It affects me so hard. mean, we’re recording this just the week after my son was in the hospital where all these unpredictable things happened. I am still emotionally recovering from it.

Brie Tucker (11:47.827)

Yeah, your weekend did not go as expected. No, no.

JoAnn (11:54.708)

And like what happened when I came home from that hospital, that entire kitchen, like I cleaned it and I do not clean kitchens guys. I don’t do it. But I had to know where things were to get some semblance of control. Another like example of ADHD. And I have some questions actually pulled up here that you could ask yourself as to if you might be struggling with ADHD too. Bri and I will give you our answers to these right after this.

JoAnn (12:26.54)

So, Bre, I have questions that psychiatrists usually ask when screening for ADHD. I’ve been through several, yeah, I’ve been through several of these ADHD screeners and ADHD and anxiety kind of relate to each other. So a lot of times when you go to the doctor with complaints of anxiety or with ADHD, if they start treating the anxiety, typically the ADHD symptoms go down as well. So like I’m at the point where I keep telling my…

Brie Tucker (12:32.899)

Ooh, I want to hear them.

JoAnn (12:54.88)

nurse psychiatrist, I’m like, so can we test for ADHD? just want to know. She’s like, if you want to know, you can, but like, I don’t know what difference it’s going to make. And like, honestly, me being treated for anxiety and being on meds for that have brought down the ADHD symptoms quite a bit. But here are some, some questions, Brie. Let’s go with this one. How often do you have trouble remembering appointments?

Brie Tucker (13:13.737)

Okay.

Brie Tucker (13:21.071)

I answer that? Because I have a system so that I don’t.

JoAnn (13:24.369)

Yes! Yeah, tell us your system for it.

Brie Tucker (13:28.595)

Okay, well, I have two calendars that I keep track of because I have a backup calendar to my calendar so that when I ignore the, by the way, okay, so we’re, okay. All right, so I have, it depends on when the appointment is. If it’s during the week, it’s on both my work calendar and on my Cozy App calendar. My Cozy App has a standard for appointments. I remind myself a week.

JoAnn (13:36.295)

wow.

Brie Tucker (13:56.041)

Two days, the day before and 15 minutes before. -huh, yeah. And then on my work calendar, it’s just there with no reminder, but it’s because I see my work calendar all the time and my cozy app I don’t see all the time. And I set an Alexa reminder 10 minutes before I have to leave the house. Yeah. It’s a system. It works. It works for me. How about you?

JoAnn (13:58.947)

my goodness, that’s a lot of reminders, yeah.

JoAnn (14:16.448)

wow. That’s a lot of reminders, but that’s a system. That’s how you know you have to deal with it.

For me, I have to think about my appointments right after the next one. So as soon as I finished with one appointment, I look on the calendar and I’m like, okay, and I’m checking the time. I’m like two, two o ‘clock, two o ‘clock. Is it two o ‘clock yet? Is it two o ‘clock? And lately I’ve been getting in trouble with virtual appointments because we’re doing a lot of work for the Happy Mom Summit right now doing some speaker calls. And I have been late to quite a few speaker calls.

Brie Tucker (14:31.832)

yeah, you have to schedule it.

JoAnn (14:47.97)

And it’s not because I completely forget about the speaker call. It’s because I remember the speaker call 10 minutes before. That’s when my reminder goes off on my watch. And then I’m like, I have 10 minutes. I could start working on something. I’ll be on time for the speaker call. And then 15 minutes in, I’m like, crap, it’s the speaker call. And I’m like getting on and apologizing.

Brie Tucker (14:56.018)

Okay.

Brie Tucker (15:04.649)

That sounds like, that sounds like the brie logic. You did tell me the other day that I’ve been doing fantastic lately on being on time for things. My new system is, so like, so for that, FYI, for the speaker calls, because again, like you said, it’s a 15 minute thing and I have two ways that I work. And from what I’ve read online, this is pretty normal with people with ADHD. I either sit there and don’t start anything because I don’t want to overlap the next thing coming up. Or I

do start something, but then I set a timer for literally 90 seconds before my meeting.

JoAnn (15:39.862)

That’s a good idea. That’s good idea. What I’ve been doing is logging on to the Zoom meeting right when I remember it and having it on my additional screen so that I see the little pop -up when the person comes and I’m like, it’s time. Okay, cool.

Brie Tucker (15:42.301)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (15:48.435)

So you see it.

Brie Tucker (15:52.935)

Because the shiny object syndrome is strong within you, grasshopper.

JoAnn (15:57.558)

That is actually one of the things that people don’t talk about with ADHD that is such a benefit because like I was a great teacher in an upper elementary school classroom. If somebody was doing something out of character, I knew the second it was happening. I had three boys who decided to look up porn websites when they had the laptops. They were, it’s totally typical, but they were,

Brie Tucker (16:00.03)

Right?

Brie Tucker (16:18.491)

my god!

JoAnn (16:25.634)

They brought their laptops to these desks that were facing the wall on the side of the room. And immediately I was able to catch the change in their behavior as they were trying to hide that they were trying to look at these porn websites. And of course like 10 minutes later, our tech liaison comes in and is like, yeah, there’s porn in this room. like, I know, I know what’s going on. Let’s go get them. But that’s one of the…

Brie Tucker (16:46.759)

You

Brie Tucker (16:52.563)

God, to be a fly in the wall in that classroom at that time would have been hilarious.

JoAnn (16:57.372)

That’s one of the benefits. my gosh. I’m so like, I remember one time when I was teaching and I was teaching in a shirt and like my bra was just a little bit loose and like my bra strap just came down. It was just a little like loose. That one of the fifth grade boys was like, the bra strap, da da da da da, like whispering to them. I immediately caught on it, stopped my entire read aloud and said like, a bra is a clothing that women wear.

And it is not appropriate to talk about it behind their backs or point it out in public. And I was like, we will not be talking about that to any women whatsoever. And so it’s like. But it’s a very, very helpful skill you can really pinpoint. think that’s why I liked being a Girl Scout leader, too, because I knew what everybody else was doing and I could be like, I’m OK with that. I’m OK with that. I’m OK with that. I’m not OK with that.

Brie Tucker (17:30.771)

JoAnn’s like, JoAnn’s

Brie Tucker (17:38.003)

than no -go.

Brie Tucker (17:52.531)

See, with me, the shiny object syndrome, so I love how you see it, use it, and hone in on it as a superpower. For me, it’s a huge distraction. It’s like, have such, so one of the big things I do too that I know is also an ADHD trait is the interrupting.

And I know you’ve seen this with me, like we’ll be talking and I’ll like almost start like bouncing or fidgeting, cause there’s something I wanna say and dear God, I’m like crying every part of my body is trying to hold it in and not interrupt with the statement. Sometimes I don’t win and I interrupt and I’m like, I’m so sorry, but I need to say this really fast. And sometimes it’s not even related to what we’re speaking about. You said something and it made me think about a random song lyric and I’m like.

JoAnn (18:26.327)

Mm

JoAnn (18:29.733)

Shh.

JoAnn (18:38.882)

It’s like, keep sound lyric in.

Brie Tucker (18:42.792)

I’m like trying so hard not to pop it out in the middle of a conversation. So yeah.

JoAnn (18:47.628)

That’s interesting because one of the questions in ADHD is how often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you?

Brie Tucker (18:54.363)

all the time. cannot like you can even see it. Like sometimes when we have like a really long interview, you can kind of see me sort of just like glass over. And I don’t mean to actually, you know what I saw Trevor Noah did an interview where he was talking about that the other day and how like he has a heart like people would say that to him when he was interviewing them. Like they would be talking to him and they would say something and

an example of the thought process and by all means people that are listening and you JoAnn, tell me if you’ve been there before. So someone will say something and they’ll be like, so the new green package coming out and he’ll be like, green, green’s an interesting color. Green is mixed with blue and yellow. There’s that yellow car I saw the other day and what was it? It was like, it was a certain brand and when you buy cars, you have to worry about financing. Should I be getting a new car soon? I’m thinking that maybe.

and then he’ll just start kind of glossing over in his head. And then he’s like, when there are people that I know, they’ll go, hey, Trevor, come back. And I’ll be like, yeah, sure. But people that don’t know him are like, you just get so disinterested. And when I’m talking, why am I boring you? And he’s like, shit, no, I just like, you said green and now I’m gone. Now I’m thinking about APRs on car loans. I can’t help it.

JoAnn (19:49.132)

Yeah.

JoAnn (20:06.956)

Carlos?

That’s.

That was me probably all during high school in the classes that didn’t interest me because here’s the thing though, I’m going to go with the superpower again. When things interest you, you could be like dialed in so well, like so much better than the average person. Like that’s one of the things like psychology is one of those things that interests me.

Brie Tucker (20:24.094)

Yeah!

Brie Tucker (20:27.689)

true.

JoAnn (20:36.018)

I could keep in with that for as long as possible, but my gosh, if somebody starts talking about history, I’m dead. I can’t. I can’t do it. They have to enrapture me with stories and everything. They can’t give me just facts. If facts, I’m done for. There’s no way.

Brie Tucker (20:44.957)

Yeah, yeah.

Brie Tucker (20:55.43)

That’s funny about the whole psychology thing. I majored not only in my bachelor’s in psychology, but it’s in rehab psychology because it was a functional major. You know what that is? That’s where Brie didn’t have to have a minor. I just got to take nothing but psychology for four years. I had to get the basics. You had to get the generals done. But after my sophomore year, was psychology, psychology, psychology. And I think that’s the only way I could ever succeed again.

JoAnn (21:05.068)

Mm -hmm. No.

JoAnn (21:22.176)

I didn’t have to take a minor either. I got my broadcast journalism degree and I just got to do media classes. Mass media and love was one of my classes and all of these things, but they all dealt with how media is portrayed in society and all of these psych basically focused subjects. But school also becomes so much more involved. As a parent, there are so many things I just have to ignore from the school, else they will…

Brie Tucker (21:28.957)

Really?

Brie Tucker (21:37.308)

Mm

JoAnn (21:51.54)

Infiltrate my brain. mean, tell me, like, are you one of those parents where they basically have to read you your last rights before you will fill out the required emergency paperwork? Like, I do not fill out that emergency paperwork until they’re like, you have a day, else we are not going to let your son come to school anymore. And I’m like, got it. I got it. It’s become important enough. can’t ignore it anymore. Thank you so much.

Brie Tucker (21:51.977)

yeah.

Brie Tucker (22:14.439)

I try to get that stuff done as immediately as possible. Yeah, it’s almost impossible for me. So I feel like there’s so many things that are pulling our attention these days. It is hard to tell, or at least, not hard to tell. It’s easier the more you think about it, but there’s so many things pulling our attention these days that I think it becomes more and more apparent if we were able to fly under the radar when we were younger.

JoAnn (22:18.368)

Mm

Brie Tucker (22:43.145)

and not have anybody question whether or not we had ADHD or ADD or anything like that, any attention issues whatsoever, because we were able to hide it well enough. But nowadays it’s really hard. And so now the question is like, okay, I’m hearing you guys, I 100 % agree, I sound just like you, what the hell am I supposed to do now? Now you’re freaking me out.

And like, so that’s what we’re gonna talk about after this break. We’re gonna tell you guys what you can do next.

Brie Tucker (23:17.321)

Okay, do you want to in or do you me to lead in? I was going into our last part because I’m seeing that you had to leave soon.

JoAnn (23:19.692)

You it.

Brie Tucker (23:25.725)

All right, so now that we’ve talked about all the shiny object syndrome, and by the way, I wanna throw this one piece of advice out to you. You don’t need a new organizer. That’s not gonna fix this. We always think a new organizer, it’s gonna do it this time. It’s gonna do it. Yes, yes, you need less.

JoAnn (23:35.766)

This is not going to fix it. Like you need.

JoAnn (23:41.152)

You need less, less instead of more. don’t like, I only use one calendar. That’s it. It’s one calendar. I don’t know how you keep track of two calendars. I cannot.

Brie Tucker (23:51.645)

Well, they’re both digital. And then on top of that, I have a daily thing that I jot things down on. But that’s just because my brain is very jumbled. There is a lot of jumbling going on in my brain. And that’s why I really do feel like I need to go get diagnosed because also I’ve read that you can be diagnosed with, not autism, sorry, wrong direction, anxiety and or depression and appropriately when it’s actually ADHD situations.

JoAnn (24:18.88)

Yeah, I was actually talking to my nurse psychiatrist and she’s like saying how this one woman in her 40s came to her and she diagnosed her with ADHD. The woman started on stimulants and her family is saying she’s completely different, like in a good way, like not as irritable, more present. And I’m like, my gosh, like that’s an amazing story.

Brie Tucker (24:42.409)

See, that’s what I’m hoping for with me, but we’ll see, we’ll see. So I will make that appointment, that, so that leads me to our first tip. What to do next? First of all, give yourself some self -compassion, people. Like, you are juggling 10 times what the average person is juggling, and yet you still think you’re a failure. You have got more balls in the air than anybody else out there.

JoAnn (25:04.513)

Yep.

Brie Tucker (25:09.103)

And I don’t know, I don’t know why we can’t see it, but we.

JoAnn (25:13.248)

I mean, one of the other questions for ADHD is like, do you have a tendency to make careless mistakes? And that is something that happens a lot. Like, and it’s funny because like, I do the same thing too. I’ll check things like two to three times. I’ll be, and it’ll still be there. There’ll still be a mistake there. I didn’t catch. And it is so frustrating. So you’ve got to give yourself that self -compassion. Know that so many other people are struggling with it and…

Other people like who also have ADHD are going to be struggling with the same things you’re struggling with. You are not alone. And the second part of what to do is go get an answer. Go get some help for it. There are specific tests that they can give for ADHD. I just saw one actually. It’s a computer generated assessment that tracks your eye movements. They just use a normal computer.

And it’s like a pattern recognition thing. So you go in and you’re like, okay, there’s a square, there’s a square. And you have to hit the button if there’s something different than the one before it. So if you had square, square, triangle, hit the button. Triangle, triangle, circle, hit the button, that sort of thing. Meant to be really boring, really repetitive. And it tracks how many mistakes you make and where your eye movement goes. And it is one of those like measures of ADHD.

to see like how you compare with a normal person and how your brain compares with a normal person.

Brie Tucker (26:41.769)

interesting. My daughter had a ADHD screening with her pediatrician and it was 100 questions. Just the fact that it was 100 questions made that thing so boring. It was like, my God, another one. my God, we kept hitting the button, you know, and you’re like, damn it, I hit enter and there’s another question. How are there so many questions? So maybe that was why it was 100 questions. I were just trying to annoy the people taking the screening.

JoAnn (27:06.914)

Well, it’s so funny because if the kid has ADHD, more than likely one of the parents are gonna have ADHD. Like it usually runs in it. So would that be funny if they’re like, let’s test mom and dad too. And let’s see, because maybe we could get a diagnosis going for this entire family and really help them out.

Brie Tucker (27:14.107)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (27:27.825)

jackpot, we got a three for one here. Yay. But I mean, but I do think that the definitive answer and the definitive solutions are important. like your nurse practitioner you were talking to was like, well, we can do the test, but I’m still going to treat you the same. That’s not always the case. Like you said, the second story you shared about the woman who got treated for ADHD. And so they gave her stimulants and her family was like, wow, totally different person.

JoAnn (27:31.016)

Yeah, it’s crazy.

Brie Tucker (27:53.213)

Instead of us just rolling with that whole, I probably do have it. well, I’ve made it this far in life. I don’t know. Why not get some help? Why not see if there is a better place you could be and get supports for once in your freaking life? I don’t know. I don’t know. And then the third thing, right?

JoAnn (27:53.462)

Mm

JoAnn (27:59.276)

Yeah.

JoAnn (28:09.65)

Absolutely. Yeah. In addition to that, find us a more supportive community to lift you up. Come join us in our balance community. I have to say we have a high majority of people, with ADHD because like attracts like. So, I mean, if you really love this podcast, you’re going to love and find all of your new friends in balance. say that, I mean it because it’s true.

Brie Tucker (28:26.12)

You

Brie Tucker (28:36.041)

It’s true, it’s true. Yeah, like not, and like we’re saying, like not everybody in balance has the same, you know, brain hiccup, I’ll call them a brain hiccups that I have. Like they don’t all think the same way, but if there’s one thing that is very true about our balance community is, we will, like we lift each other up. At no point in time is there ever any judgment. And like so many women that are in our community have said that before. They’re like, I’ve never felt like I actually belonged somewhere.

or that I was actually supported in any way close to this. And that’s just because we love everybody no matter what. We all know that we’re trying our best. And I also think the fact that we work so hard on that self -compassion, it helps a lot. Yeah.

JoAnn (29:08.833)

Mm -hmm.

JoAnn (29:19.382)

Yes, the self -compassion really, really helps. And also know that if you do have ADHD and you do decide to get treatment, you’re not going to lose your superhero qualities when you do. Your brain is trained that way already. It’s just going to help the noise die down because there’s a lot of noise you deal with with ADHD. I have to say, though, I have been started on some supplements, though, by my same psychiatrist.

Brie Tucker (29:35.987)

Yeah.

JoAnn (29:46.108)

and like fish oil, I’m taking L -theanine and magnesium. And that has calmed me down quite a bit and helped me focus more. So I don’t have like that nervous energy. I used to get that animosity when I had to like sit down in front of a project that I knew I would have to think out. Like I would have that fear starting in me because I knew it was gonna take some logical, like sustained thought to do it.

Brie Tucker (29:54.867)

really good.

Brie Tucker (30:02.247)

Mm

JoAnn (30:10.37)

And even like writing like my books, the only way I got through that was to chunk it in 25 minute times and then play a playlist I was familiar with to distract myself while I was writing. It’s all these little tricks and stuff. Yeah. But it was still torturous. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (30:21.821)

That’s what I was gonna say. Yeah, right? Like all these tricks, right? All these tricks that we tell ourselves we’ve found that work well enough because none of them are perfect. But we tell ourselves like, can get by enough. You know what? Imagine how much more you could get by if you had the supports that you need. So that is the thought process we’ll leave you with today.

JoAnn (30:31.276)

enough.

JoAnn (30:35.798)

Yeah.

JoAnn (30:41.558)

Absolutely, absolutely. So let us know how it works out for you. We have a link to join balance in our show notes. Hint, hint, go do it. We want to see you there. And until next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (30:52.689)

Yes.

Brie Tucker (31:03.852)

Thanks for stopping by.