Are Autoimmune Disease, Inflammation, and ADHD related? #239
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Feeling like your body is staging a mutiny? Join the club!
I’ve been dealing with autoimmune issues for over a decade.
The majority of my clients also have autoimmune and chronic health issues, from chronic fatigue, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, to arthritis… the list goes on. I don’t think that’s a coincidence!
It’s not just the physical toll that illness takes on you, but also the mental battle. I grappled often with the impact my health had on my parenting.
While I’m sharing a lot of my struggles today, it’s not a whine-fest. I’m also sharing insights on how I see the relationship between autoimmune issues, inflammation, and ADHD. Plus, I’m dishing what has helped me lower my stress levels and take care of myself so that I could take care of my family as best I could, even when all I had were scraps.
Self-care isn't selfish; it's a lifeline for the whole family.
Although I can’t heal you with my words, I hope to provide an empathetic space and support, shedding light on the intricate dance of health, stress, and parenting with chronic illness.
You’re not alone, Successful Mama.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor. This is not medical advice. Please consult your healthcare team for specifics on your individual care. I'm sharing my own experience with autoimmune disease and working with others who also have ADHD and chronic illness.
Links Mentioned in this episode:
Association of Stress-Related Disorders With Subsequent Autoimmune Disease
Autoimmune disease and stress: Is there a link?
More information on the relationship between your brain and your gut:
Gut Bacteria Make Neurotransmitters to Shape the Newborn Immune System
Serotonergic Mechanisms Regulating the GI Tract: Experimental Evidence and Therapeutic Relevance
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In each episode, you’ll hear from people sharing their own stories and perspectives on how to navigate and support those who have challenges with reading, math, ADHD, or dyslexia, and more. Listen today for support on how to better support yourself and your child.
Patricia Sung [00:00:00]:
Before we jump into this week's episode, let's read our review of the week. This review is from Allison Jordan of the Better Belly podcast, who was our guest a couple of weeks ago. Allison says, I love this show. Five stars. I love the show and Patricia's quick tips for women with ADHD. I share this podcast all the time with friends and on my podcast. Highly recommend. Thank you, Allison.
Patricia Sung [00:00:22]:
I just adore the podcasting community and, like, network that I have, come to be a part of over the
Patricia Sung [00:00:31]:
last few years. And it is one of the better parts of being on the Internet with strangers. So if you have not rated the show, mama, please go say hi. Hit those 5 stars and leave me an honest review. So if it's not 5 stars, it's okay. An honest review of what you think, so that I know that you are here listening too. 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.
Patricia Sung [00:01:09]:
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 wanna be good moms. But, spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. 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.
Patricia Sung [00:01:54]:
Welcome to Motherhood in ADHD. Hey there, successful mama. It's your friend, Patricia Sung. So today's topic, this is not what
Patricia Sung [00:02:04]:
I was gonna talk about today. I had a different plan, and I really felt, like, on my heart that this is what I needed to talk to you about today because there's been, like, multiple things popping up
Patricia Sung [00:02:13]:
of, like, this is important, Patricia.
Patricia Sung [00:02:14]:
You need to talk about it. This is important. You need to talk about it. And I tread carefully in 2 areas in particular on the podcast. 1 is when I'm talking about medical things. Like, that's why I bring so many experts in. Like, I don't ever want to give you incorrect medical information. That's, like, a big thing that weighs on my conscience, but also, like, there's a lot of people out there that give false information for their benefit, and I don't ever wanna be that person.
ADHD Coach [00:02:42]:
So sometimes the people pleasing in me takes a hold and I don't talk about things that matter because I don't want to be wrong and I don't want to look like I'm trying to be something that I'm not. So, like, there's that part. And a lot of times, parts of ADHD can be really scary and worrisome, and I don't ever want when I speak to you, for you to leave feeling more fearful or more scared. Like, I don't want you to hire me as your coach because you're scared. That is not the energy I want you to show up with when we get into a coaching call is, like, you're panicked about all the problems of the world. There are plenty of problems in the world, but, like, I want you to be in my presence because I make your life better, not because I scared the doo doo out of you and now you feel like you need to do something. So it's like those two areas are, like, touchy for me, and I'm always very cognizant about, like, how I show up and how I talk about things in these two areas. And this topic involves both of them at the same time.
ADHD Coach [00:03:37]:
Lucky me. But I can't ignore that pull on my heart that's, like, this is important. So I'm gonna jump in and dive in and give you my usual disclaimer that I'm not a doctor, and I'm speaking from my experience as somebody who has dealt with a lot of health issues, especially over the last 5 years. And my experience as somebody who works with 100 of women with ADHD, like, this is what I'm seeing. Even though I can't find studies to back me up, I wanna talk about it because it needs to be set. So when I look at generally speaking, autoimmune disease occurs in about 8% of people. And yet, almost every one of my clients has some kind of autoimmune issue. Like, this is August while I'm recording this, and I'm talking to a bunch of moms about joining Lighthouse, and multiple moms have said, I have some health things going on that I have to deal with first, but then I wanna do this coaching.
Patricia Sung [00:04:28]:
And when I'm hearing this over and over again, I'm like, yes. You have to deal with the health issues first. Because when you don't feel well, you don't have capacity to do other things. And that's how your body is designed. That when you're physically struggling with something, your body takes other systems offline and focuses its efforts on how do we fix the problem because that's how you stay alive. So your body is doing what it needs to do to stay alive. Thanks, brain. Appreciate your keeping an eye on me.
Patricia Sung [00:04:56]:
And when we are that sick, like, all these other parts of our life are being I don't wanna say ignored, but, like, they're put on the back burner because we we don't have capacity for them. And yet these are also some of the things that are contributing to the center issue and it's just like, ah, it's too much. So when I see client after client who's like, I'm dealing with all this health stuff, my life is a mess and I wanna work on the stuff that my ADHD is affecting, and I'm like, I don't think they're all separate. I don't ever want you to think, like, don't go see your doctor and go to coaching first. Like, do I please go fix the house things, deal with those, get in a, you know, into a manageable place. And also, like, the stuff that we work on in coaching will directly contribute to your life being better and being able to handle more things and having capacity for more things. So it's like it's almost like they go hand in hand. So you have to deal with, like, the thing that's on fire first, but dealing with all of your ADHD stuff is not necessarily a separate issue from all the health things you're dealing with.
Patricia Sung [00:05:55]:
And this is where, like, I take my job so seriously. Like, I'm never going to push someone into something that they're not ready for. Like, when I'm talking to somebody who's dealing with health issues, like, I'm not gonna be like, you need to do your coaching first because I've been there. I get it.
Patricia Sung [00:06:11]:
At the same time, on my insides, I'm like,
Patricia Sung [00:06:13]:
but this will really help. I promise. Because I know what it's like to try to manage all the things that are going on with your health and then not have capacity to keep up with, like, when you're supposed to be taking medicine and all the doctors are trying to give up, like, it's hard. But I wanna be here to talk about this hard stuff with you. So given all that as a preface, I wanna talk about chronic illness and inflammation and autoimmune diseases and all. I'm like, how I don't think it's completely separate from ADHD. Now let me be clear that I'm not saying, like, ADHD causes you to have those health issues or those health issues cause you have ADHD. Like, we're not talking about causation, but we are talking about correlation and that they are related and that there's gotta be some kind of connection underneath because otherwise it makes no sense as to why 8% of the population has an autoimmune disease and yet almost all of my clients do.
Patricia Sung [00:07:06]:
There's gotta be some kind of connection. I'm not saying they cause each other. I'm saying they're connected in some way. They're related in some way. So what I'm looking at here is, like, when your body has different inputs coming in, and it's not necessarily like a bad input, but just things are coming in. And we we talked about this last week on the podcast of, like, you have all this input coming in and your body has to sort through it. Your brain has to sort through the information and figure out, like, what's worth taking in and what is it going to ignore. But when you have ADHD, you have more inputs coming in like more of them show up, even at more inputs coming in.
Patricia Sung [00:07:39]:
That's not the right word. It's more I think more things make it past the filter. You're more aware of more things being there, which is going to increase your stress when you have higher stress, like, that's part of your immune system. That's part of your immune response is, like, how your body deals with stress and how your body deals with a foreign invader showing up. It's similar. Your immune response becomes active because it's trying to protect you from something. So, like, your body recognizes there's a foreign cell shows up. There's that, flu germ, and it activates the immune cells to go in and kill the flu germ cell.
Patricia Sung [00:08:19]:
And then you have inflammation in that area because all those extra cells showed up to fight the germs and that inflammation while serving, you know, a purpose and a reason now exist and your body is out of equilibrium. When you have stress, when your body recognizes that there's something going on, there's a problem and it now has to deal with it, your body activates all of your protective systems to keep you safe. One of them is your immune system. When needed, it might activate your heart rate or your breathing rate. Like, there's all these different systems. Your stress response is going to activate when something's a problem and your body's gotta deal with it. And when you're stressed, your cortisol increases, and all these things again are meant to protect you. But when you stay in that stress mode, like if you stay with an elevated cortisol level, it's not good for your body.
Patricia Sung [00:09:09]:
Having an elevated cortisol level over time starts to degenerate your body systems because it's not supposed to be there all the time. So when your body stays in stress mode, which most people with ADHD tend to stay in stress mode, and your body is staying in inflammation and you're never going back to that like normal state or that like equilibrium state, it takes a toll on you. So having an overactive autoimmune system means that your body starts attacking itself and they're all labeled by what they start attacking. So like if you have eczema, your body's attacking the skin cells that are healthy. If you have arthritis, you're having inflammation in your joints, it's because it's attacking healthy cells and it stays inflamed. But this inflammation, which is part of your immune response, it's part of your stress state. I'm just seeing all the places where inflammation is causing problems. Like a lot of women with ADHD have migraines, and they believe there's a link between having migraines and inflammation.
Patricia Sung [00:10:13]:
Let's pause a moment and say thank you to our sponsor, which is Understood.org. They have a great new podcast that you can check out on your podcast app right here. It's called In It, Raising Kids who Learn Differently. What I love about it is that in these episodes, you're hearing stories from other parents. You're getting other perspectives and advice that's working for other families so that you know you're not alone. Specifically for kids who are having challenges with reading or math or ADHD or dyslexia,
Patricia Sung [00:10:44]:
as there is a good chance to do since you're here. This is a great show for practical tips, helpful info, and really boosting your confidence as a parent. To listen, search for the podcast here in your podcast app. It's called In It, Raising Kids who Learn Differently and have a listen. That's In It, Raising Kids who Learn Differently right here in your podcast app.
Patricia Sung [00:11:06]:
I was just at my annual gynecology appointment, and I was talking to her about, like, the week before my period and, you know, what's going on. And she starts explaining to me, like, all the stuff with perimenopause and menopause and how during perimenopause and menopause, like, your estrogen levels are changing purposefully, but you're gonna see a bunch of changes. And that it's really common for women going through perimenopause to have a lot of higher levels of PMS symptoms. And she's like, well, you know, because that's when there's a lot of inflammation in your body. And I'm like, where does the inflammation stop? Like, during your cycle, you have a lot more inflammation. I'm like, y'all, with the inflammation. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that PMDD is much higher in women with ADHD or maybe it's vice versa. I don't know.
Patricia Sung [00:11:54]:
I'm just seeing this like inflammation, inflammation, inflammation. What inflammation is when your body has all the cells there and they show up thinking they're there to get rid of a problem, and sometimes it starts attacking the things that are there instead of the things that it's actually supposed to be attacking. And I'm like, I don't know. Maybe it's just like, dude, we're here. Let's do a job. They don't have a job to do so they just make their own up. I don't know. But we know that when you have an autoimmune disease, you've got a bunch of inflammation.
Patricia Sung [00:12:20]:
And what's all the advice when it comes to treating an autoimmune disease? It's all the things that are, like, in this, like, quote, healthy lifestyle category of, like, eat, quote, healthy. I'm, like, I'm trying real hard not to get on my soapbox about the word healthy because that is different for everybody, but I'm I'm not gonna get on that soapbox right now. Hold it in, Patricia. Save that for another episode. Like, they say eating a healthy balanced diet, exercising, manage your stress, manage your stress. You know, the time like, get more sleep. That's when your body recovers. And it's like all this advice for, like, quote, healthy lifestyle is all things that you do when you're not under stress, when you're not in the fight or flight response.
Patricia Sung [00:12:59]:
So all of the solutions are what you do when you're not stressed. So basically, like, the instructions are like don't be stressed. Do all the things that you wouldn't do if you if you were not stressed, other things that you would have time to focus on, that's what you should do to treat autoimmune disease. Lovely. So I don't think it's a coincidence that women with ADHD are more stressed, have more autoimmune issues, have more inflammation, are dealing with all these things. Like, it's all connected somehow. I don't know exactly what that is, but it's all connected.
Patricia Sung [00:13:29]:
I say that I don't know what it is. I don't have scientific research to back it up. But what I think it is that as when with ADHD, we are more stressed. We're dealing with more things coming in. All this input doesn't get filtered out as much, so it feels too noisy. It feels too scratchy. It feels over stimulating. So we are more stressed, and our body isn't spending enough time in the calm rest and digest mode of life.
Patricia Sung [00:13:53]:
And when we stay in that state of chronic stress and chronic inflammation, yes, you end up with a whole bunch of problems and your body is telling you, hey, something's wrong and what's wrong is that we're too stressed, which is like sounds so simple to be like, well, just be less stressed. Well, of course, we all wish we were less stressed. But it's like when I think back to all of the treatments and, you know, all the medicines I was taking and, like, all the stuff I was doing to try to heal after I got diagnosed with mold toxicity 5 years ago, like well, technically, I was I got sick 5 years ago. I got diagnosed 4 years ago. And when I was really sick, I literally tried everything. If anybody had any advice, I would try it because at that point, I was so desperate. I was willing to try anything. If you look at, like, the themes and the patterns of what I was doing, like, essentially well, let me back up to give some color to the conversation.
Patricia Sung [00:14:47]:
I got diagnosed with mold toxicity in 2021. In the start of 2020, when we all started staying home with the start of pandemic, I basically just, like, tanked. I lost £25 in 6 weeks. I developed POTS, which is, basically, like, my blood pressure was really low all the time. It was about 85 over 50, if that gives you any reference. So every time I would stand up, I would get really dizzy because my blood would all pool at my feet and it wasn't in my brain because there wasn't enough, like, volume there to keep the brain full of blood because the blood would just go down. And I would get dizzy and start to blackout every time I stood up. I was extremely fatigued.
Patricia Sung [00:15:22]:
I lost all the weight because my body wasn't absorbing nutrients. So my body stopped absorbing fats and carbs, and so many people would make a joke about, like, oh, I was trying my body when I'm sorry, fats and carbs. I'm, like, yeah, it's real funny until your digestive system fails, and then you lose weight because it's literally not absorbing the basic fundamental things that your body needs to function. So I'm not getting enough fuel. I'm chronically fatigued. I was so tired. I had a headache literally for 18 months straight. I had a headache.
Patricia Sung [00:15:48]:
And I could go on and on. I mean, the list of symptoms that I had was probably about 25 different things. I had ear ringing. I was seeing stars. I mean, it was just all kinds of stuff. And I I will do a series on that here eventually. I wanted to wait until I actually healed from it before I started talking about it because it was, like, it was definitely too much of a wound than a scar. But, like, I literally was my body was shutting down, and it wasn't functioning anymore because the mold had taken over so much of my cells that they literally couldn't function anymore.
Patricia Sung [00:16:17]:
So when I look at all of the things that I was doing for it, basically, the goal was get the mold out of your body, stop putting more mold in your body, and then lower the inflammation to the point where your body stops being ridiculously stressed out to the point where you're literally killing yourself and allow your body to get back to a place of, like, equilibrium or homostasis, if you wanna bring out an old science word, like, to be in a place of normal where it can start to heal itself. So they were, like, tangible things of, like, how to get less mold in your body. It's like we had to, you know, gut part of our house and do mold remediation on it so that I wasn't in an environment where I was breathing it in every day. Then, you know, getting the mold out of my body, doing all the detox stuff to get it out of my body, and then the bulk of it was like lowering inflammation so that my body could get to a point where it wasn't so stressed and could start heal itself. It was like things like, you know, I was eating a very limited amount of foods. It's probably about 30 foods total at the peak of when I was really sick because my body would freak out and think that regular food was an invader, and I get really sick when I would eat a bunch of foods that I had eaten my whole life. It was taking a lot of vitamins to lower inflammation, like, you know, turmeric and stuff. It was killing all the parasites and amebo y things that were growing in my gut because the system was so off kilter that, like, all this bad stuff was growing a whole lot, and the good stuff wasn't getting to grow.
Patricia Sung [00:17:43]:
It wasn't getting the nutrients it needed. You know? And our gut is our second brain, and that's actually where most of our neurotransmitters are made. I think I did not look this up because, actually, it wasn't this is not in my notes. But, like, it's something like 80% of your neurotransmitters are actually made in your gut, not in your brain. So, you know, because we just think, like, neurotransmitters are made in the brain. They're not. I mean, I'm not saying that they aren't at all. I'm just saying most of them are made in the in your gut.
Patricia Sung [00:18:05]:
Again, like, this is where I'm like, I don't wanna give you wrong information, but also, like, I did not go look this up because this is not in my notes. I'm just speaking off the cuff. And it was like things like try to sleep more, allow your body to recover more. And literally, like, those were the main things about getting better was stop getting more mold in you, get rid of all the mold that built up, and then get your body back to the place where it can fight this on its own. My inflammation levels were off the charts, and that's one of the things they do in your lab work when you're trying to figure out what's wrong with you, like, they check your inflammation levels. That's one of the indicators of having an autoimmune disease is that you have too much inflammation. But But one of the other treatments she had me do, which I actually I'm like, I do not it's not my favorite. It's all I think in the realm of, like, there's not a lot of options out there.
Patricia Sung [00:18:47]:
It was it's the best option out there, but there's not a lot of good options out there, and she had me doing a program that now I can see, like, now that I have training in I can see where they were going. But, basically, it was a program to rewire your brain to be someone who thinks differently and looking for confirmation that you're getting healthier. And we talked about this a little bit last week and, like, when you look at neuroscience, like, your brain is a predictive agent. It is going to look for things that support what it's looking for. So that's what confirmation bias is. So for example, like, if you're considering buying a red car, all of a sudden you'll see a lot more red cars because, like, your brain is thinking about a red car. So your brain is going to then pick up the red cars. The cars have been there the whole time.
Patricia Sung [00:19:33]:
It's not like they're they just, like, magically change color. Like, they've all been there. You're just noticing it because, like, what you're thinking of. I think of this a lot when, like, like, as a mom, like, my kids really into, like, nature and stuff. And we use the Merlin app and, like, listen to bird calls and figure out which bird it is. And these birds have been here my whole life. I did not pay one bit of attention to them until my kid was born, and I'm like, oh my goodness. It's a tufted titmouse at my bird feeder.
Patricia Sung [00:19:57]:
Like, I could've told you one bit about a tufted titmouse 2 years ago. Those birds have been flying around my yard since we moved in. But because I now am interested in birds, now I'm like, oh, look, there's so many here. If you would ask me a month after moving in, I would have been like, yeah, there's birds in my yard, but what? Like, I couldn't tell you anything about them. I probably wouldn't even have noticed them. And now I'm like, I got 4 bird feeders. I can tell you all their names. I recognize their calls.
Patricia Sung [00:20:19]:
I'm like, oh, there's a blue jay. I can hear it. Like, the birds were there the first 35 years of my life, and I never noticed them. And now I can tell you the difference between the 8 different birds that frequent our yard because I'm aware of them, and I'm looking for them. Okay. Reading that side question.
Patricia Sung [00:20:39]:
It's time to be true to you. You're invited, mama, to this year's 3rd annual Successful as a Mother weekend retreat. It is time to relax, unwind, rest, and take care of a very important person in the family, which is you. This year's retreat is on October 11th through 13th 2024, and you're invited. This is an all inclusive retreat. It covers your meals, your hotel, all of our activities. All you have to do is show up, and I take it from there. We are staying in the historic boutique hotel, the Sam Houston in downtown Houston, where we will learn about our ADHD, tune in to who you are and what you need so that you can trust your gut, all while eating delicious food you didn't cook, you didn't clean up, hanging out with awesome other moms who are just like you in their ADHD journey, trying to make things work, fill out the permission slips, do all the things, but not this weekend.
Patricia Sung [00:21:39]:
This weekend you get to relax. I will take care of everything, and you get to focus on you. Head over to my website patricasung.com/retreat and grab your ticket. This is a small group, and we already have 5 moms from last year coming, so I don't have a ton of spots left. Do not wait. Do not procrastinate. When you hear this and you say this is for me, go grab your ticket. You can use a payment plan.
Patricia Sung [00:22:06]:
I don't charge extra for that. Go sign up, get your ticket and take a weekend to take care of you while I do all the work. So head over to patriciasung.com/retreat and get your ticket for the 3rd annual ADHD moms amazing getaway weekend and relax: patriciasung.com/retreat.
Patricia Sung [00:22:29]:
So this program that I was prescribed was basically helping you rewire the way you thought about it. Instead of thinking yourself as a sick person, you were thinking about yourself as a somebody who is getting better, somebody who is on their way to being healthy. Because when we think about how sick we are, we find reason after reason why we're sick and what's going wrong. But when we think of ourselves as a healthy person, then we start to look for evidence of that because that's our brain's job is to find information to support what we're aware of and what we're looking for and what our goals are. Our brain's job is to go do that for us. So while I wasn't a huge fan of the program because I would do it in a different way. Really, that's what it is. I would do it a different way.
Patricia Sung [00:23:10]:
I wouldn't do it their way, but there's the Enneagram one in me just for the record. It did do a powerful thing in helping me realize, like, I am no longer a sick person. I'm a healing person. I'm on my road to recovery. And I know I never would have gone down the path that I'm on without having gone through my health issues. They have shaped me into who I am now, how I'm so much more of a compassionate person and an empathetic person, and understanding, like, what it is to juggle, health concerns, and what it's like to have your body not do what you want it to do, and be utterly not in control of how your body functions has made me so much more patient and kind in the way that I am towards other people. Because having good health is a luxury. It's not a necessity of life.
Patricia Sung [00:24:00]:
I mean, you do have to be alive. But, like, that's a luxury that not everybody gets. Not everyone has a healthy body. Not everybody has access to nutritious food. Not everybody has access to health care. Having a body that functions, even being born that way, like, not everybody gets that. And had I not been sick, I don't know that I would have put so much into learning about emotional regulation and energy regulation and being able to regulate your nervous system and understanding the stress response in my body and how I was working so hard for so long to get my body out of a stress response and into a place where it could heal. So, like, would I ever wanna do that again? No.
Patricia Sung [00:24:37]:
I don't. I've never I never wanna be that sick again. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Having a body that doesn't function that's literally falling apart is a whole another mind and mental game that healthy people don't understand. And the amount of fortitude it takes to function when your body isn't doing what you wish it would is immense. And, oh, I'm trying not to cry. I spent years trying to get myself in a place where I was healthy enough to function. And part of that process is learning how to regulate my nervous system so that my body can stay in that place of health.
Patricia Sung [00:25:21]:
Being able to emotionally regulate allows me to not get stressed by all the stuff that's happening in life, or just less stressed, but not that I'm not stressed. But, like, I know what happens when my body is too stressed, and I don't ever wanna go back there. So all of these skills that I'm learning and have learned to be able to regulate my nervous system or a huge chunk of how I stay healthy. And, like, it had a little taste of it this summer. I got a really nasty sinus infection in July, and it was like a solid 4 weeks. Like, sinus infections in strep throat are like the things that take me down. I can heal from all the other stuff pretty quickly, not when I was But, like, when I'm healthy, I can get past most stuff pretty quickly. But sinus infections and strep throat would get me every time, even when I was teaching and had the immune system of steel.
Patricia Sung [00:26:07]:
Like, this 4 weeks was rough. I'm, like, I still have a little bit of, like, a frog in my throat. They haven't quite gotten rid of yet. And that's been like the last 4 weeks, like, I've seen how I'm just like a grumple lump. I don't feel good. I'm tired. My head's full of snot. My ears are stuffy.
Patricia Sung [00:26:22]:
And every time people talk to me, I can't understand what they're saying. Like, I already have an auditory processing disorder, and then you throw in stuffy ears, and I'm literally like, what? What? What? Like, I was stressed this last month, especially because it wasn't well. And so I caught myself being snippier at my kids and, like, yelling about stuff and, like, being grouchy and, like, everything takes longer when you're sick. You know? And you're like, like, that snotty brain fog where you're like, wait. What? Oh, wait. I'm supposed to be doing what? Where am I like, all that, like, amplified. And I could see how I was, like, not pleasant to be around for the last few weeks. And how when my stress level automatically upon waking is already at, like, 4, 5, 6, like, I don't have capacity to deal with all the other stuff.
Patricia Sung [00:27:07]:
That's when I'm getting annoyed at my kids for things that, you know, on other days, I just be like, roll my eyes and keep on trucking. Like, it was a a stark reminder of why it's so important that I've learned these skills because life's never gonna be easy. There's never no stress. There's always gonna be something, And I rely on the ability to stay calm when my kids are whining or won't get in bed, and it's already way past bedtime. Like, my ability to handle those things, especially at, like, the end of the day during bedtime, like, my medicine's already worn off, like, I don't know, like, I ain't got a lot left in the dink. That ability to deal with those kind of things is because I have the skills that I built over the last few years. Because without those, like, I'm not a great mom. I think that was the hardest part of when I was sick is knowing that I wasn't showing up for my kids and my family in the way that I wanted to, and I literally couldn't control it because my health was so awful.
Patricia Sung [00:28:04]:
And now that I'm better, like, knowing that I still have that skill set to be able to show up and be the kind of mom I wanna be, like, it's work. It's hard. I won't tell you that they don't annoy the boob jujus out of me some days. Is that a word? Probably not. I think you just made that up. But those are the skills that allow me to be a good mom, which are the skills that allow me to stay less stressed, which is the skills that allow me to stay out of inflammation, which are the skills that allow me to not be dead right now. And then it's all connected. So the point being here is that your stress response and how you deal with all the things in life, it's not disconnected from your health.
Patricia Sung [00:28:38]:
And that by being able to regulate your nervous system and deal with the stress that's going to come in with life, it has a positive impact on your health as well. Now, I just need a doctor to study this for me
Patricia Sung [00:28:49]:
so I can put it in here as proof. Anybody knows anybody looking for a research project.
Patricia Sung [00:28:53]:
Here you go. But I think I want you to know that all this effort you're putting in to be a good mom, to taking care of your health, to whatever the thing is you're working on right now, it all contributes. It's all connected and it's all moving you forward for good. It's taking care of your family. Maybe that's it. Is that I want you to know it's not selfish to take care of you. Taking care of you means that you're taking care of your family. I learned very clearly that when I was sick, I couldn't take care of my family.
Patricia Sung [00:29:18]:
So the things that I do and the things that you do, they matter. You're not a second class citizen. You are somebody who's part of the family and your health and well-being matters just as much, honestly, if not more than the other people in the family because you're the one driving the boat. You're the one who keeps the emotional temperature of the family afloat on keel. I'm like, I should like, what's the voting term for that? Like, you're the one who keeps everything steady as the mom. So when you're putting in work to take care of yourself, it's helping everyone, and it's for everyone's good. You are worth it. You matter.
Patricia Sung [00:29:54]:
And I'm sending you a big hug
Patricia Sung [00:29:55]:
for whatever struggles you're dealing with today.
Patricia Sung [00:29:57]:
Big hug, successful mama. I'll talk to you soon. For more resources, classes, and community, head over to my website, motherhoodinadhd.com.