Postpartum & ADHD with Coach Elizabeth Brink
In this podcast episode, Elizabeth Brink, an ADHD coach, delves into the intricacies of parenting with ADHD, focusing on the postpartum phase and the sensory challenges that accompany it. The discussion highlights the unique experiences of neurodiverse parents and offers strategies for managing the stress and overwhelm that can arise.
Highlights:
Elizabeth Brink shares insights on how postpartum challenges affect individuals with ADHD.
The episode emphasizes the impact of sensory overload on parenting decisions.
Practical strategies for managing ADHD symptoms and sensory challenges in parenthood are discussed.
Summary
Elizabeth Brink joins the podcast to explore the multifaceted experiences of new parents with ADHD. She explains how the postpartum period, with its hormonal changes and sleep deprivation, can amplify ADHD symptoms, making it difficult for individuals to maintain routines and manage sensory sensitivities. Through personal anecdotes, Elizabeth emphasizes the importance of understanding one's sensory experiences and the potential for stress and panic that can inadvertently affect both the parent and the newborn.
The episode sheds light on the sensory world of new parents with ADHD, where heightened sensitivities to sound, temperature, and touch can be overwhelming. Elizabeth shares strategies for coping with these challenges, including open communication with medical providers about medication and the importance of therapy. The conversation underscores the need for neurodiverse parents to prioritize self-care and seek support, acknowledging that the emotional rollercoaster of parenting is a valid experience.
Elizabeth and the host engage in a candid discussion about the realities of parenting with ADHD, emphasizing the value of working with coaches or therapists to prepare for the life changes that accompany starting a family. The episode aims to create a space where new parents feel understood and equipped to navigate their parenting journey, fostering a community of support for those facing similar challenges.
Transcript
00:00 - Sarah (Host)
The Adulting with ADHD podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. Please see a medical professional if you think you have ADHD or if you have questions about your current treatment. To support this podcast or to access the podcast archives, visit patreoncom slash. Adulting with ADHD. This is the Adulting with ADHD podcast self-empowerment for people with ADHD. Today I am excited to have with me again Elizabeth Brink. She is with us again. She is an ADHD coach and founder of Thriving Sister Coaching. Hi Elizabeth, how are you doing? Very good? Thanks for having me. Good to have you back again. I love your glasses. I know this is a podcast, so most people can't see this unless you're listening on YouTube, but I love those glasses. So, yeah, do you want to tell the listeners a little bit, if they're new to the show, what you're about, and then we could jump in? Could?
01:01 - Elizabeth (Guest)
jump in Sure. So I work with folks who have ADHD or who think they do or aren't sure but are just really struggling to manage all of the things in their life, and I am trained to do various modalities of coaching, including some somatic, body-based coaching. Yeah, and I just work with my clients and in small group settings on reducing shame, building self-acceptance and kind of tuning into our bodies as we try to figure out how to manage life. Excellent.
01:35 - Sarah (Host)
I love the body focus and I know last time you were here we talked at length about the hormone challenges and your own personal story. If you guys haven't heard that episode, I highly recommend it. It's actually one of our best episodes, I feel, and just based on the downloads, the listeners agree it's a good episode, oh thank you, it's just yeah, that was on menopause and you know people aren't talking about that very much yeah.
01:59
Yeah. So we appreciate you sharing your story, and today we're going to talk about postpartum, which I'm really excited to hear your feedback on, because I went through postpartum without really understanding the relationship with ADHD, so I'm really excited about this episode. So, jumping right in, the first question is how would you describe this impact that postpartum has on ADHD symptoms?
02:23 - Elizabeth (Guest)
Oh goodness, sarah, yeah, like you, I didn't totally have my eye on my ADHD postpartum and I think this is really common experience. I was diagnosed as a kid so it wasn't like I didn't know I had ADHD, but in postpartum I felt like what is happening? Do I have a major mood disorder? Am I not made for parenting? Like I just spent my whole life thinking I'm one of five kids, I'm going to have a big family, and then my first was born and I was like, oh my gosh, like nobody, leave me alone with her. So like, oh my gosh, it's not me, is it? Some of that was definitely anxiety that was missed for a long time, but the other piece of it was that I didn't understand. I didn't understand enough about, like, my own sensory experience in the world and how that factored in and also the you know common challenges with sleep and how that factored in, and so when you think about that around a major hormonal event like having a baby, you absolutely have impacts to the ADHD.
03:34 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, that's a really good point that there's so many things going on here that it is hard to really pinpoint, because you know we had talked in the last episode about just the estrogen and progesterone really affecting cognitive function. But, as you're saying, you throw in sleep, you throw in anxiety, you throw in oh my gosh, you have this new roommate who is a hundred percent dependent on you. I agree it's like totally blindsided. I totally feel for that.
04:04 - Elizabeth (Guest)
And a lot of adrenaline. There's a lot of adrenaline in those first weeks where you're excited, it's fun, your brain lights up and you're like, oh okay, this is my new hobby. Oh, we love a new hobby, do we not? So it's you know, we throw ourselves into it.
04:20
I remember saying to somebody I feel like I am in grad school and I haven't gone to grad school, but I think this is what it would feel like Like I was Googling stuff in the middle of the night. I was just constantly reading and looking things up and frantically surveying everyone. I knew Is this normal? What's this? I see this, what am I supposed to do? And I think that energy we are we're familiar with it right, that's our like, that hyper focus energy.
04:48
Some of it is the excitability, the impulsivity and in postpartum, the difficulty of that is that a lot of the information that's out there is predatory on new parents. It is fear mongering, a lot of. If you don't get this right, the stakes are really high. And so if you think about somebody who is overly tired, is probably undernourished and dehydrated and is already prone to overwhelm, is having physical and emotional neurological impacts to their body based on their hormones.
05:29
Reading up on stuff in the middle of the night, when they're by themselves with a baby that will or won't latch if they're breastfeeding, can be really unhelpful, it can be harmful, it can be dangerous, it can create a sense of stress and panic in new parents that can be really difficult to wade through, and so I think that's where the ADHD begins. It's kind of amplifying this season of life of just trying to integrate this new responsibility. We struggle with new routines, we struggle with the carrying it out and doing it consistently, and everything out there for parents, and especially with newborns, is like all about the like pounding the drum of consistency. Oh, it's all about consistency, yeah, just so stressful, it's like. No, it is not all about consistency, you're right.
06:25 - Sarah (Host)
And not to mention, the baby can feed off your energy. So if you're like a bundle of anxiety trying to, yes, so yeah, it's totally spot on. I know I was told by more than one medical provider to stop Googling things Cause I I, I literally had to sleep in my therapist's office one afternoon Like I was a hot mess and she was like I'm going to just turn off the lights and you're going to sleep in here. It's a scene straight off of this Is Us. Like I think that did happen on this Is Us, but that really happened and I had more than one doctor say get off of this. So when you were going through this, did you have one or two quote unquote safe resources you could go to when you did need information and maybe you couldn't get to the doctor? Or did you have any strategies that helped with the information?
07:17 - Elizabeth (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, I had to find my trusted people well before that. So our journey into parenthood started with three miscarriages. Started with three miscarriages and I was already thick into who do I reach out to to check in with about what I'm experiencing, because I'm not sure if it's normal, right and as human beings we tend to want to normalize anyway and to get some validation. So I have two sisters I'm very close to. One of them had already had children of her own, the other one had not yet. One of them had already had children of her own, the other one had not yet, and so I reached out to them quite a bit and a couple of other friends who were further along in the parenting journey and those were kind of my SOS. They were like send it here, We'll Google it for you.
08:01 - Sarah (Host)
Really good piece of advice is have your people in place, and I wanted to back up to the sensory stuff because this was something that was huge, that I didn't put together until my child was a toddler. But you want to talk a little bit about the sensory stuff you ran into during postpartum.
08:17 - Elizabeth (Guest)
Yes. So you know a lot of us with ADHD. We have a more sensitive nervous system and what I find is that most people, when they're getting diagnosed, they actually early on in their journey of understanding themselves. They don't nobody tells them about this part of our brain and our bodies, but it is a very common experience to be more sensitive than others to sound, to light, to feelings, so like tags and clothes, to temperature in a room like maybe you get really hot easily or you get really cold easily. Other sensory things can be having a weird taste in your mouth and just being like agitated by that. Getting sweaty that's one of mine. Getting sweaty is a sensory experience I do not enjoy. So I didn't.
09:06
I actually didn't know this about myself either and diagnosis as a kid and I had kids late in my late thirties, so I went a very long time in life not knowing that my my stress level going up when I am sweaty and trying to make decisions is related to my ADD. So I had this one evening where I was trying to cook dinner. The kids were like talking and I don't know they one of them might've been crying the TV was on and my husband came in and asked me something and I just like snapped, I was like I don't know and it was something about like where a piece of mail was or something, and I was just like what it was like I was being accused of something was my response. You know, it was just like I wasn't in my body. I was like having a freak out moment. And when he said what's going on, I was like I'm really hot and I joked so many times about really relating to Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite when he gets so sweaty and he shaves his head. I felt like that so many times. I'm just like, oh my gosh, just get the hair off of my body.
10:10
And then, so it was in that, starting to notice like, okay, my meltdown moments, my moments when I reach my limit and I snap and I yell at people, including my children, usually have some sensory component to them. So it's taking them to the playground and forgetting a diaper or thinking I had something that I didn't. And then the kids are having a hard time in the car on the way home and it's getting close to nap and somebody is dozing off and I'm trying to keep them awake and so all that stress, right, is getting me to this place of like, finally making it home and declaring I'm never taking the kids to the playground again. Sensory wise for me and my own body, it was such an overwhelming experience and I felt I can't do that. I don't want to be yelling at them, I don't want to be spending my time like that, so I'm just not going to go to the park with them.
11:02
And it got to the point where it was like I don't go anywhere without a double stroller. My kids are 16 months apart in age, they are three and a half and four and a half and if they decide to gang up on me, they can. I do this less now, but for the first three solid years I always had a double stroller because I was like I need to know that I can strap them in, they are safe and I can help myself regulate in the moment, because otherwise I end up feeling what am I going to do? Do I like call my husband home from work or to the park to help me load them up in the car? Or so that piece of it of understanding that, like, our sensory inputs have a big impact on our cognitive functioning and on our mood and our energy.
11:51
So at the end of a day, you'll hear moms talk about being touched out or just being wiped out and their partner saying what's the big deal? What'd you do? Today I sat in a rubber room with all these people making noises at me all day long, touching me, getting me dirty, and it was hot today. So I'm exhausted and I'm ready for bed. And, yes, I sat literally for most of the day, and so there's a lot of guilt and shame around that. But it is this sensory piece and it is huge. It's huge for neurodivergent parents.
12:26 - Sarah (Host)
Something that's brought me comfort is just knowing that there is affordable, private online therapy available anytime and anywhere through BetterHelp, and I just found it to be way more convenient and way more in line with how I prefer to communicate. There's ways to communicate through email, through chat, through phone, whatever is easier for you and listeners of the Adulting with ADHD podcast can save 10% off their first month today if they sign up To take advantage of this deal. Go to betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting. That is betterhelpcom slash ADHD adulting, absolutely yeah, and to your point, it's parenthood, it's not postpartum. So even after postpartum, it's. This is for life, and I'm glad we spent some time on that topic. So for those who are in postpartum now or they anticipate being in the future, we kind of already went over a little bit of advice. But do you have anything else like on a bumper sticker that you would tell them Sure ADHD person? To put it on a?
13:29 - Elizabeth (Guest)
bumper sticker. What size car is this bumper sticker going on? So, yeah, I would say, talk to your medical providers and your psychiatrist. If you are an ADHD person who is taking medication, pregnancy and breastfeeding does not necessarily mean that you can't take medication, that you can't take stimulants. Some providers won't entertain the conversation and some will. So if that is something that you feel like is keeping you from considering parenthood, or if you're suffering right now, and especially if you're in the postpartum season and the first two years postpartum, definitely talk to somebody. So that's one and then another.
14:12
A lot of us have undone projects all the time I'm laughing, I know right, undone projects, and the pressure to have everything buttoned up and ready before a child enters your family and this could be however they enter your family is so high for people with ADHD. Oh, we're gonna get this little space ready or we're gonna, I'm gonna have that done, so I don't have to worry about that. And then it doesn't get done. And so what can happen in this time of integrating a kid into your family, whether you have postpartum hormones or not? Is that? The shame and the guilt over all that stuff not getting done can just rule your days. And so you've got this overwhelming responsibility to care for this new or older little person. If this is like through foster care or adoption, right, all the pressure to like get to know them and get to know yourself in this new role. But you've got all these things in your space that are like yelling at you. They're just projects yelling at you and they might even be loved ones who are like when are you going to get this done? Like what? I mean, could you have just unloaded the dishwasher? So that space of time where we start to feel physically better or better able to cope and manage these new responsibilities is such a danger zone for shaming ourselves that we should be back to normal and doing more than we're doing. What's the big deal? The the kid sleeps all day or goes to school. What's the big deal? And it's like listen, integrating parenthood and shifting into that role is an enormous life transition for us. So if we don't honor that, we will end up in a place where we'll look back on that early time and it'll be a complete blur, probably. Anyway, no matter what. But it might also be a time of like regret.
16:11
And man, I spent so much of that time feeling really bad about myself or letting other people say things that made me feel bad, instead of saying I know this, for you wouldn't maybe feel like this or be this hard, but for me it is and it is what it is, and by having these conversations over and over, we're just exhausting me of more energy I could be using to adjust to this, care for this person and do the little bit that needs to get done to care for myself. And so I think that's like new parents, the prioritizing the care of the primary caregiver parent. So, whichever one of you is like, primarily taking care of the child. If one of you is also postpartum and has the hormonal stuff going on, it doesn't matter. If you're the primary caregiver you get, you're the first class. Like you are the one that needs to be making sure, like everybody needs to be making sure your needs are getting met, because the hormonal shifts in postpartum, on top of already challenged cognitive functioning at times with our ADHD and our memory, it can create serious anxiety and depression.
17:26
So also, if you're feeling, if you're feeling scared of your kid, like I was, if you're feeling like you don't want to be alone with them or you don't want to take them out of the house because it's too overwhelming to imagine carrying a car seat and a diaper bag that's fully stocked. Talk to somebody, because that could be more than just the stress of new parenthood. And likewise, if you're not feeling connected to your child and you're just generally living in days of overwhelm, that's normal to some extent. But you can't know if what you're thinking is normal and other people are telling you is normal is the same thing. So someone else at the playground may say oh yeah, like I hate going out with my kid, it's so much work I really don't like doing it. But they do every single day and they didn't tell you that part. And so you're like oh okay, everybody hates getting out with their kid, but you're not going out every day because you actually can't. It is too overwhelming. Those are different things.
18:25 - Sarah (Host)
That's so important, it's so true. Yeah, you might need more support, more support, absolutely. You've got to listen to that voice if you think something might be up. Or, like you said, you may not even be aware that something could be up because, um, I know, as you were telling that story, I was thinking to myself god, I, I remember what a pain in the ass that was too, just with one. And you got the sunscreen, you've got the bug spray, you've got the hydration. Like I'm getting overwhelmed just thinking about it. Like I'm getting sweaty trigger warning.
18:57
Trigger warning on this episode does this come up a lot in your coaching practice? Postpartum challenges do you have a?
19:04 - Elizabeth (Guest)
yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had a few of my clients add children to their families and definitely have to navigate through a lot of reacquainting to themselves and getting to know what do I need and how do I advocate for myself. That's something that a lot of us don't have a lot of practice in and I also recommend, if you are feeling like you may want to start a family, through whatever means that you are able, it's not a bad idea to like start working with a coach and start thinking about, or a therapist and start thinking about what parts of life might shift and change, because it is a huge change and it's also doable. Like plenty of people manage and take care of themselves and their kid and they get through that first little time.
19:56
I remember early on, I remember hearing I had said something to someone about how I didn't like the baby stage, which is like you're not supposed to say that I don't like babies.
20:06
I do like babies but I didn't like the baby stage and for a long time I just was puzzled by it. But I knew it had something to do with my overwhelm and I realized over time I started talking to more and more neurodivergent moms and they were like, oh yeah, I didn't like the baby stage either, and now there are there have been some who did like it. But I'm like talking to more and more of them and I'm like, wait, is this like a thing? And it turns out like for a lot of us it is so overwhelming in that first couple of years, especially the first year, their neediness is so intense and in such a physical way for us that a lot of neurodivergent moms do not love that stage of life and it can feel really weird to feel that way. So that's the other thing I always tell people is if you don't like it or if you have like extra stress, come up. That's not. That doesn't mean anything about who you are as a parent. It's just a season and it is a really hard season.
21:07 - Sarah (Host)
Very hard season. I'm really glad you brought that up because I know I went through a lot of that beating up stuff and I know my therapist. My therapist had me go in the back of the house for at least an hour a day just to just get that touched out feeling get it out. And at the we were at a point where I couldn't even hear the crying. I had to go in my car if I wanted to. So please, if you do feel like that, don't feel guilty. And it's almost like you do need a sensory deprivation chamber. You have to get all that out, you have to clear it. And here I am with my daughter is the same age as your eldest child. I'm still doing that, guys Like. It never stops.
21:48 - Elizabeth (Guest)
Oh, me too. Yeah, and yeah, I have earplugs in my desk. You have the loose times when I just need to like no, I don't yet, I just have these disposable. There are times when I just need, I need to not even hear anything going on. I can still hear like a little bit of something. Yeah, there's always something right, yeah, yeah, but like my. I tried to explain to somebody like my body physiologically responds to the sound of my children, like I am like inexplicably tied to them in a way that I can't not respond. My nervous system is not capable of not responding to hearing them, and so I know that about myself, of not responding to hearing them, and so I know that about myself. So I know that for certain things I have to. I do have to leave the house, like I can't just assume oh, their dad's with them, it's fine, they're downstairs. If I hear them struggling, it's forget whatever I'm doing, my mind is on. Oh, I wonder if he needs help.
22:48 - Sarah (Host)
He does not need help.
22:49 - Elizabeth (Guest)
He's fine.
22:51 - Sarah (Host)
Yeah, they don't even try and it gets figured out. It's like whatever. I mean, I'm sure they go through some sort of they're not all the same, but I know mine goes through like this internal strife that I never hear about, but it seems flawless when he's doing it, like wow, I want to learn. Well, where can listeners follow you online if they want to see what you're?
23:10 - Elizabeth (Guest)
about when can listeners follow you online if they want to see what you're about. They can come and hang out with me in the Enclave if they want. It's the. The website is actually linked on my website, so thrivingsistercoachingcom is my website and then you can come find me. I do small group coaching, one-on-one, and also help run this community for women with ADHD, called the Enclave, where we just explore topics like this together.
23:35 - Sarah (Host)
This has been really nice. Thank you so much for being with us, elizabeth, and I know this is going to be a really good episode for a lot of new moms and moms in general and people in general, because I think this is all such vital information that nobody really tells you. Yeah, thank you, sarah. Hey guys, I'm here to ask a little favor. So, in order to grow the podcast even more, it's come to my attention that I should probably survey you guys to get a better idea of who's actually listening and what you guys want and what you don't want. If you could pretty please go to adultingwithadhdcom slash survey, it would help me immensely to have this information, not just for myself, as I'm creating content, but for any potential partners who may want to help grow the show. I would like to find people who are exactly right for you guys. Thank you very much and until next time. Happy adulting.
