When simple things aren’t simple with ADHD (Terry Matlen’s story)

Psychotherapist, author, and ADHD pioneer Terry Matlen shares what led to her ADHD diagnosis. Terry’s path started with years of shame and the feeling that everyday life was inexplicably harder than it should be. She describes getting overwhelmed by ordinary moments: making dinner, figuring out what to wear, and freezing at the sink with a wooden spoon in her hand.

Terry is an expert on ADHD in women. She talks about mood regulation and self-esteem with empathy. And she offers hard-won guidance for women with ADHD, especially moms. The conversation is honest — and likely to feel familiar to anyone who’s ever felt like everyday life is too much to handle.

• Listen: She broke the silence on ADHD shame in women (Sari Solden’s story)

• Listen: She wrote the book on women, shame, and ADHD

• Read: ADHD and mood swings

Terry Matlen: So I had somebody over the house that I hadn't met before. She was a chatty kind of gal. She followed me into the kitchen and she was talking and I can't do two things at once, in general.

So I remember being at the sink and starting to wash the dishes as she's chatting to me and I pick up the wooden spoon that I used for cooking this meal and I looked at it and I thought, I don't know what to do with it. I just became overwhelmed by a wooden spoon.

Laura Key: This is "ADHD Aha!", a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at Understood.org and as someone who's had my own ADHD aha moment, I'll be your host.

I am here today with Terry Matlen. Terry is a psychotherapist, consultant, and ADHD coach who's a pioneer when it comes to our understanding of ADHD in women. Terry is the author of the books "The Queen of Distraction" and "Survival Tips for Women with ADHD."

She's also featured in Understood's limited series podcast "Climbing the Walls," which is about the rise of ADHD in women during the pandemic. Terry, welcome. How are you?

Terry: I'm great and it's so nice to be here. Thanks, Laura.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to have you here. I want to let our listeners and viewers know that this show "Climbing the Walls," which you were interviewed for and you're featured in — you actually, without knowing it, coined the title of that show.

It came from a conversation that you had had with the host of "Climbing the Walls," Danielle Elliot. If anybody listening or watching hasn't seen that or listened to that podcast yet, please do. It's amazing. But Terry, do you want to explain where the idea of climbing the walls came from? What it references?

Terry: With my ADD I will do my best, because this was a while ago. I work a lot with moms with ADHD and being a mom myself — my kids are now young adults — but I remember how difficult it was being a mom with ADHD raising kids, one who has ADHD and other special kinds of issues.

The pain that I felt and the discomfort and the stress of just being a mom period with ADHD — but you add in the two kids, one who had these issues — I remember saying barely because you guys did remind me, but yeah, I did say, I was climbing the walls.

So many of the women that I work with who are moms will say something very similar. It is so hard.

Laura: I remember speaking to you about how much shame that you were dealing with as a mother, as a wife, I believe. Are you open to talking about that? The gendered layer for women with ADHD?

Terry: I'm pretty much an open book because what I find is when I talk about this openly about my own experiences, it gives permission for other women to not only talk about it, but before that, to access those feelings that they have within themselves.

This shame thing just travels with us if we don't understand and work through these feelings. The big one for me was why can't I figure out how to make dinner every night?

I would just get so frustrated that I would take a spoon and just slam it on the table because whatever I was able to make — which would typically be pretty simple kid — friendly meals — one of my two kids — that's 50 percent of my kids — would say, "I don't like that," or, "We're having meatloaf again?"

Maybe I made it three weeks ago and it was just intolerable. Because of my sensitivity — and all of us I believe with ADHD are sensitive souls — I took it really hard. I could see my sister — in — law is an incredible cook.

I remember thinking not long ago we were on a phone call and as she's talking to me she's cooking. I thought, how does she do that? I can talk to nobody. I can have nothing — no TV, no radio, nothing — and I struggle.

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

They could do these things without having to put timers on, make notes, ask somebody, "Will you remind me to turn the oven off?" or any of those things. It's just what you do. That doesn't happen — it didn't happen for me and for many women with ADHD. We were not on automatic pilot.

(04:52) An ADHD "aha" moment involving a wooden spoon.

Laura: I remember having a conversation with you about that wooden spoon. It really resonated with me the last time we chatted because you've mentioned it as kind of being a big aha moment for you. Like you're looking at this spoon, right?

Terry: Yeah. So I had somebody over the house that I hadn't met before. It had something to do with my daughter. I had her over for dinner, which was a huge thing for me, having dinner for someone I don't even know. I was able to pull that off pretty well.

Then I was clearing the table and she followed me. She was a chatty kind of gal. She followed me into the kitchen and she was talking and I can't do two things at once, in general. So when people say that people with ADHD can multitask, well, that's not the case for me and for many of the people I work with.

So I remember being at the sink and starting to wash the dishes as she's chatting to me. I pick up the wooden spoon that I used for cooking this meal and I looked at it and I thought, I don't know what to do with it.

I can't sort things out. She's coming at me with one side, this spoon is in front of me and I washed it — I could get that far — but then what do I do with it? I just became overwhelmed by a wooden spoon.

Laura: Didn't you throw it, too? I'm sorry Terry, I'm exposing you here.

Terry: I'm trying to remember. I may have. I've done that with other things in other situations. I think this happened before I was diagnosed. I didn't know what was wrong. I didn't know what was going on.

Laura: The stress of the mundane, right? Especially as a woman and the feeling that not only this is a basic object, any human should know what to do with this right now, but also as a woman I'm supposed to be really good with this particular object.

I'm supposed to be really good at carrying on a lovely conversation while making a lovely meal. Then the emotional compounding of all that is just — I think that people underestimate how overwhelming that can be.

Terry: I totally agree with you. We hide. Even after being evaluated, treated, and the understanding that I have because this is my life — this is not just my own personal world, it's the work I do — but it's something I'm constantly working on.

A lot of it has gotten way, way, way better. But sometimes I get into a situation where all those old feelings come back up, like, why can't I figure out what to wear to this event I'm going to? This actually, this Sunday I've got an event.

That's one of my areas of non — expertise. What do I wear to these things? I want to look right. Is this the right outfit? Then I have to tell myself, wait a second, calm yourself down. It's not the end of the world. It's because you are overwhelmed by wanting to do the right thing.

Most women would easily go into the closet and figure out what to wear. That's an area of weakness for me, but that's okay. This is how I walk myself down from this — I try to remember the things I do well.

Laura: Talk me through the ADHD challenges that might lead to a moment of "What do I do with this spoon?"

Terry: So executive functioning, which is how to get from A to B and B to C. It sounds so easy. Okay, so I have a spoon in my hand. That means I wash it, I dry it, I put it in the drawer. I knew to wash the spoon.

I was overwhelmed by another stimulus and I may have been a little bit uncomfortable because I didn't really know this person. So there's all these things coming into play.

For me and for a lot of women with ADHD, we get overwhelmed easily by stimulation. That for me, one of them is constant barrage of words and anything having to do with steps.

So in this situation, I'm a little already uncomfortable. I have what felt like a hammer hitting me over the head with all these words. I'm looking at a spoon. I want to make a good impression. I want to look normal because I know there's something about me that's not really normal.

What do I do next? When all of these things are hitting me, then I have two young kids in the next room. They're probably making noise. I have a husband and I don't know where he is with all of this.

So it was a sense of overwhelm. That sense of overwhelm is so common with us, but it generally has a lot to do with executive functioning. It has a lot to do with self — esteem, wanting to make a good impression, wanting to fit in. Many of us don't feel like we fit in, especially if you haven't been diagnosed and treated and gotten support. Support is huge.

Laura: So the executive function challenges causing the overwhelm, but also emotional regulation is another executive function. So the thing that you're struggling with is also the thing that's causing you to get maybe having trouble managing your emotions around the thing that is happening.

Terry: Yeah. Then as things escalated — like I'm really literally looking at a spoon while this woman is talking and talking and talking — then I have to start thinking, well, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?

Then frustration — like she's talking too much, I want her out of my face. So you're probably right, I probably at one point did throw the thing in the sink because I lost it.

Laura: I wasn't there, Terry. I just remember you saying something about that.

Terry: I don't think I was there. I was so out of it. I think I would have done something like that. There's been many incidents where that sense of overwhelmingness — this dysregulation of emotions and mood — can cause us to do things that we wouldn't dream of doing. Like, I did that? I can't believe it.

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

It's like you get the stimuli that are coming at you all at once and it's almost like you want to swat them away like a fly. But it might be there's a person that you care about. There's your child.

When I say swat, I don't mean physically swat away, I mean just like, "Stop talking," or, "Stop sending me texts." You know, I have to take off my watch when I'm doing these interviews because if I get a message, it'll buzz my hand and then I can't unfeel that and I can't get back to the conversation.

Terry: What really bothers me is when people assume that you can just turn that switch. Because they can, they think you can. "Well, just don't pay attention to" — like earlier today I was on a call and the lawn people were all over my neighborhood.

I'm looking out and I'm looking out and — just stop. Just stop looking out the window. Or stop what you're doing so you can pay attention to what I'm saying with my family. They don't get it.

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

Laura: And then the rumination of how do other people view me? How did other people view my reaction to that? And then it's just — it can be vicious.

(11:36) ADHD diagnosis in the early 1990s.

Laura: You eventually did get diagnosed in the early 90s, I think you mentioned?

Terry: It was the early 90s and so I live in the Detroit area and I'm very fortunate. It's just one of these things that there's a number of ADHD professionals who even back then were in my neighborhood practically.

Laura: Michigan, a hotbed for the burgeoning study of ADHD back in the day and still, it sounds like.

Terry: But I should start off with what exactly happened that made me finally go into that search for a professional. I was on the telephone talking to somebody and whomever I was talking to, I couldn't hear them. Physically I could, but I couldn't hear what they were saying because there was noise on that person's side and noise on my side.

Probably one of my kids was doing whatever. I couldn't filter out again — here we go — and I got — talk about emotional dysregulation — I was furious with myself, furious with the world.

Nobody understood this because I would ask, "Do you ever have this problem where you can't talk on the phone because you can't really get to what they're saying?" "No." So that's what tipped it over for me.

I had to figure it out. Is my hearing wrong? So I started off — I forgot about this part — I started off by going to an audiologist.

Laura: Oh, I didn't know that. I don't remember that.

Terry: I totally forgot about that until you brought it up. So I went to probably an ENT doctor and they gave me a hearing test and they said, "Oh, your hearing is better than average for someone your age."

Laura: Wow.

Terry: I said, "Then what is this?" And they said, "I don't know," because back then they probably didn't know anything about what we now call auditory processing disorder, which is a separate thing often seen with ADHD, by the way.

Laura: It's the filtering, it's being distracted.

Terry: It's the processing, right? It's so funny too because when we create content for parents, for instance — when we're really talking about, does your child follow directions? Most parents would say, "They just don't listen."

It's not really about hearing or listening, it's really about are they following the directions? Are they able to process those multiple steps? That kind of thing.

Terry: There's a lot going on in this thing. It's not as simple as you're distracted. So I did well on the test and then the next step was I'm getting some ideas from the book I read. I'm getting some ideas from how my daughter behaves.

I think it's time to find out now that I know a little bit about ADHD, to find someone who's an expert. And I did. He was just a couple miles away from me — a PhD psychologist who happened to be a pioneer in the field of adult — well, he worked with kids, but he also opened up his practice to adults.

So I went to him and got the diagnosis of ADHD.

Laura: And at that time was it ADD?

Terry: Yeah, we called it ADD back then and that's what literally changed my life. Now there was a medical explanation for my — what some people might have said quirkiness, what I felt as a shameful, almost a disabling — well, yeah, sometimes it was disabling and a source of such bad stuff.

Laura: And how did you take advantage of that diagnosis? Did you tell people about it? Did it help you access treatment? Did people take it seriously? I have so many questions.

Terry: Compared to the women I've worked with and it's been almost 25 years now, my story's a little bit different. So unlike most of the women when they get the diagnosis — shame comes back, disbelief, there's something wrong with me.

The big one is look at all the years that I've missed. All the lost years in my life. For me it was very different. For me it was, woo — hoo! Now I get it! Now I have an answer to my questions. I didn't look back.

I know what I'm going to do with my life now. Once I learned more about it first — so I went and I had therapy, I tried medication. ADHD coaching was in its infancy. I just took it and ran.

So my decision was I want to help other people, particularly women, because women were really just not acknowledged, weren't understood. We weren't — all the things we're talking about that cause us such shame, nobody looked at that really.

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

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

Terry: It was really tricky because I have to say a good therapist who does evaluations really has to dig deep. The big thing is to be able to differentiate symptoms you see in ADHD that can be explained by other conditions.

You can see those kinds of symptoms in depression, you can see them in anxiety, substance abuse, trauma — trauma very, very interested in lately of there's so many things in common with a person who's had early trauma.

(17:12) The complexity of differentiating ADHD from other conditions.

Terry: Because we would talk afterwards, he would say, "See this person we just saw together? She had this happen to her and there's some of these other symptoms that might explain it better as, let's say, bipolar disorder," whatever. Then he explained how you figure it out and it's a tremendous amount of work.

Laura: I'm curious if you could give us a few examples of what you learned about how to tease things apart. And we can call this anecdotal so that people don't run and diagnose themselves or other people with it, but what are some specific things?

Terry: And I will be open in that I deal with anxiety as well. So one thing that's tricky that I learned is that you can have ADHD and a separate anxiety disorder, or you can have ADHD that creates anxiety because we're anxious a lot of the time because are we doing this right?

Are we going to be — and the time management issues. I'm always late, I can't seem to get it together. I can't get the laundry done. I'm going to get in trouble with my boss. So there's a lot of anxiety in ADHD, but there's also a lot of anxiety in bipolar.

I think when some people go into a manic state, there is anxiety. There's anxiety when you go into a depressive episode. Not for everybody — I can't put everybody in one category. In substance abuse disorder — this is an area that's really sad because we have this attitude of, "Why don't you just get your act together?"

So there's a lot of anxiety and depression in that population and what they're basically doing is they're self — medicating. And then we qualify that as having a weak character or whatever, and that's so wrong.

So in so many different conditions we see anxiety, we see depression. So let's see, in personality disorders — that's another one. ADHD can very much look like a personality — "Oh, you're just narcissistic. All you do is think about yourself."

It may look like narcissism, but we are thinking about ourselves because we're always — what did I do wrong now? Who did I let down now?

Laura: What did I lose? What did I forget? I let you down.

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

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

Terry: You're stuck on that wooden spoon. Oh my god, you're so funny. I'm painting this picture. I love a vivid story that we can see. It's a great one.

(20:51) Practical advice for mothers living with ADHD.

Laura: Terry, what do you feel like people still don't get about women with ADHD?

Terry: First of all, there's still a stigma. This is something I've been hammering away at for all these years. There's still that stigma. And what they don't get is — ADHD is overdiagnosed, you just say you have ADHD. Well, everybody has a little bit of ADHD and we can still do all these things that you claim that are difficult for you.

They don't understand. They don't understand how we hide because of the shame, that we put on a happy face or we pretend. There's new hip words that I see in social media — one of them is masking.

A lot of masking. "Oh, yeah, sure. The teacher said she needs a volunteer to bake brownies for the fundraiser" — and we all with ADHD — "Oh, sure, I'll do it." Now what? We got ourselves into hot water and if we go to that person and say, "You know, I'd like to retract my offer because" — then what do you say? "I have ADHD?" They don't get it.

Laura: Masking is a very real thing.

Terry: It's a painful thing. It's very painful and that's another thing that as what you're doing at understood is educating people about something that's not just ADHD — "Oh, so what? Your kid has ADHD." It can be a huge thing. It can knock us down.

Laura: And you talk a lot about and you are a mom with ADHD and you've been a stay — at — home mom, I believe. We support many, many moms at Understood.org and being a mom with ADHD and if you have kids with ADHD as well is really, really hard.

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

Terry: It is so hard. That's where my heart really belongs is with the moms with ADHD because I've talked to many women who have said, "Going to work is a breeze compared to coming home and parenting."

It's a breeze because there's structure, you get feedback, you know what's expected of you. You come home and especially like you said, if you have children or a child with ADHD, there are no rulebooks. There are no ways of dealing with certain behaviors.

And with your own ADHD connecting with a child's ADHD, it is really difficult. So I would say ask for help. I write about this all the time and I get a lot of flack for it because we know a lot of women don't have the finances, the ability to pay people to help out.

But if you can, give up the movie that you see at the theater and it turns out $50 because you're buying snacks and this and that. And instead get somebody to come into the house once every couple weeks to clean it.

I think doing all these things that women without ADHD can do, it's just too much for us. And letting go of those expectations — again, on women with ADHD or women in general first — it's just a little too much for us with ADHD.

So finding ways to get that kind of help, working with a coach, working with a professional organizer. Now, money is an issue for many, many women. So my take on that is, what about bartering?

Let's say you're really good with animals, and a lot of us are animal lovers — I don't know why, but we are. Say, "I will walk your dog three days a week if you could just watch my kids for an hour while I run to the grocery store." It's too much to take them with me. They can't handle themselves and then I can't handle them and then I can't handle myself.

Laura: Oh, I love that.

Terry: Bartering what you can do well with someone who can help you. To take advantage of family members who will, but you have to really reach out only to people who are non — judgmental, who get you. You don't want toxic help.

Laura: Oh my gosh, 100 percent. Because then it just adds more — it creates more overwhelm and it's just one more thing to manage and it's emotionally draining.

Terry: It's horrible. We already have enough of our own toxic self — shame. We don't need it from the outside. So asking for help is big.

Laura: I like what you said about expectations. I think I've said this once before on the show and I was worried that it came across as like, "We should set low expectations for ourselves." That's not what I mean.

I think that we should still want to do great things and we can do amazing things. It's more about letting that pressure release valve open up. Like, "Maybe I'm just not going to do the dishes every day and they're just going to sit in this sink and is that causing any major problems? Probably not. If they start to overflow and I get bugs, then yeah, then that's a problem."

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

It's not going to kill anybody if you don't cook every single day, but you may get carryout or get ready — made stuff at the market. I talk about all the things you can do now. You can get bagged salad, you can get a rotisserie chicken, you can get a lot of things.

Then we get into all this guilt, which you just got to push it away. "Well, I'm not feeding my kids fresh food. I'm not putting the food through the food mill and making baby food from scratch." Sometimes we just have to take a step back.

We can't be perfect. Nobody is. Nobody is perfect and you can look at any human being and say, "Well, why aren't they doing this? Why aren't they doing that?"

Laura: Terry, somebody got me one of those baby food makers when I had my first child and I just regifted that thing right away. I was like, there is no way that I am going to do that.

Terry: I love you, Laura. I love you.

Laura: I mean, to be fair, I probably put it on my wish list for my baby shower with wide eyes and high expectations for myself. And then I took one look at that thing — I was like, I don't know where the hell to start with this. I'm not going to.

Terry: It's interesting the word that you used — the wish list. Moms with ADHD, we have a huge wish list. But we have to do what works for us because if it works for us, it makes our kids and our family happier.

Laura: Terry, I love talking with you so much. I have one more question for you before we say goodbye for now. What are you most proud of in your career? I want you to brag a little bit.

Terry: I'm proud that I've helped change lives for the better. I have a Facebook group. It's free. And there are 37,000 women in that group. That whole thing says to me, I'm touching people's lives.

I'm helping them in some way. I have a lot of volunteers — I can't handle that whole group — so the volunteers. But I'm also proud of the two books that I wrote because I get a lot of nice feedback from especially my more recent book, "The Queen of Distraction."

It's in different languages now, it's been translated. To think that that's out in the world hopefully forever, and somebody's going to read it and say, "Oh" — like what we're talking about — "Oh, it's not just me. Oh, this makes sense. Oh, I can be okay with this."

I really enjoy helping people. That's why I'm here.

Laura: We're so glad that we get to work with you, all of us at Understood, and you've just done so much for our community. We're really grateful to you.

The books for folks who want to check it out: "The Queen of Distraction" and then your earlier book, "Survival Tips for Women with ADHD." And definitely check out "Climbing the Walls."

Terry is featured in that limited series podcast. We couldn't have made it without you. Terry Matlen, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so grateful.

Terry: Thank you for having me. It was actually a lot of fun. So thank you for that.

Laura: I told you we were going to have fun. This was the best part of my day.

Terry: Me too.

Laura: Thanks for listening today. As always, if you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at ADHDAha@understood.org or send a message to our voicemail inbox. You’ll find a link in the show notes along with resources and links to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

Laura: "ADHD Aha!" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli. Say "Hi," Jessamine.

Jessamine: Hi, everyone!

Laura: Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Alyssa Shea. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Production support provided by Andrew Rector.

Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Scott Cocchiere and Jordan Davidson.

And I'm your host, Laura Key. Thanks so much for listening.