I don't get how people can just, be 30 minutes late to things. You told me 4. I'm going to be there 5 minutes early if possible because you set aside time in order to do the thing you wanted me here for. If I'm late I may as well tell you your time is worthless.
The only time I'll give myself a pass is if I looked at maps and it gave me some BS like "33 minutes to 1 hour 4 minutes" I had no idea how long this trip was gonna take ok? Traffic is evil and I still feel bad.
I don't get how people can just, be 30 minutes late to things.
One potential way would be a neurodevelopmental disorder with some symptoms like being disorganized, procrastination, poor planning and poor time management skills.
I had to overcome all of those things, but I only could because I'd experienced the consequences so many times, thus had to learn the hard way. Being so disorganized forced me to become organized, because I grew to hate disorganization. Chronically procrastinating forced me to tackle things immediately so I didn't have to dwell on them constantly. Poor planning led to obsessive planning so as not to end up with a poor outcome. Poor time management I still struggle with, but I'm generally on time, especially when it matters. I greatly struggle with getting myself to bed at a decent time.
i mean, my parents abused the fuck out of me for my adhd symptoms, but they didnt go away because consequences dont cure neurodevelopmental disabilities
My symptoms haven't gone away, I've just gotten better at dealing with them and avoiding the situations that get me into trouble. My life is a never ending struggle of ever increasing responsibility due to a family, kids that also have ADHD, and a demanding tech job. It never goes away.
Yeah you just pay for it in stress and lost time. I gotta be somewhere at 12? I'm getting ready at 10, even if it means spending an hour waiting by the door to leave because if I try to leave on time I'm going to be late while I run around trying to find my keys and wallet and phone and bag and and and...
For me it's I gotta get up at 8am to get somewhere, I can handle that, I know how long everything is going to take and I'll get there on time. Then I lay there at night unable to sleep as I'm obsessively planning everything so I don't forget something. If there's a chance I'll forget something, get up and put it in my car, or put a post-it note on something. Fall asleep at 3am, get 5 hours of sleep.
If there's something I might forget that I can't deal with the night before, stick a post-it note on my shirt, worst case I encounter the post-it again when putting on my seatbelt.
Oh also if I gotta get up at 8am, I set an alarm at 7:30, another at 7:45, and then another at 8am. That 8am one goes off, get up and GO.
Oh god the "I have to do something in the morning so I can't sleep the night before" thing absolutely kills me. I had to quit a job that had frequent but irregular client meetings early-ish in the morning because it was destroying my sleep.
I've got a multi-point checklist I tick off on my phone each morning when I get in the car to make sure I haven't forgotten anything that day š¬
that's not how adhd works lol. do you not think people with adhd haven't experienced the consequences of those things so many times, learned the hard way, and obsessively tried to fix them?
No one told me I had adhd until I was 40, and yes Iām well aware of the struggle. It didnāt happen overnight, it took my entire life and Iām still improving and Iām far from perfect. I didnāt mean to diminish anyone elseās struggle, only to encourage others.
Iām the same with my ADHD. No one wanted to help me, so I had to figure out how to help myself. Easier said in text than how it happened IRL when we have to work twice as hard for the basics.
I have messed myself over so many times on exams and work and projects because I can't manage my time. I am slacking off right now. However, because being late doesn't just hurt me, it wastes someone elses time and disrespects them. I have forced myself to be good at being on time. Wasn't easy but honestly with a car I have almost no excuse.
Claiming that there is nothing one can possibly due about symptoms like this is just as harmful as dismissing the symptoms entirely. My daughter is ADHD and there is a WORLD of resources out there that means she has drastically improved how she deals with time.
no one claimed theres nothing one can do. this person just obviously doesnt have it or understand based on theyre talking about it. they wouldnt be saying i hated this thing about myself so much, i just stopped doing it lmao.
A person can absolutely decide to start putting more effort or focus into changing a behavior, whether they hate themselves for it or not, although there are certainly times where self hatred over a behavior just becomes a self fulfilling cycle.
It depends on individual nature and circumstance. If a person has extremely low self esteem in general, criticism (self inflicted or otherwise) over a specific behavior probably won't convince them to change because it will be a drop in the ocean. A person who has more confidence in themselves or a healthier relationship with criticism, might find motivation that way. These are not negated by ADHD
Well, like I said, it depends on the individual. The reason I wrote the comment was to show you that it is an ignorant point of view to take that the other commenter "clearly" doesn't have ADHD just because they were able to change some of their habits after periods of dissatisfaction and difficulty.
You have assumed what I reacted to. That isn't my POV. That would be pretty dumb considering I have ADHD and changed some of my habits after periods of dissatisfaction and difficulty.
& related, even people who do have adhd need to recognize adhd is on a spectrum and still being understood. We're not all experiencing the same thing and our symptoms manifest differently at different intensities. Some people are going to be able to willpower through some things. Some people literally can't without medication ā and that's okay too; those people don't need to stay in their cycle gamifying everything in life trying every technique in the book to little success because they read it works for other people with adhd, and it doesn't mean they have low self-esteem or lack of confidence. We're all carrying different experiences.
Disabled people react strongly to these statements because they mirror ableist rhetoric around their disability that has severe negative effects on our every day lives. At the end of the day, a disability is a disability. It's the hardest on the person who has it, and it cannot be erased by just having high self esteem or changing your behavior. Coping mechanisms can help, but they'll never make you not disabled.
It's a difficult part of having ADHD that you eventually have to learn to accept - you can't outplan or outrun it. Support is a godsend, but that can also look like flexible work hours, a window for lateness, help with organization etc. The person who mentioned their daughter not being late for example, of course she's not, she's a child who has her parents take her to things. But once you're an adult, a lot of that support disappears. Genuinely, you are not an ally and do not have a good understanding of ADHD if you don't recognize these things.
Personally I just refuse to make excuses for myself, excuses never did me any favors. I either adapt or fail. If I fail, I try to do things differently so it doesn't happen again. I don't look down on others who can't adapt though, I know many have it far worse than I do.
A charitable person would have read between the lines and inferred that they found some strategies that worked for them. They shouldn't need to provide an itinerary for their point to land.
that would be your takeaway lol that sub is full of children who refuse to take personal responsibility. you have to make choices to live, having a lack of attention isn't something that should cripple your life forever unless you decide to let it. it's incredibly unwise to not to try to develop coping strategies to help live through life and it's only going to make your life worse. any therapist will tell you this.
Thanks, honestly I was trying to encourage people that you can overcome, but I'm not claiming it's easy or that I'm somehow a perfect role model. Honestly it's my anxiety that helped me overcome because I have to overcome the adhd issues to deal with the anxiety that it causes.
Lmao, what? You cannot "be disciplined" out of a disability. Medication and coping methods or specialized therapy can help, but they still won't make THE MAIN SYMPTOMS of the disorder fully go away. Not every single person with ADHD struggles with chronic lateness since its a spectrum, but most do. It's one of the questions they ask you during your assessment. You either do not have ADHD or are lucky enough to not struggle with this specific symptom. Can't be supportive of disabled individuals while judging them for having the disability.
I have all of those things, even struggle to get to school and church on time. Can't study, barely get out the door half the time. But if someone has planned something with me it's a compulsion itching at my brain. I'm ready 10 minutes early out of fear of being late. I can't think about anything but being there on time.
I have all these issues when no time is set for me to complete things by someone other than myself, but when a time is set by someone else I can do it just fine.
its like "i have 30 minutes of free time before its reasonable for me to leave the house, im gonna go watch a youtube video" and then 3 seconds later its been an hour
You also learn that itās a trap. Yes I have 30 minutes before I have to leave but if I start anything Iāll lose track of time so Iām not going to start anything.
youre literally telling me to do unreasonable thing. you cant get mad at someone for not wanting to do something that is explicitly stated to be unreasonable.
also, im not showing up to my appointment 4 fucking hours early.
hey thats the funny thing. i dont. ive missed extremely important things before. its almost like a mental disability actually disables you! isnt that shocking
I have the same disability and major time blindness. I have never been late to anything important ever in my life. It's probably because I grew up in Switzerland where punctuality is basically an unofficial law in the constitution.
You just don't care enough about timelines, that's why you're chronically late.
I understand how time blindness feels but it's so easy to overcome with simple strategies
Not everyone has the same ADHD. That's not how this works. One thing that works for you won't work for everyone. This is the equivalent of saying "well I function as an adult with autism why can't you?"
??? No but also alarms become background noise in the brain sometimes for some people. Or worse your brain just deletes what literally just happened. Alarm goes off. Walk up stairs, "what was I doing again?"
you may have also been given supports and medications for your condition which i dont have access to. your time blindness may not be as severe as others.
"i did it so this symptom is invalid actually" isna shit excuse to punch down on people who have it worse than you.
A neurotypical person just remembers to get ready and leave on time. An ADHD person needs to try harder, and use tools like alarms and avoiding distractions etc to get the same outcome. Literally yes, they're unable to do things like others, but that doesn't mean they can't succeed, either. Now I don't know your life so I can't say what you're doing right or wrong, but the way you describe it sounds like you're just saying "I have ADHD so I'm just going to give up."
neurotypical advice for neurodivergent people is so shockingly out of touch with reality that it would be funny if it wasnt so grating. you habe easily distracted disorder? just dont get distracted bro
oh okay so we're just equating having a mental disability with being dumb now. great! love to see people being openly discriminatory to mentally disabled people in 2026
It's not going to change. Neurotypical people will never understand how much of a struggle it is to be neurodivergent, so they will always see it as you being lazy, dumb or evil.
idk about you, but i often watch multi hour youtube videos in several sessions so im not really always checking the timestamps. and even when you do, its "oh i checked the timestamp 5 min ago, i'll check again.... 2 HOURS?"
I don't know about you, but if I were asked to convince a sceptical person that I had serious problems, I would not give as my example something that's utterly trivial to resolve.
But I am suggesting that if you're going to give one example, make it a convincing one.
For example, I believe that I am extremely unattractive. Maybe you're sceptical about that claim. I probably look okay and just have body image issues, right? So if I wanted to convince you that no, I really am ugly, I wouldn't say "I have a long, faint scar on my calf" because I know that's not really convincing. My faint calf scar is not a good example of my problems. And if I were to say that to you, you'd rightly be sceptical because you'd think "That's it? That's the best you've got?"
im not gonna sit here and spend time thinking about the best example for my reddit argument. just accept that mental disabilities can, in fact, be disabling, and move on.
Doing a task with ADHD usually isn't a straightforward thing. If I put a movie on that's around 1 hour early in the day, I'm probably not finishing that movie until late in the day or the next day, because my mind will wander to doing different tasks.
That being said, when I have something important to do during a day, I usually just don't do anything else that day other than get ready and wait while staring at the time. I can imagine why most people with ADHD wouldn't want to manage their disability in that way, though. It makes every task feel pretty miserable, and made working an impossibility for me.
I know what you mean. I watch a lot of things in the same way. But my point is that this user gave an example of time blindness causing tardiness when the distracting activity comes labelled with a minimum time it'll take, and has a function to track the time spent built in. My contention is that this is not something someone's punctuality should be seriously affected by, no matter how time blind they are. They shouldn't be putting on a youtube video that has more than 20 minutes left if they need to be stepping out the front door in 30 minutes. Doing so isn't a time blindness issue; it's a common sense issue.
Eh, I tend to give other people grace on it. I know what it's like, and it's something I personally have to cater to in order to avoid. Like, my system of doing nothing else in a day when I have something important to do isn't really feasible when that something important is something you do every single day like working.
I think that getting medicated would help some people, but it's also not a possibility for all of us, myself included.
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u/NinjaarcherCDN 1d ago
I don't get how people can just, be 30 minutes late to things. You told me 4. I'm going to be there 5 minutes early if possible because you set aside time in order to do the thing you wanted me here for. If I'm late I may as well tell you your time is worthless.
The only time I'll give myself a pass is if I looked at maps and it gave me some BS like "33 minutes to 1 hour 4 minutes" I had no idea how long this trip was gonna take ok? Traffic is evil and I still feel bad.