When You Make Yourself the Joke — And It Turns Into ‘That’s Just Who I Am’
ADHD Mums · Jane McFadden
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Show Notes
In this episode, we unpack the very real (and very common) experience of showing up already stretched… masking it with humour… and then internalising the entire thing as a personality flaw.
The jokes land.
People laugh.
It looks like you’re coping.
But underneath it — something else is happening.
🧠 What We Cover in This Episode:
- What’s actually happening when you default to self-deprecating humour
- Why ‘being funny about it’ can be a form of real-time regulation
- How overwhelm gets rewritten as ‘this is just who I am’
- The hidden role of impression management in social situations
- Why you leave interactions replaying everything you said
- What ‘cognitive downplaying’ looks like in everyday life
- How overcommitment + pressure turns into identity, not context
- Why nothing changes when you minimise what’s actually too much
- The moment it shifts from ‘this doesn’t work for me’ to ‘I am the problem’
- What it looks like to move the pressure off you — and back onto the situation
💭 This episode is for you if:
- You make jokes when you’re actually overwhelmed
- You leave social situations thinking ‘I did it again’
- You overcommit, then feel trapped in it
- You replay what you said and cringe later
- You’ve labelled yourself as ‘too much’, ‘chaotic’, or ‘bad at follow-through’
- You feel like you have to manage how others see you
🎁 Free Resource
ADHD Self-Test
https://adhdmums.com.au/adhd-self-test/
If you’ve ever thought
‘is this just my personality… or something else?’
this is a helpful place to start.
🎧 Related Episodes
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Why You’re Bad at Asking for Help and What to Do Instead
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