Navigating Menopause, Hormone Impact, and ADHD with Linda Roggli #246
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Sad, mad, annoyed, happy, sad, crying, mad, tired. All within an hour!
While hormones may be invisible to us, they sure do wreak havoc on our lives!
Linda is here to teach us what's going on inside that drives our mood and energy in more ways than we can count.
For ADHD Awareness Month, we’re talking to a new ADHD guest expert every week.
Today’s guest is Linda Roggli.
Linda is a professional ADHD coach for ADHD women 40-and-better, a retreat facilitator, organizing expert and award-winning author. She created and hosts the annual online ADHD Women's Palooza and the ADHD Couple's Palooza. Her book, "Confessions of an ADDiva: Midlife in the Non-linear Lane" won first prize for women's issues in the prestigious Next Generation Independent book awards. She is former vice president of ADDA and continues to host its webinar series. She lives and works under the pine trees of the Piedmont of North Carolina with four ADHD Shelties, one cat formerly known as feral and one OCD husband. Plus 13 cackling chickens.
In this episode, Linda and I discuss the intricacies of hormone production and fluctuations and what it means for our daily lives. She explains what's going on during perimenopause and menopause to shed some light on this rarely discussed topic that affects everyone with ovaries. (That's a lot of people for something we don't talk about enough!)
Let’s jump into a much-needed discussion on estrogen levels and how they affect your ADHD from puberty to menopause, so you can live well as a woman with ADHD.
Find Linda Roggli here:
Instagram: @lroggli
Facebook: @Linda-Roggli
You’re invited!
It can feel super intimidating to show up to a party where you don’t know anyone. Well, I don’t want that fear to keep you from finding your people.
I want to make this super low risk for you to come, try it out, and get a sneak peek before you join our ADHD mom community.
You’re invited to the next Successful Mama Meetups Open House!
Join us on Zoom on November 6th to body double for the first 30 minutes, then hangout and meet the other moms in the community for the second half. (Hint hint, we’re pretty amazing IMHO.)
No charge, no pressure. Just come hang out!
Let me know you wanna come right here and I’ll send you the zoom link.
And since it's on Zoom, everyone can come no matter where you live. Self-diagnosis and ADHD-curious moms welcome.
It’s time to hang out with other moms who get you and make you feel like you’re at home. So come in your comfy clothes and let’s hang out! See you soon!
Linda Roggli 00:00
You're right. Patricia, maybe it takes seven avenues, but sometimes we give up at four. ADHD folks are tenacious to a fault, but sometimes not to take care of ourselves.
Patricia Sung 00:11
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy you can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home or your family. I get you, Mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains. Do life creatively, lovingly and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well. At the end of the day, we just want to be good moms, but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD, does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess, Mama. You can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story, and I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to Motherhood in ADHD, hey there, successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. It's ADHD Awareness Month, and look at me. It only took me five years on the podcast to pull together a series for ADHD Awareness Month. Just so you know, it is never too late.
Patricia Sung 01:31
Every episode this month will be a new guest expert on the field of ADHD. I am so honored that these powerhouses are here to share with you. So let's dive in with today's guest. Today's guest is Linda Roggli. Linda is a professional ADHD coach for ADHD women 40 and better, a retreat facilitator, organizing expert and award-winning author. She is the beloved creator and host of the annual online paloozas such as the ADHD Women's Palooza, the Couple's Palooza, and her book, Confessions of an ADDiva: Midlife in the Non-linear Lane, has won awards and is such a wealth of knowledge for those of us who are looking for real resources. Linda has been in the ADHD game for years, for decades, and has given so much of her time talent and treasure. For example, as an officer at ADA like she is working so hard to make progress. For those of us who are coming alongside her and behind her, I wanted to bring Linda here today, because I love bringing you moms who have been through it, whose kids are older and have become adults, and those are the kind of mentors that I want in my life, our moms, who get it and can say like, this is the real advice. This is the good stuff. This is where we actually want to focus.
Patricia Sung 02:52
Don't worry about all that other stuff. Here's what matters today. Linda is sharing about hormones and looking at hormones through our life cycle, from puberty into matresses, which is becoming a mom, and then into perimenopause and menopause. How does our ADHD change or magnify throughout these various seasons of ever moving, ever changing hormone levels? And she shares so many resources on how we can take care of ourselves. Where can we and how can we find the kind of providers that are going to listen and have the knowledge and be able to actually support what we're doing. So let's dive into our conversation with Linda rogley, how are you doing today, ma'am,
Linda Roggli 03:33
I am just doing I just told you I'm doing Fabuloso before we got started. And she said, Well, that sounds elegant, but it's just a word I made up. So you know, I don't know if it's elegant or silly. I like both.
Patricia Sung 03:45
There is a cleaner that is very popular in Texas called pabloso, and so it reminded me of that. And I was like, ooh,
Linda Roggli 03:53
ooh. I reminded you of cleaning. That's never good,
Patricia Sung 03:58
not cleaning. But I do speak Spanish, so, oh, well, there you go. Me a little piece of my heart. So okay, let me dive in though. First, I'm very curious, because you've been in the game a while. When you think about how all the changes that you've seen over the years that you've worked with people with ADHD, has there been anything along the way that has surprised you?
Linda Roggli 04:20
Well, this is sad to say, but I think one of the things that surprises me is that we're still asking the same questions we were asking 20 years ago, and unfortunately, the answers are very much the same. There have been no huge breakthroughs in ADHD. Well, not symptomology. The symptomology is exactly the same, but in diagnoses, there are certainly some upcoming things that may give us some quantitative information. Instead of just I'm going to interview you and see what you think. But in treatment, even though we have new medications coming out all the time, in terms of stimulant medication or even non stimulants, the. Stimulant medications are, are there only two of them? One's an amphetamine and one's a methylphenidate, and all the variations of that are the delivery system, and that's important for a lot of people, because releasing one grain versus two grains in the morning can make the difference between feeling like I'm on it or I'm not.
Linda Roggli 05:19
So I it's not that I think it's bad that we have that, but I think the thing that it's not only surprising but frustrating that we I know I'm answering more of a question than you asked, but I'm also surprised that, given the higher profile of ADHD and the fact that it has been diagnosed for so long, even among women, because it's been diagnosed among women for more than 20 years, almost 30 years, we don't have more professionals who understand what the heck they're talking about with ADHD. So when I get emails from women who say I was diagnosed with ADHD, and then I moved to a new city, and the new doctor says I don't have ADHD, that's not okay, we need some continuity. So if they say you don't have ADHD, there goes your treatment if you're on any kind of medication. So that's the thing. Is, the lack of progress seems the most surprising and the most demoralizing. Frankly.
Patricia Sung 06:13
Yeah. And have you seen anywhere like, Is there somewhere we can, like, jump in and do something like, do you see an opportunity that exists, that like if we could rally behind we would actually make a difference? Oh,
Linda Roggli 06:27
well, despite all the popularity of ADHD on Tiktok and other social media, there's not really a movement. And I'm going to talk specifically about women, because that's your audience, as well as mine. We don't really have a unified movement. And the reason I say this is that autism does. There's autism, you know, circuses and there's autism, you know, whatever. You name it. It's got a very high profile. So I think we need to continue to shout louder. And I don't know where it is yet. There are several places that they have tried to do this. But you know, if you have several splinter groups, then nobody's in one group. We need unity to be able to do this. I've asked if we need to go back to Congress. Congress, almost everyone that in Congress knows someone or has a child with ADHD, or they may have it themselves, who knows diagnosed or not. So it's not that they're not sympathetic to this. I think that they just don't know what to do, either. And of course, one of the things that we're trying to do in Congress now is to make sure that we have a supply of medications. Because a lot of my clients can't get their medications, which is just absurd, and they have to switch to something else. Sometimes that's a good thing. They found something better. Sometimes it's not, but unity is really it, and we just need some a rallying cry with someone leading. And so maybe Patricia Sung will lead the pack, or maybe should be Linda Rockley, hmm, I'm putting that off on you.
Patricia Sung 07:59
Yeah, it's one of those, it's hard to know where is gonna make the difference. Like, a lot of times, like, when we talk to our clients, it's like, we're looking for that domino that's gonna knock down the other dominoes. And I'm looking around being like, where's the domino? Exactly, exactly, where's the place that we need to start? Because I feel like there's a lot of movement. But like you said, it's not going all in the same direction.
Linda Roggli 08:20
It's kind of a circle. It's kind of a patchwork, a mishmash, if you will, of okay, here's this and here's this. I just did a webinar for ADA, which is ADHD support for adults with ADHD, which is add.org we had a panel, and we had three professionals talking about, how do you wind your way through this interesting little journey without getting off track and getting very confused. And I think that's the thing that most people really want, is a here's a hand I'm going to pull you through. And I think one reason Patricia that it's difficult to do that is that, as you know the old expression about if you know one person with ADHD, you know one person with ADHD, lots of us are dying. Well, all women are diagnosed and attentive, because even if you're combined type, you're inattentive, and if you're primarily inattentive, that's pretty much what you are. But we may be diagnosed similarly, but because of our own experience, because of our familial history, because of whether we had support and structure, perhaps in a job that we had any of those things, and our own intellect and our own you know, this comes down to partly the ethnicity. It comes down to cultural bias. It comes down to a lot of other things. Frankly, in the black community,
Linda Roggli 09:34
there is a bias against ADHD or anything with mental health in some areas and then some other areas, it's widely accepted. So we are very different. I always say that we are alike. We are unified in our ADHD, but we are so unique inside that with not just subtypes, but with Sub Sub Sub Sub Sub Sub subtypes. So I think that's what makes it difficult to say this is where you need to go, because it's. Very different even our metabolism, for instance, if medications on the docket, if you will, our metabolisms push us in one way or another way. You know, I speaking of metabolism, I just want to share this one personal story. Is that I used to say, Oh, I just, I'm very, very sensitive to medication. And then what I realized is that metabolism is really, really slow. That didn't sound near as attractive as being very sensitive. But anyway, enough of that.
Patricia Sung 10:29
Okay, so we, we know there's a lot of work to do, yeah, and it's including in this area of hormones and, oh yeah, I am just super excited to chat with you today about this, because this because this is an area that we don't have enough research because of a lot of reasons, but they're, you know, generally speaking, women are not the test subjects because we have hormones that change regularly, so we don't make great test subjects, according to other people and oh, say, I was like, Patricia, don't got any soapbox. There's not enough
Linda Roggli 10:58
period. That's it.
Patricia Sung 11:01
And this is like, it's like, we all know that it makes a difference, but we're looking around, going, Can someone explain this to me? And what do I do? Yeah, and you've really dove into this. I'm excited to hear. Like, first of all, just you can kind of, like, Give us an overview of, like, what you've been working on, and what does it look like when we look at our hormones and our ADHD symptoms, and then, like, we'll dive in from there, but if you can kind of give us, like, an idea of the background of it all, like, even though you got into it, and
Linda Roggli 11:28
that dovetails nicely, that was a beautiful final question to segue right into what I was going to talk about, which is my journey started when I hit perimenopause, and that's when I was diagnosed. And I was diagnosed, but I didn't think it was a big deal, because my doctor put me on low dose birth control pills because I was having such horrible migraines, and that's one of the things that gets much worse at perimenopause and menopause. And so she put me on those, and I said, Well, do you think I'm in menopause? And she goes, Oh, I don't know. Just go off of your birth control pills. And low dose is really tiny, right? And I did, and I just, I was like, I need the ADHD medication. Now. I ran to my doctor, and he said, No, you don't you need estrogen. I might have needed both, but nonetheless, I said, couldn't you give me, like, a little taste, a little, you know, trial dose? And he goes, No, I don't stock estrogen in my office. He stocks stimulants, right? He was not into that and but, you know, when I went to my OBGYN, she knew nothing about it. And what's even more interesting is that they were going to send me to the hormone clinic, but the hormone clinic was more about women who wanted to have babies, and their hormones were off kilter, so that wasn't doing me any good. So it sent me to someone else who was a psychiatrist, who had actually retrained from OBGYN because she'd have an injury and she couldn't deliver babies anymore, so she retrained, went into psychiatry, and she still knew nothing about ADHD and hormones. And I thought, What? What the heck is going on here? Yeah, and she really suggested that I start hormone treatment. And I was like, oh, no, we are not doing that.
Linda Roggli 13:02
That's really bad for you. That's been years ago, so it's right, when the Women's Health Initiative came out. So it was really my own investigation of hormones. Because remember, in those days, hormones were considered, well, about 80% from what I understand, about 80% of all women who were on hormone in those days, we called it hormone replacement. Now it's just called hormone therapy, or menopause hormone therapy. MHT, 80% of them went off their hormones and never came back. And now the new research shows a lot of different things, which we can talk about in a little bit. But I went there because what I realized when I hit my mid 40s, mid to late 40s was I was driving down the road. One day after my diagnosis, I was driving down the road. And I realized, after doing a tremendous amount of soul searching, I've been to self help groups. I have every self help book on my bookshelf, and you know kind of days now it's on my Kindle. What I realized is, you know what? I know, some stuff, I was going to say no, some shit, but I thought maybe you might edit it out.
Linda Roggli 14:04
So you can now edit it out if you want to, but I realized that there is a little flame of wisdom. So rather than continuing to doubt myself and continuing to continue to look for answers outside me, what I realized is that I really had answers inside me, all of you do who are listening and watching this, listening to and watching we all have that little flame that we push down because we've been given so much negative feedback about being ourselves. And I know we're not talking about hormones here, but this is really crucial to what this all, to what I began to do is all about and that was pretty bad grammar, poor grammar, even I created the ad diva network. I went to a couple of ADHD conferences, and the first one I went to, I'm like, Oh God, my peeps, they're going to so understand me. But I was still kind of a mess, and I was really needed somebody to to. Talked to and I wasn't treated very well there. I ended up in my room sobbing. I bet some of you have done that before, in your hotel room or maybe your bathroom. I've done it many times, and what I realized is that I need other women to talk to who get it. So I created the ad diva network. The reason it's ad diva.net is because ad diva.com is owned by some jerk out in California, and he won't sell it to me, whatever. So I created the ad diva network, which is great, because then we can talk to each other about this, which is exactly what I want to do today, is really give you the lowdown on how hormones really affect our bodies. And I never even dreamed I still talk to women today who don't they're really my period. That's when my ADHD symptoms get worse.
Linda Roggli 15:48
It so let's just back up and say there are four periods of time. Periods is not a not the right word. So epochs of time, all right. Well, so basically, at puberty, girls have hormone things that make a difference for ADHD, which is why a lot of them are diagnosed then. Then at pregnancy, we have another up and down, up and down, up and down. But we also during our lives, when we have periods regular or irregular, that up and down, up and down is happening every month or six weeks, whatever your cycle is. And then we have this again at menopause. So we have this lifespan of hormonal influences on our ADHD, which is probably the answer that you're really looking for.
Patricia Sung 16:31
No, I love it on like, Tell me more. Linda, tell me more. Oh,
Linda Roggli 16:36
dear. Oh dear. Alright, so what's the next question that I can answer with 25 two lengthy sentences.
Patricia Sung 16:44
I mean, you take as much time as you need, like, okay, yes, as women, we're going through these different seasons of life as your hormones are changing. When we look at like the bigger picture and we zoom out, how do we see ADHD symptoms change within those different seasons, and is it that they're actually changing, or is it that there's like, magnification? What do you see in the work that you've done? Because, like, I'm like, I have my like, observational opinions,
Linda Roggli 17:12
Right exactly. But
Patricia Sung 17:13
like, when you see those patterns as you're going through like, what do you see, where the how the symptoms either changing or magnifying? Like, what's going on when we zoom out and look at that big picture? I
Linda Roggli 17:23
think it's mostly that the covers are pulled back more. I think the ADHD, most of us were born with our ADHD. I don't know what how else you get ADHD? You can get ADHD symptoms from a brain injury and stuff like that, but most of us came by this naturally, birth parents, whomever that was, and I don't mean to say whomever that was. I meant to say that sometimes we don't live with our birth parents. That's all I meant, because adoption all kinds of other things. So what is true is that the ADHD has been there all the time. Those of us, like me, who were diagnosed later, kind of look back and say, Ah, so that's what that was. And I will say that that caused a tremendous amount of low self esteem for me, because I thought there's something wrong with me, and there's I need to keep trying harder and harder and harder. And of course, that's what the the stupid people out there say with ADHD. Just try harder. Have you thought about making a list? I actually got an email from someone the other day who said, I don't know if you've ever tried it, but you might make a list. I'm like,
Patricia Sung 18:21
you could also buy a planner. You could, I
Linda Roggli 18:24
could, oh, my goodness, I can make an outline. You think. Anyway, the ADHD is there. It rears its head more aggressively and more prominently when we don't have enough estrogen, and you can imagine when we're in puberty. Now keep in mind that little girls brains are bathed in estrogen from birth, but their estrogen levels stay pretty low until puberty, and then estrogen begins to cycle, not in regular cycles like our regular periods that when they settle down, which is usually not until our late 1820, 21 somewhere in there. You know, it really takes a while for us to kind of get, ah, regular so little girls, puberty age girls, are having swings of estrogen that are going really, really high and really and down here and then, but they're gradually building up right? And then the cycles become less extreme, and they become more, I was going to say, regular, but it's more moderate, I think is the way we can look at it. Instead of having these kind of, let me go here, instead of here, we're having this, this kind of change here, so
Patricia Sung 19:23
the modulation is not as extreme, bingo. If we think about like the outer edges exactly,
Linda Roggli 19:29
I like the way you put that. What a beautiful vocabulary you have. Well,
Patricia Sung 19:32
I was like, Oh, that's really good, but they can't see you. I was like, I gotta put words to them.
Linda Roggli 19:37
Trying, trying, trying. Okay, so estrogen seems to be the culprit that we are looking at throughout the lifespan. Estradiol is the estrogen that we have during our reproductive years, from puberty through menopause. There are three main kinds of estrogen. There now is a fourth one that's been identified, and there may be some new research about. That may be able to be used to treat, you know, menopausal other kinds of things. Remember that PMDD, PMS premenstrual syndrome, in its extreme form, is PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and that is much more prevalent among ADHD women. So it all dovetails together, along with our change in our cycle with both progesterone and estrogen. Estrogen seems to be the one that when it dips down, there's a lot of estrogen activity in our brain. And when that estrogen is not there, our neurotransmitters have a harder time and even more difficult time of making connections.
Linda Roggli 20:39
There's even fewer of them around. I used to think of it as kind of like of like having the sticky stuff in your catcher's mat, right? The sticky stuff isn't there anymore, and the neurotransmitters are kind of wandering around. Now, that's not literal, obviously, and I'm not a physician, but that's my understanding, is that estrogen has a dramatic impact, and I tried to do a lot of research, not just on menopause, not just, not just ADHD women and hormones, because there's very little. There's like zero almost. I have tried to research estrogen in the brain for women period, in terms of, I keep using that word, women only, because I want to see what happens. How does estrogen affect the brain of women, and I have not done that with among men, because estrogen is present in men's bodies, but it's just overshadowed by the testosterone and the androgens that are going on in their body. My husband is being treated for prostate cancer, and now they have squashed his testosterone, and now he's having hot flashes. And I said, See, anyway, that was a complete aside, complete aside. So let's go back to the estrogen effect on ADHD. Let's face it, whether you have ADHD or not, you're going to have fluctuating estrogen, and that can turn you into a real B, I, T, C, H, during right before your period or in the first few days. And it's not just ADHD folks who have PMDD or PMS, it's just that for us, it makes our brain fog much, much worse, or makes our attention much worse. It makes, if you have a combined type, our impulsivity is more likely to flare.
Linda Roggli 22:15
And aside from just you know, the physical symptoms of cramps or some people have upset stomachs, or they are really fatigued. A lot of things go on with just at the beginning of your period. Keep in mind that estrogen, let me just think about this cycle here, when you start to bleed, that's when both progesterone and estrogen are gone, and your body says, Oh, I guess there's not going to be a baby this month. And that's when everything starts to shed after that, everything gradually begins to build back up. So at about the two week mark, your estrogen is really high again, and your progesterone is higher, but it peaks at a little bit later time in your cycle. And I'm not going to go into the luteal phase and all that kinds, because I can never remember which is which, so we're not even going to talk about that. But about two weeks after you you have your period, not the end of your period, but the beginning of your period. You're feeling pretty good. That's the time to take tests. That's the time to do your driver's test. That's the time to focus in on a project at work. That's the time that's really, really strong for ADHD brains. Then at the end of that two week period, estrogen starts to decline again, and then it comes back up a little bit toward the end of your cycle, right before you're going to start to bleed again. But what happens is that Miss progesterone overtakes it, and then when Miss progesterone is there. Progesterone is a good hormone. It calms you, it makes you feel stable, but it also fogs up your brain, especially when you don't have enough estrogen in your ADHD brain.
Linda Roggli 23:43
So remember, then they both just crash into the floor, and then you have your period again, right? So ADHD women, I have found that may have different levels of hormones, and that's the research that I am pushing for right now, is, let's measure hormone levels throughout the cycle, throughout menopause, etc, etc. And that's, it's an expensive test. It's an expensive research study, because there's a lot of medical tests you have to do and you major sometimes estrogen or hormones can be measured with a blood test. That's your circulating hormones, circulating estrogen. Sometimes, some people think that a saliva test is more accurate. I don't know enough about it to know I've had both. And I just want to mention to people that if you do want to test your own hormone levels, you can do it. But remember that any one day they may be here, and the next day they may be lower or higher, or they may be exchanged but there, I believe it's Z tech labs. I'll make sure that I get the right name for you, for your folks, yeah, that's the one that I go to, a functional doctor, functional medicine.
Linda Roggli 24:49
Doctor, integrative medicine. And that's the one that she has me use. It's just spitting into a little tube and all that kind of good stuff. And interestingly, you'll find other tests as well. You can find one. For cortisol, you can find one for your thyroid, you can find there's all kinds of interesting tests that you can do, but obviously you're paying out of pocket. If you of course, doctor and say, This is what I want. Now paying out of pocket, I think that the hormone test, I believe the estrogen test, was about 80 bucks. So if that's prohibitive, go to your doctor and see if you can get your levels measured there. If there's a good reason they're not just going to do it. Oh, I think that's interesting. So I'm going to back up again, because I tend to get in the weeds, and then I come back and go, Oh, maybe I should explain a little bit more we're talking about. So remember too, that girls that are approaching puberty are beginning to be obnoxious, I mean, and that's what's the problem. It's the hormones. Guy, they're like, I don't have to You're sassy.
Linda Roggli 25:49
Me that girl, it's like, it's partly independence, it's partly the age for, you know, preteens and teenagers, it's like pulling away from the mothership, if you will. But the hormones really are extreme. At puberty, when we settle into a fairly regular pattern, we're going to be able to if you track your periods. But I know there are a lot of period trackers out there, but ADHD women are not the best at tracking anything. Sometimes we'll use them and sometimes we don't, and then that gives us no results, if I do it one month and don't do it the next, then what do I know? My periods were never regular. I never knew. My only hint was that I began to feel like the world was collapsing. You know, Chicken Little the The sky is falling. And then after my period started two days later, I was like, Oh, I'm fine. You know, the world is fine. And that was partly because my estrogen was building back up again. You know, I did not do well with low estrogen. So the predominant estrogen that's active during pregnancy is estriol. At pregnancy, your estrogen levels go sky high, especially in the first two trimesters, and at progesterone goes high too, don't get me wrong, but they're going they're like in a race, but estrogen is winning all the way up until the third trimester, when everything gets shifted, and suddenly progesterone becomes dominant.
Linda Roggli 27:13
And then that's why a lot of us have a lot of brain fog in our third trimester. And then, of course, after delivery postpartum, everything crashes, and that's when you have postpartum depression. So you know, postpartum depression is not limited to us, either. Every woman who has functional ovaries and periods, etc, etc, and I don't mean to discount anyone who's transitioned or anything like that, especially if you have a uterus. It's simply that when you have those things going on as an estrogen is impacting that, whether you're doing it artificially or not, it's going to crash. And nursing also does the same thing. Now you're getting a lot of the, ooh, this feels really good, you know. I mean, I'm nursing and, oh, I'm loving my baby and all that kind of stuff, which kind of counteracts lack of estrogen. But not completely, not completely.
Patricia Sung 28:04
Have you ever been invited to a party and you realize, like, you weren't gonna know many people there, and so then you, like, dread it all the way going up to the event, or you talk yourself out of it so you don't go, because it's scary to put yourself out there in a situation that, like, what if I don't like them, what if they don't like me? And it feels stressful? Well, I don't want you to feel that way about hanging out in this community, Mama. So I am hosting an open house, and I want you to come and meet all the mamas, so that you know what kind of people we are. PS, are great, and that you feel comfortable joining in this community. Because if you are thinking about joining successful mama meetups or thinking about joining the retreat, I want you to know that these are your people, and what better way to do that than to actually meet the people? So come join us at our open house. We are hosting an open house in successful mama meetups on November 6, and come meet the moms, hang out, see what it's like. You'll get the feel for like, Who are these people? What's the vibe? Do I want to hang out with them? Yes, you do. It's gonna be so fun.
Patricia Sung 29:11
So come hang out with us. So it's totally no charge, free. 99 come hang out at successful mama meetups on November 6. Our meetings are on Wednesdays. They're at 1230 Eastern. Go over to my website at patriciasung.com/openhouse. It's all one word, O, P, E, N, H, O, U, S, E, and sign up for the link so that you get the Zoom link from this is all virtual. So anybody can come anywhere in the world, see what time it is on your time zone and come join us for the first 30 minutes. We hang out and get stuff done. So I have help there for, like, how to plan your week, or if you just, like, I just need to get some stuff done. And the body doubling helps do that. Like, there's no wrong way to show up and do stuff at successful mama meetups. Did you get something done? Great. That's what we're here for. Okay, so that's the first 30 minutes, and then the second 30 minutes is social time, where we hang out and we make it fun. You actually want to show up to the body doubling, because you get to hang out with your friends and meet people who understand how your brain works, and you feel at home. So come join us. November 6, sign up at patriciasung.com/openhouse, and I can't wait to see your face. And if you are listening to this after November 6, still go over to that link and see when the next one is. I think I'm gonna do this again. I'll see you then. Okay, on to the episode.
Linda Roggli 30:34
Let's fast forward to you've had your kiddos. You're in your 40s, usually 40s, some people. Now, let's back up just a minute, and let me just add in that women who have a total hysterectomy or women who have their ovaries removed have instant menopause, and the menopause is much more precipitous, because it's instantaneous and it's much more severe. So depending on what the reason is, some women are eligible to take hormone treatment, and some of them are not. I have not personally experienced that, but I understand that it's just devastating, I mean, and you can have that anytime in your life, during your reproductive years, at least. So you may have menopause that's happened in your 30s or even younger, but for most of us, perimenopause, P, E, R, I, menopause kind of is the prelude to the menopause, and it can start up to 10 years before we actually stop our periods. So here's the interesting thing, menopause is a single day. There is pre menopause, then there's post menopause. And menopause is one day that you don't even know what day it is until it's been a year later and you go, haven't had any periods for a year. That's what the medical definition of menopause is. In that perimenopausal period, Howard, it's not pre menopause. Pre menopause is reproductive. Perimenopause is right before menopause, and your periods will start to get weird.
Linda Roggli 32:02
They'll get a little wacky, kind of like they were in adolescence. So we're kind of repeating adolescence. The difference is that we are having these incredible swings, but instead of our estrogen beginning to climb, our estrogens beginning to go in a downward cycle, so you have less and less estrogen, and eventually the swings are less extreme, and then you get to that menopause when, Oh, I haven't had a period for two or three months, and then you have one. Sorry, that wasn't menopause, not yet. You have to wait 12 whole months to see yes, right, exactly. So that's what I was, completely flummoxed by, the whole thing, frankly, because I went right into perimenopause, and I was probably, I don't know, maybe 49 I might have even been 50. So I don't even know when I started perimenopause, because I was on this estrogen supplement that kept me steady, and thank God it did alleviate my migraine headaches. Thank goodness, because that was another thing that got worse as paramedic mera menopause hit, by the way, let's just take an aside. You probably have talked about this with other people, but migraine headaches go hand in hand with ADHD, and I don't know that there's a difference between women and men. I think women tend to have more migraines than men anyway, but certainly at this stage of life, migraines are hormonally related. Migraines, let's say can be much more extreme. So perimenopause, we're having these extreme up and down, right? So let's think about this. If you're feeling really good, and you're feeling exceptionally good, and you're in the mid 40s, and then the next couple of months and weeks or so, you're feeling like, I don't even know how I can move, then that's probably because you've had an extreme high on your estrogen, and then it's dieting down to low.
Linda Roggli 33:46
Keep in mind that your progesterone also makes those swings, so it's in the mix. For some reason, it's not as potent as the estradiol is. So when you hit menopause and hit it is exactly what I mean, because, you know, you hit it, and then you look back, oh, I guess I hit it. Yeah, the primary estrogen that happens after menopause. It's not that we don't have any estrogen, we just don't have estradiol, or we have very tiny little levels of estradiol. Post menopausal, the estrogen that is in active form is called estrone, and because it's not quite well. I'm going to use the word potent. Again, we're not having cycles, even though some menopausal women say, I swear, I'm still having cycles, and it's very again, back to being very unique and how our bodies function and all that stuff. So estradiol is not made in the ovaries, because our ovaries ain't function in no more. They're not doing it. I was on estrogen only patches because Dr Patricia Quinn said that for ADHD women, we don't want to do progesterone in there, because that's going to make you have brain fog. Let's we'll talk about that in a minute, but that's what I was doing. And because I was doing estrogen only, I had to have an ultrasound a dad. An old ultrasound every year to make sure that I didn't have any kind of cancers developing. And mostly it's endometrial cancers, is what they're looking for. And of course, I had a pap smear every year and all that stuff. But one of the, one of the times when I was doing this, the woman who was doing the ultrasound said, Oh, you're ovaries all shriveled up. That's good.
Linda Roggli 35:20
Thanks. Oh, good. What?
Linda Roggli 35:22
What exactly I was like. You don't have to tell me that. I'm getting enough wrinkles everywhere else. I don't tell tell me it's internal as well. Anyway, they do shrink, so they're really not functioning anymore, and they're not releasing eggs and etc, etc. So you're not having those regular cycles. So when estradiol is produced lovingly by body fat, isn't that such a wonderful thing to hear? Huh? Huh? Seriously, mostly from Are you ready belly fat? So when you look at women who are pre menopausal and post menopausal, you'll see that they have a little more pouch, Poochy, stomach sticking out, and it is so annoying because you can't get rid of it, but you don't really want to get rid of it, because it's providing some estrogen to your body. It's not the same kind of estrogen that you're used to, but it does have some impact on your brain. It's just that it's smaller and you don't have these enormous ooh, I have a lot of it. Ooh, I don't have any of it. It's more steady.
Linda Roggli 36:24
And again, I'm looking forward to the day when we have that research that shows us exactly because everything I'm telling you now may be thrown out the window. I'm only giving you the information that we have on hand this year, in this month, and all of the people that I know, all the professionals who have studied ADHD and menopause, pre menopause, pregnancy, etc, etc, all of them have done extrapolation from current research about women hormones, PMDD and ADHD kind of melded together to try very hard to figure out what what's happening for us.
Linda Roggli 37:02
And let's face it, Dr. Patricia Quinn was a developmental pediatrician for a long time, but she treated only ADHD girls and women, and she had tremendous amount of clinical experience. So what I've heard is that clinical experience at anecdotal double experience does support the theories that we have in place now. It's just that we don't have the gold standard research in on the books to say this is what happens that said there was a research study that came out a couple of years ago a good friend of mine, Dr. Sandra Kooij in the Netherlands. She's worked with sleep and ADHD. She's done her career has just been phenomenal. She's fabulous. She is amazing. Just amazing. She finally got funding, you know, they, they do funding in the Netherlands by government only. So she actually, the two of us were actually trying to get funding for her. We were doing like, a, you know, like, donate $23 and we'll try and get some research. And we need 100,000 you know, a million dollars. And she was trying to get $100,000 which didn't work. She finally was able to do this research, and she found that at different stages, that first of all, postpartum women have more trouble with postpartum issues, the blues, etc, etc, etc, that menstruating women have more trouble with PMS, PMDD, most likely PMDD.
Linda Roggli 38:23
And postmenopausal women continue to have issues with low estrogen, and that's true of everyone, all women that are postmenopausal. It's just for ADHD. Women I have every day in my inbox, I have a question about, do you think ADHD gets worse as you get older, I do, and this is the reason why we think at this moment. So I've said all of that to add one more thing. I just watched a TED talk from a woman. Her name is Dr Stacy. Fill in the blank. I can't remember her last name right now. She's in New Zealand. She has been prominent. I mean, like, she's not like 60 or 50. She's fairly young in her career and in her research. But what she realized early on is that the research about women is non existent, and her big thing is women are not small men, we are different. And yes, she talks about periods and she goes, Did I really say that word? It's hilarious.
Linda Roggli 39:23
She's she's really, really great, but her whole point is that we need to honor these hormonal differences between genders, and we need to pay more attention and do research specifically on women, not exclude them because of those swings which has been happening. Why do you think we've never had a woman president? Oh, well, what would she do? She if you're her parents, you might push the button and we'd be annihilated. Uh, no, that's not what happens here. But that kind of thinking still permeates the back of people's brains, not just men, but women as well. That maybe I can't be trusted because I had. Problems during right before my period started. I was problems is not the right word. I experienced some really severe symptoms then. But I also know, let's say one more thing about periods, about about normal, regular cycles during your pre productive years. A parent, wait just a moment, because I had an ADHD moment, and I thought about it, and then I saw this, and it says, Why fit in when you were born to stand out? And then my brain went right here. So you know darn well I have ADHD, and
Patricia Sung 40:28
I love that about my interviews. People are always like, oh, idea, idea. Then, oh, wait, hold on. Coming back now, back to the question. Here we go. That's very good. I want us to show up the way that we are not put on the fancy, polished Thank
Linda Roggli 40:40
you. Thank you. Okay, so where was I going? I talked about the whim about women are not small men. And I may
Patricia Sung 40:47
have Dr Stacy's research, yeah,
Linda Roggli 40:49
so I may have to come back to it. It was kind of, it was, it was an aside, but I think it was kind of important to mention here. It's just, I'll come back to it, because I know it'll come back to me. That's one thing I just want to say to people who are in that place of, oh, my god, I can't remember someone's name. First of all, proper names go away first from memory, and you can probably remember it, you know, either the minute you leave them, or if you just let yourself have a beat. Okay, let me see if I can think that through. But if you focus too much on it, you're taxing your brain. And especially for ADHD, when we put ourselves under pressure, we kind of shut down. So I just want to, I just want to let people have permission to take the time to let your brain function the way it does. Really important. Okay, I'm done. I promise.
Patricia Sung 41:31
No, we need that space, that white space is like, allows us to not only rest, but for our brain to do all of its fun wandering. And it will reappear when it needs to reappear, of course, eventually, yeah,
Linda Roggli 41:42
it might not happen during this hour, but you know, I'll let you know if I think of it.
Patricia Sung 41:49
Okay, so when we think about all these changes that we're going through over the lifespan, obviously, my audience is moms, so they've gone through puberty, they've gone through matress. They may have another human in the house going through puberty, maybe, maybe currently. But when we look at as we're in this, moving into meters since and then going into perimenopause, what are the ways that we can support ourselves with what we do know about what's going on. How do we support ourselves? Knowing that our hormones are going to it may feel like wreak havoc on your life regularly. How do we support ourselves there? Well, number
Linda Roggli 42:30
one is just even knowing that it's the hormones and it's nothing it's not personal, it's nothing like bad about you, that it's just there. If you live with a partner, that partner may also already know that. And so the thing that I was going to mention just a minute ago is perfect, because you kind of introduced this. So first of all, awareness, and that's where, even though we don't do a great job of tracking it would be really helpful to track our periods. Some people, I don't even know who these people are, who have 28 day cycles, but bless them, if they do, they may actually be able to plan ahead, right? So I mentioned this a few minutes ago, is that right before your period is not the time to start giving your dissertation in front of your committee. That's reschedule. It for heaven's sake, reschedule for two weeks later, when you were really on top of it, and you're already going to be nervous and all that kind of stuff. And some people say that, you know, anxiety can actually make our brains a little bit more alert too, depending on the situation. However, we also can if we are taking stimulant medication. This is what I was going to say before, your stimulant medication may not work as well during those first times when your estrogen is really low.
Linda Roggli 43:46
So remember, there are two times the estrogen is going to be low. It's going to be low right before you bleed, and then toward the end of the cycle, like maybe a week before you start to bleed, that's when progesterone takes over. And you may have more brain fog, you may feel calm, but you may be frustrated because you're not on top of it, the way you usually are. So if you find, if you're on stimulant medication, you find it's not working as well, then Dr coy suggests that you either temporarily increase the amount of your stimulant, maybe just take additional short acting stimulant, perhaps. But she also has had good luck with and great results with adding SSRIs. SSRIs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and it seems really weird, because if they're antidepressants, right, and if you take them for depression, what a doctor will tell you is that it takes a full two weeks for the full effect to kick in. So doesn't make much sense from a medical point of view, to take them only for a few days, like no more than four or five days.
Linda Roggli 44:45
Maybe that's even a lot, maybe only two or three days. But for some reason, that really makes a difference. And interestingly enough, I have found out that that is exactly the treatment that is used for PMDD. So maybe it does make sense in terms of. Bones and mood and attention and concentration again. So even though serotonin is not necessarily one of the big two ADHD neurotransmitters, it's mostly dopamine and norepinephrine, serotonin is playing gets games up there too. And what they've also recently found is that antidepressants that treat serotonin reuptake. And remember, I just want to say reuptake inhibitors means that you got lots of serotonin over but it's sucking it back too heavily, right? We're inhaling too much of that. Because as it go across the little gap, that little synapse piece, it sucks some back the the sending side of the neurons is sending it over here, and it says, Oh, maybe I set too much, and it sucks some back up. So the reuptake inhibitor means, oh, I guess I don't have to quite take quite so much up there, right? But I recently, it's been found that serotonin may not necessarily be the primary issue with depression.
Linda Roggli 45:56
So everything shifts right as we as we begin to know more and more about the brain, even though we know a lot, I am amazed that they can even measure neurotransmitters. I mean, that's Yes, pretty shocking, isn't it? That's just like, how do they do that kind of thing, you know? So how else can we take care of ourselves? A lot more sleep will really help. And sometimes that's not easy, because ADHD folks have trouble with sleep anyway, and I hesitate to suggest that you take any kind of medication for sleep, but whatever works for you, sometimes a warm bath, voir milk voltine, and I'm just kidding, or milk, this is supposed to have the tryptophan, which helps you feel like you're going to go to sleep. A lot of us stay up late. I mean, when you've been taking care of kids all day and you've been working all day, working all day and you've been doing gardening and you've been putting out fires and you've been doing the budget or whatever you're doing, it's like that time at night is my time. Everything's quiet.
Linda Roggli 46:52
Everybody else is in bed. I can't there's nothing going on outside to distract me because it's dark. Oh, now I can sit down here and whatever play tiddlywinks online, or do social media or whatever. If that's the case, at least during this difficult time for you, put it on your calendar, no blue screens. You know this day to this day after nine o'clock or 10 o'clock or whatever it is, because let me just mention that the blue that that is exuded from your device is the same wavelength as blue light that's in the morning, and therefore it's there gonna wake up your melatonin not let it sink in and say, Oh, I think I am sleepy. There have been many times when I have felt like I'm just exhausted, but then I'm like, I'm wide awake, and I just probably done something before that that woke me up. Now eventually, my sleepiness will overcome the wake up thing.
Linda Roggli 47:47
My melatonin will finally say enough is enough. But I think there's that too. And the final thing I'd like to say about that is, as I mentioned, your partner may already know what's going on. They may recognize those cycles and be whatever their reaction is, irritated, sympathetic, I'll take over some of these things. Ask for help. We're not too good at that. Say, you know, I know I'm kind of at the end of my cycle, and I can just feel myself getting a little more irritable. Would you be willing to take the kids to school today? Would it be okay if I slept in a little longer? Can we go out to dinner. Can you bring something home take some of the stress out of your life? And I'm not saying that you should say to your kiddos, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have my period starting tomorrow. So could you please give me a break? No, that's they don't need to know that stuff. But I just want to say that if you do have a daughter in puberty, you can at least allude to yeah, sometimes we feel differently when we're just before we're starting periods, etc, etc. So anyway, those are the however many things I said, six. Okay, good, ooh, I'm good today.
Patricia Sung 48:51
Okay, I have to ask, Do you have any recommendations on finding providers that are going to be somewhat more knowledgeable in this. Like, are there any specific questions you ask or, like, is there any tip you can give the mom listening? Of, like, this would help you find the right person, or know whether or not when you like, you go to a doctor. And like, How familiar are they with this? Like, is there anything that you could recommend they check out to make this process a little easier?
Linda Roggli 49:20
Thank you. I appreciate you asking that question. I think, if I'm not mistaken, there's a tear up page in my book, Confessions of an ad diva, midlife, in the non linear lane, there's a page in my book you can either tear it out or you can just write down the questions. I mean, clearly you want to say, Do you have any experience with ADHD? If you go to a psychological professional like a psychiatrist or a psychologist, etc, they're going to say, Yes, I don't care whether they do or not, because they know what ADHD is, therefore they think they know what it is, right? So I would also, well, first of all, let's back up before you even ask them questions, before you get into a situation where you know that this person is not got it, they're just. Not talk to people in your area. Support groups are great for this.
Linda Roggli 50:05
Get recommendations. I ran a support group here in the triangle for years, a meetup group for, I don't know, 19 years, and we had a list of the people to go to and a list of people not to go to. And some, I mean, some of them were really horrible. I mean, some of them were sexually inappropriate. I mean, it was really, really bad. Thank goodness that there are a few more people who know more about this. If you live in a highly populated area, you're more likely to find somebody who really does know. So ask the question, even if you don't belong to the support group, there are a lot of meetup groups everywhere, all over the world, and you can either jump in and ask the they call it the organizer, which I thought was hilarious, considering I was organizing an ADHD Meetup group,
Patricia Sung 50:46
and I'm afraid you did it for 19 you're like, that's that's some stamina, Linda,
Linda Roggli 50:50
that's a long time. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, you'll get ideas from them, then you can check out on their website to see what kind of treatment. And if you go to Psychology Today and you put in ADHD, you're going to get a lot of people who say they treat ADHD. But that's not enough, because I went to a woman who was an EMDR specialist, that's eye movement rapid desensitization, where you do this kind of thing. And she lived really close, which is why I wanted to go to her, because I would go with people. And the first meeting, she said you shouldn't be taking hormones. That doesn't have anything to do with ADHD. And I ran out of there because so I mean, she knew nothing about it. Don't be surprised, by the way, if your OB GYN does not know anything about it, either, they just don't. So you may have to just advocate for it and bring them articles and stuff, because there's more out there about it. The questions you can ask is, how many patients do you treat with it who have ADHD?
Linda Roggli 51:42
And how many women do you treat who have ADHD? And the other questions are, what kind of strategies do you suggest? If they say, well, medication is the only thing that works, then that's not really helpful either. I will tell you the man who diagnosed me. It was a male doctor. Diagnosed me, gave me a post it with the names of two professional organizers on it. He knew that medication itself wasn't going to do enough in those days. Coaches weren't really prevalent, but they didn't have a lot of ADHD coaches. So he might have given me that if that had been possible, there are now some places that actually have ADHD coaches in their practice. It's good to live for a tier of care, if you will. And the truth is that some of us live in underpopulated areas, so a diagnosis, and some, like good friends overseas, have trouble. They are in socialized medicine.
Linda Roggli 52:35
It takes two years before you can even see anyone, and they're struggling. And it's like they know that they're really need that diagnosis. And let's just be clear, if you think you have ADHD and you don't want to take medication, you don't need a diagnosis. You only need a diagnosis if you want to treatment. Your insurance to pay for treatment. That's the key. So in underserved areas, you may have to get a diagnosis online, or there are some places that are licensed in more than one state here in the United States, at least, so you may be able to get the diagnosis. Some of the online places are less reputable than others, and some of them will even provide prescriptions, but you really are going to need somebody local, so even talk to your family. I was gonna say pediatrician. I just got off of a of that webinar I was talking about about diagnosis, and one of the doctors there, medical doctor said that he is actually an internist and a pediatrician.
Linda Roggli 53:34
He's combination has two specialties, and he said a lot of times, your pediatrician knows more about ADHD than your PCP, so you may actually ask your pediatrician for a recommendation. They may or may not have it, but it's worth a shot. But please don't be afraid. Let me go back to underserved. I didn't quite finish. I really suggest that you work with a sympathetic local doctor, and remember your PCP may be kind of like guanfacine. Is intuitive, and it treats high blood pressure. And I developed high blood pressure in the last year. Not terrible, but I asked my PCP if I could take guanfacine, because I thought it would do two things, right? It would be, yeah, good for this, and she wouldn't prescribe it. I have to talk to the pharmacy about that. She talked to the pharmacy. They knew nothing about it either. This is Duke University Medical Center.
Linda Roggli 54:20
This is major medical center. Now she prescribed it because she realized it wasn't going to hurt me. That didn't do anything. Didn't help, but anyway, didn't help my ADHD anyway. But in underserved areas, it's really important to find somebody local who can not only prescribe, because when you get that first prescription of any kind of ADHD medication, probably not the one you're going to end up with that's afraid so you need somebody who's going to work with you. And sometimes it can take up to a year to make that work for you, whether it's a stimulant or a non stimulant, or you decide, I don't really think I want to take medication. You want to tough it out. No, I'm just kidding. You can use coaches. You can talk to Patricia. You can whatever. So anyway, those are my best suggestions, and I probably am forgetting some of them are in the book. But if you can buy the book, you can read the book,
Patricia Sung 55:07
grab the book. There you go. I think the most important, like takeaway that I pull out of that is that there are many ways to find someone to fit you. So if one avenue doesn't work, try the next one, try the next one, try the next one, and hopefully, within the seven avenues you try, you either can find someone who knows what they're doing, or you find someone who's willing to listen and try. Bingo, thank
Linda Roggli 55:31
you. That's one of the things I was going to mention, is you need someone who's going to listen that they may not know a lot about ADHD, but if they're willing to hear from you about the information you have and not be, I don't have to listen to my you know, they don't have to be Arro they're not arrogant, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I'm glad you said that. Thank you. And I just You're right. Patricia, maybe it takes seven avenues, but sometimes we give up at four. Yeah? So please, it's hard. ADHD folks are tenacious to a fault, but sometimes not to take care of ourselves, you know? You know? Yeah,
Patricia Sung 56:05
okay, so I want to ask you 73 more questions, and I don't have time, so that's okay. I may have to have you back, but
Linda Roggli 56:13
don't have me back, it's fine.
Patricia Sung 56:16
But with that, I'll pause there and ask, how do the moms find you, follow you and gain all this wisdom that you have to offer? Oh,
Linda Roggli 56:27
thank you for asking. My website is addiva.net add iva.net it's not a diva. It's addiva. And I also run the ADHD women's Palooza, and you can find more about @adhdpalooza.com Palooza, spelled P, a, l, o, o, Z, a, but I have all the misspellings up there, but that's a.com and I also run women's retreats, and we're having a women's retreat in the fall. You have to be 40 at least to come, but it's a beach retreat, and it's all week long, so it's a luxury beach retreat. You have your own room, you have your own bathroom. It's oceanfront. It's wonderful. We love it. Massage. I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I
Patricia Sung 57:11
run a trees. And I'm like, I want to come to your retreat. Because I'm my retreat. I work. I'm like, I need to come to your retreat. Not so I can do nothing the same
Linda Roggli 57:17
way. Can you? Can I come to yours? Of course. You can. All right,
Patricia Sung 57:21
so let's do our lightning round questions. Oh, all you have to do is just fill in the blank. You don't have to explain anything. You just, okay, fill it up. Let's so. Number one, the best thing I've read or listened to recently is
Linda Roggli 57:33
The New Menopause. Is that a
Patricia Sung 57:34
book or a podcast? What is that? It's a book, a book, The New Menopause. Okay. Number two, my most boring about me, fact is, I'm
Linda Roggli 57:44
not sure there's anything boring about me. There might be things that are annoying. I don't know how boring. You know that's what I'm going to have on my tombstone. Never a boring moment. My husband says that my tombstone is going to say, finally, done.
Patricia Sung 58:02
Came into the Okay. Number three, when I'm having a rough day, my go to quote, song, poem, book, podcast, activity, whatever is,
Linda Roggli 58:12
I always go back to the songs from Wicked I hum them all the time, especially well. I just especially the last one, yeah,
Patricia Sung 58:23
number four, don't tell anyone I don't
Linda Roggli 58:26
pick my nose lick the bowl. That's it.
Patricia Sung 58:30
Number Oh, wait, that was number four. Number five, okay, if I had a magic fairy wand for one spell, I would
Linda Roggli 58:37
have a self cleaning house.
Patricia Sung 58:41
And finally, my best piece of advice for mamas with ADHD is, shall
Linda Roggli 58:47
I be really modeling? And just say it's not all about the kids. It's about you model what you want your kids to be, no matter how frustrated you are. And believe me, I understand it's frustrating.
Patricia Sung 59:01
Well, thank you. I love mom advice from moms who are on the like my kids are grown, I know what matters, and that that's the advice that I really take to heart. Is that it like they was saying, the days are long, but the years are short, where, yeah, that's when you look back like,
Linda Roggli 59:22
I just wish, I wish that I had known more about ADHD back then. I would have done things very differently for both of my kids. I just allowed myself to get really frustrated. And I have one kiddo within a 10 of ADHD, I have one kiddo with bipolar and ADHD, he won't admit to either one of them, but my my intent of kiddo had is legally blind. So I focused so much on the legal blindness that I didn't realize how much of a an impact the ADHD had. And it makes me really sad that I don't think he got entirely what he needed. It. Were focusing on that IEP,
Patricia Sung 1:00:53
you are doing the best you can, yeah. And I think that's what makes you a good mom, is that you did the best you could with what you had. And what I knew,
Linda Roggli 1:01:01
if you're trying my parents, right? Yes, so did my parents, even though I, you know, there was a lot of things that, oh my god, I had to deal with in therapy. But I decided, You know what, when my kids are grown, I'm out of the picture. You deal with me in therapy. It's your turn. Some of them did, some of them didn't. Anyway, all right, it's been a pleasure, and I know I've taken way too much of your time, but thank you so much.
Patricia Sung 1:01:27
Thank you.
Linda Roggli 1:01:28
I appreciate being with you. I love you together.
Patricia Sung 1:01:31
I will see you soon. Yes, you will Bye.
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