Episode
27. ADHD and Survival Mode: How to Stop Trying Harder and Actually Thrive (with Rachel Few)
- Podcast
- ADHD Mums
- Published
- Aug 24, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1763
- Processing state
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Summary
From the outside, she's on top of it. Then something small happens — a cold, a bad night, one extra thing — and the whole thing collapses. And she decides the collapse is the problem. She needs to be better. More disciplined. Try harder. But the collapse isn't the problem. The collapse is information. The problem is that she's been running her whole life on a system that was never built for her brain — and every time it falls over, she reads it as proof that she's the thing that's broken. Rachel Few is back, and this one is about the loop underneath all of it: if I could just try harder. Why effort was rewarded your whole life, why it stopped working the moment you had kids, and what it actually takes to stop surviving and start thriving — not the influencer version with the one massage and the full cup, the real one. CHAPTERS 00:00 — The collapse isn't the problem. The collapse is information. 02:07 — Why 'just try harder' worked for years — until it didn't 03:12 — Jane's two years out of school, and the effort trap hiding inside a success story 04:36 — Add kids, and the sprint you can't run as a marathon 05:42 — Fight or flight: why you can't get the drone view of your own life 06:41 — Why every mum deserves a coach, and nobody questions it for a marathon 06:56 — The homework trap — leaving every appointment with more to do 09:02 — Why women keep landing back on 'I'm the problem' 10:25 — Effort that's purposeful vs effort that's just doing, doing, doing 11:26 — 'I've done years of therapy but I still can't get the shopping done' 13:22 — When to go back and unpack, and when to stay in the here and now 15:27 — The Friday meltdown that actually started on Monday 16:48 — The map: why women stop feeling like they're winging it 17:45 — The wine-and-big-plans trap, and Jane…