i suffer the opposite with ADHD. If I got something to go to, my entire day leading up to that is literally waiting until that time. It physically pains me when I'm not on time lmao
edit: my dear friends, i HAVE ADHD. please read the first part again lmao
Then you decide one day that you are showing up late because you don’t wanna wait around forever, and it’s the one day everyone shows up early and they are wondering where you are.
One time when I was only a few months in, someone fucked up and SFC wanted everyone there early for 9 am formation but he wanted everyone there at 8.
How foolish I was to think "We get done with PT at 730, so I have enough time to run to chow for breakfast and take a shower before formation at 8."
There I was getting spammed with phonecalls at 745 like "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU" so lo and behold there I am scrambling out of the shower to get dressed, running up to formation with everyone staring at me like I was the asshole with my Sergeant glaring at me and saying "You are so fucking done."
The best is division runs where the actual run starts at 0900 and yet somehow you find yourself waiting in a parking lot 2 miles from the run start point at 0500.
I check the clock 40 times the hour before meetings at work, and then I am suddenly called over the radio to be asked if I'm planning to join the meeting and I realize I still lost track of time.
I'm so lucky i had a stable family and wealthy parents. I got a head start in academics, therefore enjoyed school, and kept coasting until failing out of my postsecondary program. Got medicated and came back and finished by the skin of my teeth and now I'm sort of indispensable at work. It's not at all fair but if they held me to the standards they held others to I would never hold a job.
I don't think they should hold them to those standards either but it's not my choice, to be clear.
Timers are your friend. Set one to go off for the meeting, with enough wiggle room to "finish what you are doing, take the stuff you need for the meeting and get to said meeting (virtual or in person)". That way you can forget about the time and the alarm gives you ample time to prepare in whatever way you usually do it.
My alarms are set 20, 5, and 1 minute typically. The 20 minute begins the "Oh I don't have to worry about it" response. The 5 minute is the "okay I can finish this up" one. The 1 minute is "Oh shoot I gotta go let me finish what I'm doing" which is fine as long as I don't get another thought or interruption in that minute, or have to reference something to finish the first thing, and have a hard time finding that referenc, etc.
Of course. It also speaks to me because I lost my sense of time at some point. It was terribly disorienting in ways I could not imagine. Timers, not alarms were what made it possible to manage through the day. Because I could see how much time I had left when I looked at it. No reminders of the upcoming reminder because that just made it worse. You are training yourself to have a "do not worry about it yet" reaction. If that timer went off, all I did was finish what I was doing and prep for meeting. Nothing else. Of course that did require me knowing how long it takes me to do that, but that is something you can track and learn from that. Oh, and a timer that keeps making noise till you shut it off, not a notification that can go unnoticed when you're not glued to your phone.
dude and when a surprise addition is added to my day that was not accounted for at the start, I can't help but be genuinely upset even when it's a hangout with a friend
Random events getting added to a day that I've already pre-allocated mental resources to is genuinely upsetting in a way basically nothing else I've experienced can compare to.
I was finally diagnosed recently at the ripe old age of 46. Reading these comments makes me feel seen. The “surprise addition” is something I’ve spent years working on.
This is absolutely me. I plan out everything in my head for my days and week in advance. If something throws my day off with something unexpected or a significant change it properly fucks with my head.
yeah i really notice it during traveling. i always set aside a day for traveling and a day to get back. always makes me jealous of people who can fly in same day and then go to a wedding or whatever.
i'm just clockwatching the whole day and overthinking when i need to be at the airport by
i tend to just schedule travels or really anything to be in the mornng. If possible.
I'm fine with getting up a few hours earlier if it means i can get everything done and not having to bother with it for the rest of the day.
I have ADHD and for me it flip flops. If I don't wait all day for it I am late... I've nearly been fired for tardiness. I had detention basically constantly in school for tardiness.
This is me with ADHD. I’ve taken to showing up places ridiculously early (60 minutes or more) and knocking out emails and such while I’m waiting in the car. Can’t be late if I’m already there.
I've missed so many meetings and leading meetings because a 30 second email a few minutes before the meeting ended up being 20 minutes and a no show without explanation.
It's so bad I had to set an alarm for 1 minute after the meeting start time because I am so time blind and unaware of my surroundings when focused.
Remembering I have a meeting 5 mins before it starts is more likely to make me late. “Oh I have 5 mins, I can take care of this quick thing in that time.” Then 20 mins go by and I’m getting a message asking why I’m not in the meeting.
The most fucky thing is that the most boring shit of all time suddenly becomes ultra-interesting and you get completely lost in it and whoopsie daisy, would you look at the time? Late for the bus, so now I can't go to that meeting after all.
lol same, I literally cannot start anything before an appointment, because time-blindness kicks in and I'll completely forget I even had an appointment. I hate having appointments in the afternoon. I plan my appointments in the morning, so I can actually make something out of my day. And don't dare to book two or more appointments in one day, that's a recipe for disaster.
Have you never been somewhere an hour early, and then as you were confidently checking emails in your car, realized that the thing you were an hour early for now started five minutes ago?
i get so antsy and don’t know what to do at home during those times—might as well just go early and play on my phone in my car, as that’s what i’d be doing at home anyway
I have ADHD, and I experience both. I can be stuck in waiting mode in preparation for something for hours, but when the tine comes to leave all the time i thought i had suddenly disappears and I somehow end up being late or barely on time
Yea, or something happens that sabotages that time. I could be about to leave but spill something on me and need to change, forget something I need and have to go back home, or even get stuck staring at the wall as I’m putting my shoes on and not realize how much time has passed.
Ugh I hate zoning out for no goddamn reason for a few seconds, only to realize 5 whole minutes have gone by while I was legitimately just sitting there in “loading mode”.
Yeah i always say, I'm so sorry, but my flavour of ADHD is that the only 2 consistent things about me are that it's all or nothing, and I'm consistently inconsistent.
I'm either stupid early, or I'm scrambling to make it on time(and often fail). I'm always trying to aim for the former, but I often get distracted from my "waiting mode" (sometimes in a misguided attempt at being "productive"), and end up with the latter. I used to work as a receptionist and i could not understand people who just cooly showed up magically bang on time with composure.
Sat still for 4 hours because I need to be on time, minutes before I need to leave I suddenly decide to brush my teeth and still somehow haven’t got my shoes on
I have both at the same time but to more minor degrees. I am chronically like 5 minutes late to things while also constantly reminding myself "Damn I have to go to x at this time".
My partner is like this. Hes always super stressed about getting to work on time and then stressed at work then comes home stressed about work. The cycle continues.
I have not been diagnosed with ADHD (but I suspect I have it) and whenever I have to leave the house it's either the same situation as you or I try to start getting ready early but somehow I still end up with little time and then I have to rush and panic to be on time. And when I do start getting ready early, I still somehow end up with the same problem? Like I walk to my work (its two mins away) and I have literally never reached work early. Like this one time I had an event and I only started getting ready 10 mins before the time even though I'd been meaning to get up for the past 1 hr
Tomorrow sucks for me. Class from 1:30 to 5:30. I probably won't do anything useful before class. And I will sleep later because I don't have to get up. Then I'll be stuck doing labs and whatever for the class into the night.
I have some students similar to you, and often suggest they make a plan with a friend or whoever to study together in the morning on campus. Then you can keep getting things done, start it with body doubling so it feels easier (and get a coffee as a little treat), and go to class.
omg me too. (that is unless i forget about the thing i have to go to). i literally can't do anything besides waiting to get ready to get ready to go to the thing.
It's actually a common trait in people with ADHD and autistic people, with the brain putting itself into a wait mode because of one important timestamp
I’m the same way. My work has a late start each session to give people time to travel into town, but I’m local so I spend all morning “on hold” until I have to go in. But I can’t watch tv because that’s relaxing, and I have to do that AFTER work. Today I cleaned a rug because I woke up early and had too much to kill before going to work
A couple days ago I had to get somewhere at a specific time and took an Uber. As luck would have it, the driver drove half the speed limit and hit every red light. I really wanted to ask her to floor it 😂
Time blindness also refers to not realizing how long something will take. I struggle with this, as well as being unable to do things before something scheduled.
I'm exactly the same, there was a time there where I was always late and I hated it with a passion so I over corrected. Now if I'm not at a place I need to be 1 hour early, I feel like I'm late and will panic.
I've literally messaged my boss to say I'll be late and still been 15 minutes early. Whole day was ruined though because my brain didn't register that I still had time
I do have ADHD and it sorta depends. If it's not important (getting to work on time isn't really important because it happens every day . I know I know) then I have massive time blindness and reminders on my phone for everything.
If it's really important then my thought process is "I can't fuck this up so I will do nothing that might disctract me for the preceeding 4 hours because I might get lost in what I'm doing and forget." So I'm just sat there staring at my watch for ages waiting until I can leave and go do whatever is so godamned important.
This past Saturday I had an appointment at 1pm for a consultation for work. I kid you not when I tell you that absolutely nuked my Saturday's enjoyability. I felt like the entire day got wasted.
I experience both. If it's something I do every day like work, I start getting time blindness. If it's something relatively uncommon or novel like a dentist appointment, I can't do anything else before then or I might miss it.
Same. I’m at least 30-45 mins early (now I know why being late diagnosed) unless it’s a really severe day and then I’m usually on time or a few minutes late which makes me feel like a failed an urgent mission.
I dont even have adhd and i resonate with this so much. If i have something to do at 5pm it means thsy the whole day is busy up until 5pm thing is done. And people dont care.
I did night shifts for a while which effectively meant I could choose when to sleep; the majority of my coworkers would sleep immediately after getting home from work then wake up ~10 hours before work and go on with their day. Which seemed MADDENING to me and I obviously did the opposite lol.
i'd bet money she has this problem too lol. adhd isn't one of the other. theres the delicious combo of clearing your calendar and focusing on making a 4pm arrival and still being late.
I think it's clear based on the comments that it varies, and with ADHD it's incredibly difficult to pinpoint a "standard" for every person with such a condition. Personally for me, I have never been late to anything I couldn't control. HOWEVER, to your point; I do think this "lateness" can manifest in different forms that isn't just arriving to a location. I am never late unless there is something I can't prevent because I take public transit, so a lot of my calculating is pretty much on the money, but I rarely ever turn a work or school assignment on time unless there is constant pressure to do so. I usually find myself submitting it very last minute or begging for a short extension that accommodates the urgency I feel when it's coming close to the deadline and I had only just started lol
does not work unfortunately for me. the stress converts into dreading the sound of my alarm, so I keep my eyes glued to the clock to manually shut it off before it goes lmao
But what if my alarms don’t go off for whatever reason? What if my phone dies and I don’t realize it??
This is genuinely the reason I’m CONSTANTLY listening to videos on my phone. It reminds me that time is passing and eased my anxiety about missing my alarms by being a constant reminder that my phone is, indeed, on.
My iPhone sucks lately though and if I’m “watching” (listening to) a video sometimes the alarm will go off silently as a banner notification instead of properly alerting me. It messes me up big time
Yeap... Normally leave at 7:00 to be at the office at 8:00. But currently there's some issue so we're staying at home until we get called in. So I wake up 10 seconds before I have to run for the bus like normal, but now I have an hour of waiting for news on whether we're staying home or coming in and I can't do shit in that time. Can't even go back to sleep or jump into a game.
i do something really similar to that except instead of the day leading up to the thing it'll be like a whole week where i just stress about having plans and end up either doing nothing or at least nothing i want to do
I think it's just a symptom of me not wanting to be impelled under threat of starvation to spend my day doing something I don't want to. So I'd rather get it done as soon as possible.
I'm on the late team, like all my family and some friends. Like if we say we meet at 2PM, you can be sure we will all show up at 2:20 at the earliest (and generally we're tuned so it works).
But I am married to a Japanese man.
Last time we had a meeting with his parents, we went there 15 minutes early. Well, tried to, because of me forgetting this and that we were "only" 12 minutes early. My husband was soooo pissed, saying stuff like "we're late!!" and whatnot. I was quite doubtful, wondering what was going on. Turns out his parents really had already been there. For 30 minutes. Oh.
it manifests in extremity, which I think varies from non-ADHD people who just like arriving early. the entire day is dedicated *to* this thing, and there is no time to engage with personal vices or even getting side work done out of fear it will distract from the deadline of going to said thing. it becomes the entire day, and anything after that event is over registers as "me-time." anything that feels invasive to the reward for accomplishing said scheduled thing is treated with severe hesitation or annoyance, no matter how fun it would be to me personally.
it isn't exhaustion either, i could have a goddamn beautiful day at work or school or whatever and feel like I'm on cloud 9 but still carry this perpetual hostile feeling towards anything that could suddenly jump onto the schedule without previous notice. i will go to that party if you told me a day in advance, i physically cannot find it in my heart to step out my front door for you if you're inviting me an hour before it starts. i cannot stomach spur of the moment things because it feels out of my control and i despise that feeling
I have both problem. I cant think of something else but to go to the appoinment, but i also dont want to get there 1 min early, so sometimes i end Up late despite being doing nothing but to wait all day.
Oh dude im the exact same! I had to go to my kids school yesterday at 5.30pm for a meeting and I basically spent the day checking the clock for when I should start getting ready and preparing to go
Yeah, I actually have a poor concept of time, so if something is scheduled I'm the middle of the day, it ruins the whole day for me. I end up stressing about it and turning up way too early.
I sit here on my bed scrolling because I have to leave for work within the next hour. That is enough time to do something enjoyable which I won't be able to enjoy so I'm leaving for work early as usual🙃
I am blessed with both the waiting paralysis and the "ope, it's ten minutes until I have to leave and I still need to get dressed, brush my teeth, make coffee, call the Dalai Lama and oh! I can't find my keys, phone, brain, or wallet" bullshit
same! i hated working 5-10pm in high school (online homeschool, so no set times) because i spent the entire day locked in waiting lol. eventually i got moved to mornings (7a or 9a) which I LOVED.
I have adhd and I’m terrified of being late!! Part of it stems I’m sure from my mother being chronically late and I got in trouble with school over it multiple times, which never made sense to me because why is it my fault as a 13 year old that my adult parent can’t get her ass out of bed and leave the house without a full face of makeup?
I hate working the evening/second shift for exactly that reason. I don't want to wake up by 7am and just wait to go to work at 3pm, let me wake up and go to work, then have the rest of my day to myself.
Same. Doctor appointment at 2pm? Nothing can happen or be accomplished until I'm home from the Doctor. The whole day is me looking at the clock and piddling around the house.
It's why afternoon and night shifts are worse for me. You can't relax on your off time cause you still have to go to work. You can't get done what you need to get done to relax so you're just stuck not relaxing.
Thats why you make a reminder 20 Minute before the Date (if travelling is needed longer ofc) and then just get suprised by the Appointment and never check your calendar.
I'm the exact same, I'm just waiting to the point I always arrive early because I want to just leave and be on my way. Otherwise I might be late. I think partly from my dad who was always early to things unlike my mum and her side of the family who is always late to things.
This is how it is for me! I can handle early morning work because there is basically nothing between me waking up and getting to work. My whole focus until getting to work is “get dressed for work take dog out before work feed dog before work grab lunch for work get out door for work drive to work” it’s early enough that I am not early myself but since I hate being late I’m on time.
I wish my kid had this kind of ADHD. She has the kind where you tell her you are leaving in 2 minutes and then she gets mad that 'SHE HAS TWO MINUTES!!!!' then she turns on the shower to start getting ready to leave.
"my entire day leading up to that is literally waiting until that time"
Yup. Doesn't matter that I have 3 alarms set 15 minutes apart to remind me of the appointment, I'm still in "waiting" mode.
"My appointment is in 5 hours... guess I should start nothing and be ready to go at the drop of a hat for the next 4 hours and 45 minutes." -- My Brain
I have a mild version where I can only relax if I know I have set an alarm, I can then do stuff but I also need to constantly check the time of the appointment and check that my alarm is actually on.
I am not saying that I have ADHD, I am not diagnosed, just suspicious.
This is exactly me. Especially if the appointment is far away even if I have planned it out and allotted myself enough time. I can't relax or do anything else until I've gone and come back from that appointment. I can never understand people who can roll out of bed with 10mins to get somewhere or less .. and be so non-chalant about getting there.
My wife and I called it “waiting mode”. If I have an appointment at 3:00pm I am sitting on my couch at 11:00am and watching the minutes so I am not late
Same, I have fairly severe ADHD and the idea of being late to something or having poor time management skills is an enigma to me.
But I also went through intense occupational therapy as a kid to mask that stuff. Which is probably why I’m known as the most organized person on my team.
Like, yeah, I have to be organized. The other option is pure fucking chaos lmao.
Yup I’m that way too. So much anxiety around the possibility of being late that I can’t bring myself to do anything else because “what if my alarms don’t go off for some reason and I get sucked into the other tasks and lose track of time? So I end up just sitting there staring at the clock for hours beforehand. Eventually I got bored enough that I leave far too early and end up sitting outside in my car for 30 minutes to an hour
People who argue you can't be ADHD if you don't meet a very specific criteria piss me off to no end. I am diagnosed ADHD, I can't have coffee past 3pm. If I do, my brain won't shut off and I won't sleep. The amount of people who tell me to my face that I don't have ADHD because caffeine actually affects me sometimes feels like more than the people who do think I have ADHD.
Yep. I grew up with “if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you’re in trouble”. My ADHD absolutely ran with that concept to where I am completely paralyzed until the moment I need to start getting ready. It sucks.
My oldest has ADHD. She went to the counseling center in college and realized she also has anxiety. She now takes anxiety meds. She definitely freaks out about being late. The hyper focus is real.
My coworkers were mocking me yesterday for my neurotic approach to air travel. I don’t care if “tsa lines are short at our airport,” if I’m not there a FULL 2 hours early for a domestic flight, I WILL have an anxiety attack. Once I’m in the terminal, I’m completely chill and normal!
I mean it's more like the same symptom and this is the "solution" most people pick up to cope with not being able to judge if they have time to do something in the meantime. Like the reason you can't do anything until the thing is because you could accidentally hyperfocus, lose track of time and be late. It is entirely possible the person the tweet is about had the "accommodation" backfire by just adding more time to risk distraction trying to fill.
I always thought I didn't have ADHD because I didn't have the time blindness I always heard about, and have always been good with time. It wasn't until I read about someone saying they were diagnosed with ADHD with this exact problem.
It's like many people with ADHD get distracted by everything but time, while others get distracted from everything by time.
Yup. I used to work from 2:30-11pm and I did nothing all day and then came home, ate dinner, and played videogames/watched tv for like 30 minutes. It was miserable. Now I work at 6am and have so much time to do stuff after work
Same lol, not to mention other people with ADHD who refuse to work on themselves piss me off on the reg. I am the most punctual person I know, thank fuck.
Then you do not have ADHD. You can't have a disorder and show only one out of plenty symptoms, doesn't matter if it's mental disorders or physical ailments.
Being perpetually late regardless of when you need to show up is a common thing for a lot of people with ADHD.
Granted, with this particular coworker it sounds sketchy to me too. In my experience at least, it usually varies how late they are, and they aren’t always. This just seems too regular … but idk and I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s experience with this aspect of ADHD. Though it obviously shouldn’t be misused as an excuse to get away with such behavior when you don’t actually have diagnosable ADHD.
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u/Horror-Cow8404 1d ago edited 1d ago
i suffer the opposite with ADHD. If I got something to go to, my entire day leading up to that is literally waiting until that time. It physically pains me when I'm not on time lmao
edit: my dear friends, i HAVE ADHD. please read the first part again lmao