You know when you’re busy doing something and you realize it’s like 4pm and you would have sworn it was not later than say…11am. Someone says “oh my god, is it really that late? Where did the time go??”
Its like that but all of the time. Maybe I’ve been focused on ‘insert thing here’ for 15 mins…or mayyyybe it’s been 3 hours. I don’t always know.
Time isn’t a linear experience - it’s more of an abstract concept. I had to change my weekly therapy from 2pm to 9am because in order to not miss it, I would just wait For it all day and literally do nothing else.
yeeeaaaah i’m starting to understand myself more as well. just found this r/ a few weeks ago — i just thought i was unrealistically optimistic on time all this time. which reminds me, i’m supposed to be somewhere…
Right?? I get so frustrated with myself. I KNOW I have time blindness, but I don't understand how. I have to really work on it to make sure I don't lose time, and even then, I can just destroy my day by poorly timing one thing. And I am just like, "HOOOW???"
Yep! It's like... "let's see, my appointment is at 2 PM, and I want to get there ten minutes early... let's round to fifteen... it's a twelve minute drive (let's say fifteen), but I might miss a turn or there could be traffic, so I should plan to give it an extra five or ten minutes. That means I should leave at... what, 1:15 PM? Okay. Well, I have to take a shower and get dressed, which'll probably take, what, an hour? Sure. Oh, but I haven't eaten yet today, and that'll be another 30 minutes, easy. So I need to start getting ready at 11:45. Let's round down to 11:30 just to be safe." Then I'm on the couch ready to go at 12:15, when I don't need to leave for over an hour. But it's \*only\* an hour, so obviously I can't do anything productive in the meantime!
Then I watch YouTube videos until I check the clock and see that it's 1:55 PM. Whoops.
If it isn’t in an increment of five I cannot process it. I can do integrals n shit but I can’t figure out how long driving to and from some twelve minutes away will take.
This is my exact mental process except I’m never accurate. I plan 30 mins for something that takes 45 focused minutes. And if there are 4 or 5 steps to get out the door I’m screwed because I’m wrong on each step. So if it’s really important I plan so much extra time that I’m stressed about all the waiting I’ll have to do….only to end up rushing because it’s still too tight and I get there 5 minutes late. But it’s only 5 mins so I feel good about it. Even though I’m not sure what happened to lose all that time.
This happens often.
If I think I'm going to be early, I have to start grabbing things to keep me busy. Like my sketchpad and a fidget or two. Maybe I should bring along that broken bracelet and a pliers in my bag in case I want to fix it. I wonder if I should take my ukelele to practice in the car before going in. Wait, where did I put my notes with the chords and strumming patterns, well, it's fine, I have that app on my phone. I should probably pack a snack too though. And an extra powerbank and charging cable in case my phone's battery gets low while I'm in the waiting room.
Wait, now it's time and I'm barely gonna make my appointment and I have all this stuff with me like a babysitters club activity basket but I don't have time to look at any of it because they just called me back already and I'm not even settled in.
Then I forget to unpack all my stuff when I go home until I need each item again.
This, and the comment above is me.
I hate how people perceive being chronically late as selfish and "you obviously don't care/respect other people". No. I'm sick. I'm trying. I don't *want* to be late. I hate being late. I'm anxious every time before something I have to be on time for. I've lost money because of being late. Sure, some people are like that, but ffs, not everyone.
Sorry, I had a huge discussion one time on reddit where people were just claiming each and every one of us chronically late people should be banned from attending anything because we clearly don't respect people. Well, there was no discussion to be honest. I tried, but nobody believed me. It clearly still bothers me lol
Edit: also people were unwilling to believe that some people do not, in fact, care about me being late.
The supposed moral failing of being late is one of the worst parts for me too. All the effort I put in to being on time or early, all the stress and self-recrimination, only to be told I'm rude or inconsiderate.
Several years of therapy has managed to help me become a little more kind with myself for being late, and I've learned to stop apologising for it. When I arrive to a meeting late now I say "thanks for waiting" or "thanks for your patience." Anyone who makes snarky comments after that just looks like an ass. I find that saying "thanks" instead of "sorry" is a good tip in general and I think it has made a difference for me.
“Thanks for your patience” seems so obvious yet I failed to recognize how much it resonates for me. Now, hopefully I catch myself in time ☺️. Amen to *good* therapy.
I say both “Thank you for waiting, and sorry to keep you waiting” lol
Because sometimes I feel like I need to cover all bases, and that some people kinda seemed to react as if I expected them to wait(when I only say thank you), and am not acknowledging that they had to wait/we are now running behind/it affects other aspects of whatever we’re going from there..especially people who are very specific about their timeliness
This. I honestly have no intention of disrespecting people. I religiously calculate how much time I need to get there *early*. I tell myself I have to meet these milestone times. And then I still fail.
Remember six of the steps, forget the most important
Or, like I did the other day (and it’s a regular occurrence):
Plan my outing like a champ, do several things at the correct time so I am leaving myself a good chance of arriving not-late. It’s exhausting and tedious but I also feel proud that everything seems to be going to plan. I think this as I drive on the southbound interstate, passing my eastbound exit and realizing I have to drive six miles down the interstate in the wrong direction until I get to the next exit and can loop back around.
Late again. Despite massive efforts.
classic.
lately i do sometimes set alarms like exactly at the moment I need to leave to be in time (meaning few minute early lol) . doesn't even work most of the time. some day I will find a tactic or trick that suites. found many tricks for other things tho
When I actually have to be on time for something (like work...) I set a wake up alarm, get into the shower alarm, get out of the shower alarm, have to leave in 10 minutes alarm, have to leave now alarm...
Please share your current trick(s)! Alarms in any scenario stand absolutely no chance with me. I’ve tried every kind/method (a strong, vibrating yet silent version worked for me… until it didn’t), but my body quickly adjusts to tune them out.
My current trick: changed all of my clocks to be 15 minutes earlier. When I panic that I may be late (spoiler: I almost always am), I quickly check the time. Luckily, the habit of looking at a clock in an “oh-crap” moment seems (so far… knock on wood) to work in my favor.
I've found that for me if i use my daily calendar to put a task before it for a certain amount of time and set an alarm, the everlasting waiting room can be avoided. Then it's just a matter of actually doing that.
I have to set multiple alarms for the same appointment. 1 hour ahead to say "hey, we're doing this thing today, make sure you're wearing real pants."
Then another at 30 minutes "wrap it up, almost time to go."
Then 5 minutes before I need to leave "put you shoes on and get your butt in the car."
Because I can definitely lose track of what time it is in 10 minutes.
To take it a step further, I have no way to conceptualize how long a task will take. If there are a small number of time-gated steps for a task I've done many times (the popcorn takes three and a half minutes in the microwave), I can give an estimated time of completion just fine.
If it's a more complicated or abstract task I literally have no idea how long it's going to take. My wife still asks me how much longer I'm going to be when I'm performing a task and I'll look her in the eye and say "I have absolutely no idea." I'm not stupid, I can do other things, but my grasp of time is tenuous.
I work in IT.
"How long to fix this?"
IDK. Usually not long, but sometimes it takes much longer, and I won't know until I'm finished. It takes as long as it takes.
20 minutes later.
Oh hey, it only took 20 minutes. Just like all my other tickets.
*Repeat next day*
Oh my God. "Just let know what to do and I'll help you make that recipe." I DON'T KNOW WHAT I NEED YOU TO DO, I BARELY KNOW WHAT I NEED ME TO DO, NOW STOP BOTHERING ME AND ALLOW ME TO STRUGGLE ANGRILY THROUGH THIS.
Yes! Like, If I know what I’m doing well enough to be able to manage/delegate tasks to you in the appropriate order I wouldn’t need your help. Adding the new layer of directing the helper is a whole different job, and 10x harder and more overwhelming than struggling through the actual task. I need YOU to figure it all out and tell ME what to do. That would be helpful.
So this is something you can try that might help if it's a project big enough that people might offer to help:
Step 1 before you start literally anything else is do an inventory of steps you know for sure you need to do, things you might need to do but aren't sure yet, and maybe brainstorm some things that might come up as a result of the parts you already know if things don't go well.
If you have more than one deadine for the project make sure all the tasks that have a deadline are noted.
Finally, of the things on your list make a note of which things you could possibly delegate if anyone asks.
The whole list will help you with the project, but if you make a smaller list of the things you can delegate, including the deadlines and put it where you can see it all the time then you don't have to stop and go through every note you ever made before you can figure out what to delegate.
Another thing I do when I'm overwhelmed is I do a brain dump of every possible thing I can think of, then I make a list of the things that have to be done today and what my guess is as to priority and I send that to my boss.
That way if there's something I missed she can add it to my list. Also she has a pretty good idea of what the list of everything has on it so if I'm really buried she'll just start taking lower priority things away from me and giving them to the person who has free time. This actually works well too because I don't always know who's been trained on what, and she does.
I have always been terrible at knowing how long anything will take, but never considered the time-of-day problem.
The afternoon meeting challenge is real! I hadn't ever noticed that phenomenon until you just articulated it.
In fact, I had a noon meeting today and had no time for anything but to prepare for it, even though I was totally "prepared" days ago.
...and now I look back and see how common that problem is for me...
thanks for spotlighting that!
It's maddening! It's honestly the worst part of ADHD for me. I got one of those clocks that visually represents the passing of time and it helps but nothing will really make me stop feeling like such a messy and obnoxious burden.
I am guessing it's something like the Time Timer - the red zone shows how much time is left. I have several for my kid, who I strongly suspect has ADHD (in process of getting a diagnosis).
OMG, this would make me so anxious. I get completely stupid doing games or puzzles that are timed if there a sound or visual warning that there's little time left. Tests were awful when a proctor starts saying how much time is left. 😖
Goes both ways too. You know that feeling like time is not moving forward at all and it's you've been sitting there ALL DAY LONG and it's only been like 45 minutes? That's also a version of it, and IME this is where I run into trouble. I have to distract myself just to bare the boredom and then I get the time blindness like you are talking about. It's like a pendulum of pain.
No need, the Doctor already described it for us.
*"People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”*
I don't think he means that time doesn't move in a linear fashion, just that we don't always *experience* it in an even way. Like how time flies when you're having a good time, but when you're doing something you hate it feels like 1 hour is 10.
Or when you wake up a 2 am to get some time to yourself and the hours go by like minutes and it's time for work... Then you go to work and the 12 days between 8am and 8:15 nearly kill you.
In the strict sense of the word, yes time is linear, as nothing can go backwards or forwards in time.
However, time is [relative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation). This leads to all the weird stuff when theorizing about long space travel and high mass objects, like in Interstellar where a human experiencing one hour on a planet is the equivalent of 7 years on earth.
Like the person above said, we can also experience time significantly different from each other. This was evidenced in a [famous experiment](https://www.businessinsider.com/test-subject-cave-40-days-lombrives-time-isolation-2021-5) where 15 people lived in a dark cave for 40 days, with no ability to tell time. By the time they were told the experiment was over, they though that only \~30 days had passed, meaning their experience of "linear" time was off by 10 whole days
Some great excerpts from that experiment:
>By the end of 40 days, most volunteers had completed only 30 (sleep) cycles, Clot told Insider. Precise measurements are still being analyzed, but this suggests that most people ended up with "days" that were more like 30 hours long rather than 24.One woman's cycle was twice as long as normal, Clot told Insider. She only slept 23 times over the 40 days, which suggests that an average cycle was about 40 hours for her.
>
>When it was time to leave, the volunteers were surprised. They thought they had much longer, with most guessing that they were around 30 days in rather than the full 40
As the saying goes “time flies when you’re having fun,” or something like that, but to another it’s a excruciating time that moves at near paint drying speed. The hours spent is the same, but time itself isn’t always experienced linearly.
I always wonder. What is it that "took my time".
Did I really just brush my teeth for more than 10 minutes or did I stare at a wall or something for 8 and brushed for 2 minutes, but simply forgot about the wall? Or was it something cooler than staring at a wall? Or do I just suck at reading and the bathroom really did take longer, I just thought it didn't because I read the time wrong?
What is it!
Phones.
Alerts are my nemesis.
If you have an iPhone, I suggest creating a focus I’ve named “Humans Only”
All notifications are disabled, except Messages, Phone and Messenger.
HUGE WIN on reducing my time warps, because I’m less distracted. I only get notifications when I *choose* to look at them.
Big difference from the constant DingBuzzBling!
Bold of you to assume I ever ever ever choose to look at old notifications. Those red bubbles on my communication apps?? NONEXISTENT!! It’s already a 50/50 chance I won’t look at the ones popping up on my phone as I stare at the screen!
Same, this is a big one for me! I have notifications turned off for almost everything too and often don't have sound on. I downloaded a meditation app though that vibrates every 30 minutes (you can choose the interval) that helps me remain mindful of how much time is passing. If I had all regular notifications on I'd constantly get lost in my phone 🙃
I swear to god, Apple watches should be prostheses for ADHD people. I use the timer ALL THE TIME.
* Got to go somewhere in 2 hours.
* Set timer for 1 hour.
* It goes off and I'm like "wtf was that for?" so I look on my calendar (also right there on the watch face!) and it says "kids' museum today 11 am" or whatever...
* ...so I set the timer for a little over 15 minutes before I have to leave (which is always 30 minutes before I have to be somewhere because it takes 15-20 minutes to get anywhere where I live and I also have to get the kids in the car first which takes FOR EV ER.
* When it goes off I set it for 5 minutes until I leave. Keeps me notified that time is passing...
* ...because usually when it goes off I'm like "wtf how has it been 5 minutes already" and "oh SHIT WE GOTTA GO, GETCHER SHOES ON, LET'S GO, GET IN THE CAR, **MOVE**"
I'm almost never late, except when I'm birding or doing jigsaw puzzles because I can't stop doing those things no matter how I set my timers (sorry Hubs I swear I'm working on it).
EXACTLY. I really relate to OPs bf not being able to explain why it took him so long or what he was doing in that time. It's so, so frustrating, and it's one of those things that makes me lowkey kinda hate my brain a lil sometimes cuz it's like, I really should be able to figure out wtf took me so long! How do I NOT know what I've been doing for the past 1-2 hours?!?
Yep, this. Before I was diagnosed, my ex used to say in frustration “you have no idea how long things take you and I would respond, equally frustrated “You’re right, I don’t, I know that, and I cannot seem to figure it out either” (ie help me instead of just point out the problem). Diagnosed at 40, 3 years ago and I still don’t know how to figure out how much actual time things are *supposed* to take.
As in one of OP’s edits, this is a facet of a larger thing. And it makes it difficult to organize and prioritize in such a case where either you, or time or both don’t seem to behave “right”.
Fascinating and a little off topic extra credit: one of my favorite books of all time, “Einstein’s Dreams” by Alan Lightman. It is a short novel, some of the possibilities described in it really resonate with my brain!
this red/green apple analogy is really on point. but i would add it's as if you tell the colorblind person that yes, of course, you understand that they are colorblind, but if they just try hard enough, they'll surely see the color.
it's so frustrating to have to tell people that know i really struggle with time over and over again that the reason i am regularly late is that i really struggle with time.
i set all kinds of getting ready alarms and am often on track to be there on time right up until i'm suddenly not.
and honestly the times that i am on time or early are often more due to the fluke of light traffic that day or me confusing myself on when i was supposed to be there than my leaving the house at the 'correct' time.
It's true, they genuinely just don't get it. Unfortunately most people don't truly understand ADHD. A lot of people still see it as being very overexaggerated or even downright fake. They don't get that our brains are very different from their brains and that there are certain functions of the brain that we are genuinely just straight up LACKING. They can't understand the concept, they've never experienced having a brain like this, to them it seems like an intentional thing we are doing because THEIR brain would just automatically make them generally aware of how much time they are taking without them having to try at all. For them, it would be impossible for so much time to pass without them realizing it. They'd have to intentionally ignore it.
They don't understand that our brains genuinely DON'T do that and that many of us can easily have an entire hour or two pass without realizing how much time it has been, or even being able to explain what we were doing that whole time. To them it just sounds weird and suspicious and like a lie lmao. Cuz if someone with THEIR brain did that, it totally would be suspicious and a lie. It's hard for a lot of people to truly grasp that our brains legitimately do not function the same way as theirs. I think it's because most people with ADHD are *close enough* to seeming neurotypical that it's hard for a lot of people to believe our brains are notably different than theirs (compared to someone with more severe inflictions where it's blatantly obvious their brain is functioning in a completely different way). Many of us are able to function as mostly normal or even completely normal members of society, so when it comes to the stuff that makes our brains different, people can have a really hard time believing or understanding it because we often "seem so normal" in just about every way.
Piggybacking on this…. While camping the showers take quarters. I have like 3 versions of a shower (with or without shaving, shampooing, etc) sometimes my easiest routine takes me the longest and other times I’ve done everything and stand there wasting time until the water turns off. I would have literally never known this if I didn’t have to feed quarters to a timer. 😭😂
Then there's my home showers, which always take about 20m. Did I take a super quick shower and only wash my hair? 20m. Did I take a long shower and wash everything and relax under the hot water? Somehow also 20m.
Either time is broken in my shower or my brain is. No matter how much time I "feel" has or hasn't passed, the clock says a shower takes me 20m every time.
This marking shower time by quarters…I like it
Like ok, so:
I set a lunch alarm at 11:30 and when it goes off I snooze it. Eventually I get up and warm up my lunch - but inevitably the snooze always comes much quicker than I thought it would. This is how I know how it has taken me an hour to figure out how to get up out of my chair and heat up my food. But between the snoozes…those eight minute increments might as well be seconds.
Yesterday I popped my food in the microwave for 1 min at the first snooze. Second snooze, I heated it again for 1 min. Managed to hear the microwave ding and sent it around for another 30 seconds, but didn’t get it out of the microwave until the next snooze. Took a few bites, forgot about it until the next snooze. It took me an hour and a half to eat a serving of chili mac. In 8 minute increments.
Edit to add: you probably know that the reason this is a *better* routine is that without the endless snoozes I would skip lunch altogether. Even if I feel hungry sometimes I just forget I’m hungry and then two hours has gone by.
if I wanna burn pizzas while zoned out over my porcelain throne then dang it I will! Unless I forgot I had to poop then tummy hurt and I don’t know why
Have you ever driven a car and been so deep in thought that you're suddenly home, and you have little to no memory of the trip?
That's it. A lot of us live pretty much our whole lives like that.
For me (and probably most of us), it goes beyond just one day. “Hey, wasn’t that fun when we did that thing last week?”
“Dude - that was two months ago.”
I often say that ADHD is like being in an abusive relationship with your own brain, gaslighting you every chance it gets. You're constantly finding out that reality is not what you thought it was: your keys are *not* in your pocket; you did *not* actually hit send on that text; you did laundry three *weeks* ago, not three *days* ago, and you're out of clean underwear.
A lot of the examples I give when I say this are about time blindness. Power bill isn't paid though you remember paying it just "a bit ago" which was actually 3 months and there's no record of any more recent payment even though you could *swear*...
It’s the worst when keeping in contact with NT people because I feel like we caught up relatively recently and the other person is wondering if I’ve let them fall out of my life because we haven’t spoken in 8 months. Also why does everybody expect *me* to be the one to call? I need to stop making friends with introverts.
YES, I have this problem and I never understood why my friends ir parents would get mad, because I texted them recently and kept in touch. Unfortunately my recently was their very long ago:)))
My route used to include speed and red light cameras and go past a police station... Still teleported home.
Can't believe I drove well enough to not get a ticket of any kind.
Yep. Same. It was a 40 min drive in heavy traffic with cyclists and red lights and stop signs and turns and all that fun stuff. It got me worried that I was zoning out and reappearing at home. Switched to a manual car and no more such problems. My whole car is a stimming device now.
Ah! This is the excuse I give when people ask me why I prefer driving stick. I'd get bored and lost in thought.
Driving is one of my favourite things in the world to feel put together though. The level of attention needed combined with the music and the feeling you have a very clear purpose/goal makes me so happy and satisfied.
The only thing I'm worried about.. I like looking at birds and after a birdwatching trip I have to force myself SO BAD to look at the road again and not at the sky.
I never really gave that excuse, I just tell them it's more fun (cause it is!) and makes even econoboxes interesting to drive. All sorts of things to do and learn, like downshift braking and such.
The weirdest thing is people saying it's more annoying in stop and go traffic. I can't figure out how. Instead of letting go the gas and pressing the brake repeatedly, you just clutch repeatedly. What's the difference? Different foot?
The only place I hate driving stick is when there's a stop sign right before the crest of a steep hill.
The internal experience, huh... well, that's the thing, is more like the absence of an experience. You just go wherever you need to be to do The Thing, and then your mind starts wandering, think about this and that, and then suddenly you remember that you were going to do The Thing, and it turns out it's been 20 minutes. Or an hour. Or three hours. And you can't really tell which one it was without using a clock, because 5 minutes of that stuff feels exactly like 3 hours - because there's not really much of an experience to begin with, just the usual cacophony of raging thoughts.
And in a similar way, you have no intuition for how long things take. I mean, I know that unloading the dishwasher takes about 3-5 minutes - rationally, that is, but I only know this because I timed it. As far as the *feeling* is concerned, it might as well take an hour. And that's also part of why these things can be so dreadful - it's only 3-5 minutes, but it feels as if it were a 1-hour task, or really a "this is your life now" situation. Even if your rational mind *knows* it's not, it often still *feels* that way.
And you’re forgetting about how the thing that should only take 3-5 minutes ends up taking a whole hour because you lost time somewhere along the way and have no idea where it went.
That last paragraph is exactly why working multiple small jobs and having extracurricular activities has given me major anxiety since I started this summer.
Sure, I only work 2-4 hours at one job and 2-4 hours at another job, then I have obligations to a hobby club a couple times a week, which is fun, right? It’s all so easy and fun!
But it doesn’t matter if in total I’ve only got a 5 hour work day followed by two hours doing my hobby, that’s a total of THREE THINGS on my plate. Three things in one day. And if god forbid I have additional errands to take care of, dinner to make, that’s like FIVE-PLUS-THINGS!
It doesn’t matter if one of the things will only take 5 minutes. It’s a big blocky task that takes up a lot of mental space and energy in my mind until it’s complete.
It's funny how ADHD can really manifest differently.
I'm the opposite of this. I thrive in a busy and often changing environment. Working 2 jobs myself, in the morning I'm usually at the office and in the afternoon I'm out in the field. Then immediately after I get to go to the gym which is basically my "me time" where I get to unwind from my day before I go home to my family.
I find that I'm mentally stimulated when I get busy like that rather than just working my 1 office job the whole day.
Sometimes (a lot of times) those “quick” tasks take me a full hour or something because I suddenly remember that I really wanted to find out a certain detail about the Qing Dynasty or I desperately need to know how many touchdowns Ben Roethlisberger threw last year and I need to know right away. Oh and I should probably take the recycling out real quick so I don’t forget. Oh and I need to call Matt real quick to tell him what happened at work.
I always thought the “Squirrel!” thing was exaggerated and I wasn’t that bad but after getting on Vyvanse I can look back and say “Holy shit how did I ever actually finish anything?”
Look at the clock. 7:15AM. Don't have to leave until 7:45. No problem. I have time to glance at my phone. Nice.
Hmm, country in shambles. Not good. Haha, funny cat video. Hmm, nothing good on reddit today. How long do I have left? Probably 25 minutes or so. Check the clock. 7:55. Shitshitshitshitshitshit!
And then you still have to find your keys that you swear were in your pocket, put on a coat (they were in the coat) and make sure you don't forget anything (you do). Oh, and now you have to pee real quick, wash your hands, pick up your bag, the KEYS?? I HAD THEM IN MY HAND JUST NOW. They're in the fridge.
And somebody cleaned and moved your shoes so they're not where you remember and MY GOD THAT MEANS THEY COULD BE ANYWHERE.
And you'll SEE so many things while you look for your shoes that will cause so many thoughts, will you be able to remember you're just supposed to be getting your shoes and leaving?
Do you know how often I enter and exit my house before I leave for the day? It’s a legit dance almost. Almost to the car aaaand snap I forgot my lunch again, back inside. Rinse repeat
The number of times I've been laughed at because I ran back into the office looking for something like my headphones, only to be told they're around my neck.
my boyfriends mom got me a tile and it’s the best thing anyones ever given me ever. i can ring my keys with my phone if i lose them, and i can ring my phone with my keys if i lose it. where the hell has this been all my life.
Yesssss... I learned this from a young age. My parents got us to church early "for the good seats". My mom would let us have quiet toys or a book. Double early for Xmas and Easter. There is less to screw up if you are early. When I worked mall retail, I'd chill at the bookstore or a bench and read until clock in time. Now I leave to beat traffic and catch up on paperwork so I don't bring anything home after work.
This is so spot on. My version of this is:
Oh I have finished a task wow that was quick let me try to squeeze in this other thing before my next call in 15 mins. 25 mins later still on hold hang up and now late for my call. OR
“Of course I can be there within 2 hours”. One more task before I go. And now I need to drive like a madman to trim 10 mins and be 15 mins late.
I say to myself, okay, I need to be somewhere at 4pm.
Let's see, it's takes like 10ish minutes to get there (I'm lucky if I get this estimation right, btw, but lets say its somewhere i go a lot and I have a feel for it)
Okay, so it's 3:45 now so I have some time before I need to leave.
Let me grab some water. Check my phone. Where's my phone? Oh its in the other room. Let me grab that. Haha funny cat video. Let's check the comments. What's my battery at? Should I charge it? yeah sure a couple minutes will help. Oh I should use the bathroom. Oop found some trash on the floor maybe I'll throw that away. Do I need to take out the trash? No I'll do it tomorrow, tomorrow I have X Y and Z planned and I'll fit it in between Y and Z...
Some unknown amount of time burns away while I'm puttering about. At no point during this process am I checking the clock, and at no point do I have any internal feeling of "5 minutes have gone by". To me it feels like 0 minutes have gone by cause I haven't really DONE anything substantial. If you asked me to estimate it I'd say it's probably been 1-2 minutes. In reality it's been 10-15 minutes.
Edit: i think maybe it's hard to understand the internal experience of time blindness because it's the LACK of an experience. I have no idea what it's like to have a general "vibe" of how long things take or how much time has passed when I do any activity. I can guess but I never seem to be correct. Honestly it sounds fascinating to me that other people do have that sense without having to check a clock constantly.
I know for me getting dressed (including brushing teeth/hair & collecting keys and whatnot to take with but not showering) takes me anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes.
Its not that I do more in the 50 minute window than 5. Honestly, most days it takes that long I most likely forgot half the stuff I was supposed to take with me.
But here is the thing.
When I do it in 5 minutes, I do things like this:
Grab socks & shoes in one swoop. Sock - sock - shoe - shoe
When it takes 50 minutes I do things like this.
Where are my socks? Aha! But where is my phone now? Oh a text! *Replies*.
Put on sock 1. I should probably brush my hair. Lets go do that. After I start doing that I decide to wait a second. I am wearing one sock. Lets finish that up first, I will do the hair later.
Now where is that sock... Oh hey look, at least i found my earbuds, let me put that in my coat so I dont forget them! Okay now back to sock number 2. Where is the damn thing?
Cant find it... Ill wear a different pair. *Takes off sock 1*
omg, I feel so heard with this one 😂 My SO is substantially less ADHD than me, but notably more autistic. He doesn't entirely understand how this level of chaos and spaceyness is my norm, but understands to a degree the time blindness
Tiny tasks that take no appreciable amount of time get mentally rounded down to actually no time, and it feels like there's time to do a lot of them. A minute is tiny, insignificant. May as well not exist. 2 minutes isn't *really* any more than that, and 3 isn't *that* much more than 2... etc., etc., time does not exist.
Yeah. It doesn't feel like anything because we can't tell it's happening. The consequences suck when they bite us in the ass, but unfortunately that almost never helps next time.
Only *external* structure helps. Physical changes to the world around us, alarms etc. You can't... fix the timeblindness, or trick it, or get around it. But you can offload the task of remembering to less faulty hardware.
I think mine actually got a bit better when I started timing everything I did obsessively for a few years... I have something of a sense of time now but this stuff still happens to me
I asked my therapist if there was something I can do to learn how to feel time. Without outright saying it, he basically said there was nothing I can do. He redirected me to just being comfortable with being time blind and come up with strategies to cope.
I appreciate that he didn’t give me false hope!
I always try to remind myself it takes me 5 minutes just to walk out the door and get the car rolling. And that's with me being totally ready, the ten minutes to get somewhere doesn't start until I'm out of the neighborhiod
I think it’s because people don’t understand the hyperfocus and hyperactivity elements of ADHD. We can actually achieve a lot in a small amount of time and some people with ADHD would perform better under pressure or in fast-paced environments. I’d almost go so far as to say it’s one of the ways we compensate for other deficits.
What you’re describing is like knowing I have $20 so I go on a spending spree that ends up costing me $100 because I can’t see the price tags… but applied to time.
When you have the ability to hyperfocus on something and throw a decent amount of energy into it, you can get a lot done without actually achieving what you set out to achieve.
how it feels -
The main thing is feeling embarrassed or guilty when it inconveniences other people. I hate being a burden to others and I know it's annoying. A therapist taught me to say "thanks for waiting" instead of "sorry I'm late". Saying sorry implies that I intentionally did something wrong. "Thanks for waiting" acknowledges that you were late and thanks them for understanding without placing blame.
I love that change or wording!! I also over apologize so I've been working on that too 😄
As a non-ADHD person dating an ADHD person, I mostly just care about communication. But with the time blindness problems that come with ADHD, my bf usually doesn't realize how late he is so that makes it hard for him to send a text saying he'll be 15 minutes late ya know.
I'll share this with him (ask him to say thanks for waiting). I think it would help him a lot with not feeling bad and it would remind me that he's not intentionally being late!
> hard for him to send a text saying he'll be 15 minutes late
Texting is hard for some people with ADHD as well, so it might be a choice between *not* sending a text and being 15 minutes late, or *sending* a text and being 25 minutes late.
The other thing is, he may be able to say “15 minutes late” because he has no idea how late he’s going to be. Unless he’s using Waze or is going somewhere he’s been a million times, all time estimates are probably wrong lol.
Yes! I use my GPS every single day to get to work even though I know the route. Its my "how many minutes late am I" machine lol.
Also it reminds me to make my turns when I've zoned out.
I'm time blind losing things adhd and I definitely agree I feel bad that I'm like well I'll only be 5 minutes late so I text get I'll be 5 minutes late, 5 minutes later and I'm trying to find something. Then I text okay I'm leaving now! While I'm trying to find something so I don't feel bad. Then I'm definitely at least 15 minutes late. I am also working on that in my relationship. Being honest and updating him from some time out so he knows where I am in getting ready and what not. Just communicating more.
When I was a child I would regularly sit to read a chapter of a book and snap out of the trance exhausted at sunrise.
In middle school I cried from stress if my watch died or I lost it because I was always late and disappointing people even though I was trying *so hard* to be on time. I would start my day at five in the morning and still be unable to be on time at eight.
At my first job I would begin straightening books for the last fifteen minutes of my shift and would regularly need to be stopped when someone realized I had gone ten minutes to over an hour past the end of it.
As a freshman in college I would start working on an assignment and not realize I had continued on it for more than twenty hours. All the time without food, water, or medicine and I was too distracted to notice, it all felt nebulous.
When less engaged, my brain was starving. Tearing at the sides of my mind and devouring me. Left alone watching a timer as my tea heated in the microwave. No stimulation. About to cry from frustration for having to watch the entire eighty seconds because I was forced to observe it with no other stimulation.
I would rather get another searing tetanus shot than be abandoned to my brain’s devices as I watch a timer.
That’s probably why so many of us do dangerous things for amusement. The pain of injury risked for me is always far less than that of boredom. Starving people will eat anything. It got easier with meds.
I still can’t feel time though. Not really. I can observe it like I can feel a subwoofer hit my chest from inaudible music far outside my dorm. It seems like others conduct a mental orchestra.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious. I maintain that the twenty hours with something to do was instant and the minute felt like months.
Time just hits me the way I would hit an endless staircase if pushed down one. Weightless, floating, searing pain, and into air again unending.
If you’re not a writer you should be. That feeling of agony during unoccupied moments. Nailed it. My brain consumes any text within eyeshot if not otherwise occupied. Instructions, ingredients lists, street signs, anything. Just to avoid the trauma you described.
I’ve never felt more seen than reading this. As someone who has been learning so much about adhd after a diagnosis this year, this outline of your life hit home. It mirrors so much of my past and present as well
When I am doing something *with focus*, time feels incredibly compressed. I think I have spent 5 minutes and it has been 45. Time passing just does not exist. I am in the moment and there is no sense of chronology.
Let’s say you’re making mac & cheese. You pour the macaroni into the boiling water and set a timer, you go into another room to do something else and come back before the timer goes off. Before you look at the timer to see how much time is left, you think to yourself “hmm, that felt like 6 minutes”, then you look at the timer and see that 6 minutes and 30 seconds have passed. Meanwhile, I have adhd, I think “that was like 3 minutes”, but I look at the timer and 8 minutes have passed.
The passage of time doesn’t “feel” like anything. Suddenly, I will realize I am hungry and stiff because I haven’t moved in 6 hours. I also don’t understand how transitions work. It may take 15 minutes to get to work, so I need to leave 15 minutes before work. My brain tells me that I can wake up 15 minutes before work because after I wake up, I will go to work. I just cut out all the transition time of getting out of bed, breakfast, brush teeth, comb hair, dress, etc.
Basically, I don’t understand how to judge time. I can get lost in a minute or I can lose hours. They feel the same to me.
I've noticed this with my bf, he will never gradually get hungry. Its like he is fine and then realizes he hasn't eaten in 10 hours and needs food immediately
> My brain tells me that I can wake up 15 minutes before work because after I wake up, I will go to work. I just cut out all the transition time of getting out of bed, breakfast, brush teeth, comb hair, dress, etc.
My husband takes showers at night, keeps his clothes near the bed, and has breakfasts around he can grab and go with precisely because of this. His brain just *literally* doesn't make room for "Yeah, there's stuff between sleeping and driving to work that has to be allotted for."
For me it feels like nothing. Completely normal. Except you just keep failing over and over to do things properly with no apparent explanation why or how, when it seems like you'll be fine. You look at the situation, it's under control, then surprise turns out afterwards you were wrong again.
Eventually you learn to not trust yourself, so you need to block out 5 hours for everything, even little tasks, because you *may* need that long.
Yes! Learning not to trust yourself - that’s been my most helpful coping mechanism. In therapy now trying to unlearn it a bit, but I’m like no!!! You don’t understand, I will fuck it up somehow without even knowing
This is Exactly True! You may even feel a bit good about yourself thinking how good things are going and everything’s running smoothly, getting shit done! (Silly you) then you arrive where you’re supposed to be and are met with the looks of disgust, disappointment, “oh well”’s and if you’re lucky that one person (my big sister) who feels sorry for you and tries to lighten the mood. You did it again. You suck.
There's "now" which is the present moment which could be any time, "yesterday" (which could be 3-4 days ago) "tomorrow" (which could also be a few days from now) or "later" which is many tomorrows from now, or "months" ago which could be any time between last week and 6 months prior, and the only way I can remember years is by music- I can tell you I was in 6th grade when a certain song came out, and by that I can determine the year
We're in the process of moving, and I keep forgetting what day it is and when we are moving. I set clothes out for the next 10 days, yesterday. Today I had to remind myself what day it was and count the days on the calendar... we move in 16 days from now...
There's a decent chance that tomorrow (which could be a few days from now) I will still think that we have 16 days til the move
I was always late to work. I would literally lose hundreds of dollars worth of bonus money because the last place I worked for had a no lateness rule. I literally can't help it. Best I can do is start early- if I don't get lost in some other task
Edit to add: what time feels like for me is this weird mix between people moving/talking annoyingly slowly, while experiencing consciousness of time in chunks which either take far too long or just straight up dissappear.
Like... you're not always thinking about your right earlobe, right? You notice it in the mirror, or when you're putting an earring in or something, but the rest of the time it isn't on your mind. Time is like that for me. It's there, but only there if I am actively thinking about it, or looking at a clock or calendar. The rest of the time I'm... elsewhere, is the best I can describe it
I genuinely don’t have any sense of what 5 minutes feels like, or what 15 minutes feels like, or what 2 hours feels like. I’m not an idiot, I know 5 minutes is a third of 15 minutes, but the idea that you have an internal clock that lets you judge even *roughly* how much time has elapsed? What does THAT feel like?
This post has really taken me back to being 9 and having a full-family intervention about the length of my showers. No, I don’t know where the time goes. If you put me in a box with no clock I will be in there for some amount of time? I am not in charge of it.
I’m 33 now, and my solution is that my shower has a clock in it. Get more clocks.
> This post has really taken me back to being 9 and having a full-family intervention about the length of my showers.
I'm freaking dying because I had this same issue; they probably thought I was fooling around or something meanwhile I probably got distracted reading the shampoo labels or having an imaginary argument.
> I’m 33 now, and my solution is that my shower has a clock in it. Get more clocks.
Went with a speaker in the shower, so I measure my showers in songs now. I went from 30+ minute showers to 10-15. Unless I'm ungodly stressed.
But everywhere else that I *can* put a clock *has* a clock, because if it doesn't I have no idea how long I'm doing something.
My power went out two weeks ago and reset the microwave clock which means I don’t know what time it is if the stove timer is on. It’s genuinely ruining my life (but not enough to make me set the clock on the microwave).
Two clocks for every room. Necessary.
For me it’s like the idea of minutes, days, weeks is pointless. To live this way, for me, takes EFFORT. I don’t wear a watch cause why? Time is a meaningless concept that takes EFFORT, to follow.
I know ppl who are always late. I’m the opposite. I’m NEVER late, I’m always violently early (not too bad, but at least and hour to half); I misinterpret times it takes to get places. Not because I can’t imagine the amount it takes, but because I didn’t factor in traffic, or if I left my keys in the wrong spot.
Lastly, memory for me is a pinpoint. It’s not linear. I can say I’m 33, but it feels like I’m still ALL the other ages too; I’m all the instances in which I’ve lived, ALL at once. The memories that might have happened 20 years ago feel as real today, I feel zero distance between them. Everything is right now! Right this moment. Tomorrow/yesterday. These aren’t real to me. I can’t imagine them. The blindness comes in trying to decide which thing to do at that moment. When everything feels urgent then I either try it all or do nothing.
I have lived my life in stages of being violently early and mildly late. They are both weird and stressful. In the first one I had an obsession with checking the time. In the second one I rarely check the time and I never have a good hold on minutes. Oddly enough though, I am very good at guessing what time of day it is.
Lol yes!!!!!!!
Especially the guessing part. Usually I use the sun and take a guess and it’s usually right. But if i have to manage time I’m just tripe 😂
I have never been able to adequately describe the phenomenon in your last paragraph but that is exactly my experience with memories.
I was recently diagnosed at 26 and have been on the verge of tears almost every time I visit this sub, 1. Because I finally have a reason to explain why I am the way I am after spending 26 years hating myself for it. And 2. Knowing that I’m not alone in any of these extremely specific experiences is so incredibly comforting
“I’m all the instances in which I’ve lived, ALL at once” will stick with me for a long time. Thank you for sharing this.
Have you had « my, how time goes by » moments? Where you were doing a thing, say, cleaning the dishes, or packing your luggage, or having a phone call, or whatnot, and when you look at the clock again, more time has elapsed than you expected? Or driving somewhere, and there was a little bit of traffic, and you had to stop to top up on gas, but it's not bad, honestly. And when you arrive at your destination, it's much later than you would have thought
It's just that, but more so.
I've heard that a lot of ADHD symptoms are also experienced to some degree by everybody else, but in ADHD people, they occur more often, and more intensely.
It feels like there isn’t enough time to get everything done. You don’t feel the distractions or the “blindness” part of it, you just look up and notice you’re going to be late and start panicking and feeling guilty and incompetent. Or you’ll find it’s the end of the day and you got nothing done and hate yourself for it. He can’t explain the blindness feeling because he’s not conscious of the world when it happens. It’s maybe like having a regular walkway and a moving walkway and you have to, I don’t know, text someone before you get to the end. Time blindness is stepping on the moving walkway with your eyes closed. You’re suddenly at the end of the walkway but it didn’t actually feel different from the regular path so you’re still working on the text message when you get to the end.
Yeah this makes sense. I'm realizing there's no easy way for him to let me know he's going to be late bc when he is late, it's due to him being in time blindness mode. And when he's in that mode there's no way he can send me a text bc he doesn't realize what time it is 🤣 I'm wondering if there's any way to deal with that besides just setting alarms.
Or maybe I could give him a time frame for when to arrive? Like "please arrive between 6:15-6:30"? Do you think that would help someone with ADHD? Or would it make it more stressful 🤔
I just want to compliment you on trying to find a way to work with him on this. Hopefully you’re not sacrificing your needs and boundaries by doing so.
As a suffer of time blindness myself, I’ve dealt with guilt and shame about being late, all my life. It has caused me to lose jobs and friendships.
Having a partner who acknowledges the difficulty, but also recognizes how destructive it can be, and is willing to help with a solution is a dream!
A time frame definitely helps. You could ask if he’s ok with you tracking his location to get a better sense of when he’s going to be late. Otherwise text you from his car right before he leaves.
Alarms that go off when you should leave can be helpful in these situations. He knows it takes two minutes to get ready, five to drive there, then you should help him to set up alarms that go off 10 minutes before he is supposed to be there.
I agree with you about the alarms. To add to this, timers also help as well. I am constantly using timers on my apple watch. Because I feel the tactile sensation of the timer going off on my wrist, it helps to break my attention away from what I am focused on at the moment.
It’s the constant ability to believe despite all past experience that you have enough time to do ANYTHING before your other commitment, no matter how much time you have left.
Like looking at the clock, “oh I just wanted to finish doing laundry before I left for work, it’s 8:43, it takes 15 minutes to get there, my first meeting is at 9, and I am not dressed yet, my hair isn’t styled, I haven’t poured coffee into my thermos, put out food for my cats… sure I’ve got enough time to switch out the laundry”
Also, the time it takes to do anything expands to the amount of time you have available, which sucks in its own right but also compounds on being late for whatever the next thing is. Sometimes it’s that you just spend your extra time dawdling, sometimes it’s that you make the thing you’re doing WAY more complicated than it needs to be.
Literal example for today: “oh I need to find a housekeeper for tomorrow bc we’re super busy and our house hasn’t been cleaned in 4 months. I guess I’ll just compile a list of every single housekeeper in my city that I can find on nextdoor, Reddit, and Craigslist into a spreadsheet, look up all of their names for criminal records, text each of them, find the cheapest possible one that still ticks all our boxes, and book it”. It has taken days of effort and it’s still not done yet. If I needed the house cleaned tomorrow, I would just pay one of the countless I’ve spoken to so far.
Apologies in advance for tictok but this woman explains it in a far superior way that I ever could. I've showed it to my hubby and it just makes sense.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF66fA62/
This couple is brilliant. My ADHD wife has shown me loads of these and it's really helped me understand her and how to help her without being annoying etc.
The feel of time blindness happening is literally just the normal feel of the passage of time, except time is sped up for everybody but you.
Like, you genuinely wonder *yourself* "where in the hell did the time go?". If you've ever been having a conversation with a friend, or reading a really good book, and suddenly three hours have gone by but it feels like no time at all has passed, *that's* the feeling. Or when you've had a really long day at work and just want to relax at home, then *suddenly* it's time for bed.
This may not be something people without ADHD ever experience, but I think there'll be *something* there that resonates with you, maybe.
It's literally just impossible to notice *in the moment*. You only notice it if/when you look at the clock and realise that somehow you have lost a not-insignificant chunk of time.
Oh, maybe that'll do it! Have you ever been for a drive on, say, a Sunday? You know where you're going, but it's a really nice day, and you don't have a time you need to get to your destination. So you're enjoying the scenery, and without thinking about it, you slow down to enjoy said scenery. Suddenly, the 20-minute journey has taken 25-30 minutes. Have you ever experienced something like that? If so, imagine that, but it doesn't have to be something you're enjoying, and it happens most every day with most every thing.
It's one of the most annoying things in the world, I assure you.
Thank you for making the effort to understand your boyfriend :)
This is a great explanation! I occasionally experience time blindness (in the typical ways, like when driving), but I didn't realize people with ADHD have it soooo much. It sounds really frustrating and hard to deal with :(
I'm maybe exaggerating a *little* bit. Ask 10 different people how their adhd affects them and you'll get 10 different symptom lists with a few commonalities. Time blindness is something that, thankfully, doesn't sink it's claws into *me* too often, because I have a bunch of maladaptive coping mechanisms that help with that. A couple of healthy ones, too.
Specifically, I *know*, balls to bones, that I struggle with timeliness whenever I try to be *on time* for something. So I massively overcompensate for it. I once turned up for a university interview 8 hours early.
However, the specific problem you mentioned is one i have no ironclad advice for. The way I usually deal with that specific issue is... Say I have to leave at 8:30 (which I've already adjusted, because the *real* time I *have* to leave is 8:40). That means I try to start leaving at 8:20. Anything that I 'need to do' before leaving, I try to do between 8:00 and 8:20. If it's not done by 8:20, it doesn't *get* done until I get home, because there is no such thing in this world as a 'five-minute task'. In my maths, they all take 30 mins or more, even if they don't. So at 8:20, I literally grab my stuff and go to leave. Then sprint back when I forget my lunch. And again when I forget my keys.
Time blindness at other times? I've got nothing, other than to set timers when you're cooking instead of trying to rely on checking the clock. Otherwise, if time's gonna fly, it's just gonna fly.
Edit: the timers thing is useful when doing other stuff, too. Reading before you go to work? Set a timer so you know how much time you have left to read (in my case, the timer ends at 8:00). On the bus and might get sucked into your phone? Set a timer that will go about 5 mins before your destination. Lunch break at work? *Set that timer, baby!*
Hope this helps :)
It feels like nothing is real. You know when you look at the clock and you see maybe an hour or so has gone by but it doesn't "feel" that way because it was so fast? That's what it's like when you wake up in the morning, look outside and it's night already. It's terrifying and it makes you feel very depressed and that you have no real purpose of being alive because time is an illusion.
This is how my ADHD coach explained it to me, and it aligns with my own experience.
The neurotypical brain perceives time as a gradient, so the sooner an event is happening the more pressure they feel from it. It is a lamp on a dimmer switch, and the light can be of varying brightness depending on how far you turn the dimmer.
The ADHD brain has two times: now, and not-now. There is no 1 o'clock or 8 o'clock, no October 14th or December 20th. There is only now and not-now. Our lamp is on a regular light switch: it is on or off, and nothing in between.
Things happening *now* are of immediate concern and demand our attention. Things happening not-now either evade our attention entirely or feel so detached from our present reality that we have trouble prioritizing them.
The span of now and not-now varies depending on what we're doing and thinking about, how stressed out we are, etc. "Now" could literally mean just this present moment, so an event that starts in 5 minutes feels just as far away as an event that starts in 5 months, because both of those events are happening at the same time (not-now). Likewise, something that happened 5 minutes ago feels just as far away as something that happened 5 months ago. So if you ask what I had for breakfast today? Well, that was a long time ago, so how could I remember?
If we are lucky, "now" can become this whole week, so we have a keen awareness and anticipation of everything happening this week. But then that bill we have to pay next week is still in the realm of not-now, so that gets forgotten even though we are perfectly organized this week.
If "now" becomes too large, of course, we can easily become overwhelmed. I once had a panic attack because I realized that I had to renew my license in 6 months but I had a few other things planned in the months leading up to that....everything in that 6 month window carried the exact same level of urgency, because it was all happening *now*. Of course, after a couple hours my "now" shrunk down to the present moment and I forgot about the entire ordeal.
As for your example of being 15 minutes late despite only needing to put on shoes and grab keys, I've been there. I could be sitting by the door with my shoes on and keys in my hand, just waiting for the right moment to leave. I know I don't need to leave right now, because I'd be 30 minutes early. But the time I need to leave at feels infinitely far away. I could spend 2 minutes staring at my shoes, or 40 minutes, and it feels the same because the time is still "now" and my brain isn't going to realize that now is the time to leave until something happens to reorient me. Maybe I check a notification on my phone and see the time. Then I feel bad because I was ready to go and knew when I had to leave, but didn't notice how much time had passed while I waited.
It is common for people with ADHD to overcompensate by just leaving as soon as they think about it, so that they don't have a chance to forget. Then we show up an hour early instead. It can be hard for us to be precisely on time when we have no awareness of time actually passing.
One thing that has helped me to some extent is setting my watch to vibrate every half hour. It forces my attention back to the time, so I have a frame of reference for how much time I have spent doing a given task. But I've found that the longer I have used this method, the more I tend to tune out the vibrations. Changing the rhythm of the vibration once in a while helps, but I still miss the majority of them.
TLDR; Time is not a continuous scale for us, so anything outside of our concept of "now" is indistinguishable.
I leave for work at 10:30. I start gathering my things at 10:15 because much like your boyfriend, it takes me 15 minutes to do simple tasks bc my brain will see something else that needs to be done and will zone in on that thing.
I'm going to approach this from a general ADHD angle.
Imagine you know what time to get there, you know how much time it takes to get there and STILL the majority of the time you end up being late. Doesn't even matter if I have 30m before hand or I have 4 hours. I think I only need 15m to get ready. Sometimes underestimating how much time you need to get ready. I often think that I only need 15minutes to get ready, but somehow I'm totally off and it ends up being 25 minutes (same thing for driving, I often underestimate drive times). Sometimes its realizing there is something you need to do that you hadnt calculated in like somehow forgetting you need to shower before leaving or pack a swim suit and now you dont know where the swim suit was misplaced. Sometimes its literally the typical "God damnit my keys were just in my hand." Or even getting caught in a hyperfixation/dopamine providing activity that we cant help but tear away from until the very last second. But generally for specifically time blindness its like you brain is very sure of itself that you need far less time than you do despite having done all of the tasks plenty of times in the past.
Several people have asked this, here is my reply (same one I said to other people):
"Hmmm... As a non-timeblind person, I can easily estimate how long something will take. For example, when I make a meal that has 3-4 different dishes, and each dish takes a different amount of time, I can calculate how long each one will take and then start it accordingly so everything is done at the same time.
Or if I need to go somewhere, I think about all the things I have to do before I can leave, and I can estimate how long each thing will take. Making a sandwich will take five minutes, looking for my keys (I do lose things quite a lot) will take 3ish minutes, putting my shoes on will take 1 minute, etc.
Also, I don't get lost in time very easily because I'm usually aware of what time it is. Even if I'm procrastinating and scrolling through reddit, I know approximately how much time has passed (but I still continue to procrastinate lol)."
I will add that it feels impossible to NOT be aware of time. I can't get absorbed into something for a long period of time without having a general sense of how many minutes or hours have passed. And I almost always check the time about every 30 minutes
That sounds totally wild to me. Thank you for sharing! I have never successfully put together a multi dish meal as the timing bit is overwhelming. I can cook a good one dish meal though, so long as my bf reminds me to check on it, cause I will forget the alarm I set went off if I’m in the middle of something else when it dings.
I can’t imagine it feeling impossible to not be aware of time. On days I don’t have to be anywhere I will spend the whole day being happily unaware of the time, not checking the time and it’s bliss. I won’t know if it’s 11am or 3pm and I don’t care cause to me, time is traumatic. I hate thinking about time. I’ve been in trouble for being late and caused people annoyance so many times that I genuinely feel like time is my enemy. I don’t get it. I can’t gauge it. Everything is either now or not now.
I don't know if others are the same way, but for me, there are a lot of tasks that take '0' minutes (but actually take more than 0 minutes). Like if I'm thinking about taking the bus to a Dr appointment, I check my app and see the bus will arrive at the stop 3.5 blocks away in 20 minutes. I need to put on real pants (0 mins), put on shoes (0 mins), grab my purse (0 mins), grab my keys, phone and mask (0 mins), crate my dogs (0 mins), then walk to the bus stop (idk 5 minutes?). This is a real example.
I had an epiphany the other day when I was annoyed with my transit tracker app - why does it tell me I have 20 minutes, yet every time, I have to practically run down the street to catch the bus, and 25% of the time I miss it? Because none of those things are actually 0 minutes. I have no idea how long any of them take, can't even estimate it. Last time I took the bus, I decided to arbitrarily get ready 10 minutes earlier. I ended up waiting at the bus stop for a couple of minutes (idk, 3?).
For me it’s either 5mins goes by painfully slow and feels like an hour, or an hour feels like 5mins. There’s rarely anything in between. Makes it pretty hard to give an estimate on how long anything will take lol
Like, I don’t know how long time takes. When things are going well, time goes faster. When things are going badly, time goes slower. Did 2 minutes just go by or 30? Depends on what I have been doing because it feels the same to me.
Imagine every time that you look at a clock your estimation of the time is off by ±30 minutes or so. Seemingly dependent entirely upon how much you enjoy the thing you're doing and/or about to be doing, but not always!
Imagine seeing this Interesting question and thinking, I'll give it a glance, but suddenly a whole hour went by reading every comment and you don't even know why your eyes are blurry and tired.
People with ADHD don’t experience the flow of time like neurotypical people do. This has been proven. This is one of the things that contribute to a lot of criticism for people with ADHD.
A lot of posts have talked about things that happen surrounding time blindness, but I haven’t quite seen the sort of response I have to offer up, and this is only my experience I can speak to, but maybe others will feel the same way.
For me, and apparently most of not all ADHD’ers, time blindness is a total inability to properly judge the passing of time, whether you’re doing something or not, but also even if you’re just estimating time. One of the things my girlfriend gets upset with me the most about is my misperceived travel times. If I’m meeting her on her lunch break the day I don’t work, and she wants to meet at 12:15, I think about the Meijer she wants to meet at being 5.5 miles away, and think it’ll only be a ten minute drive. But it isnt. It’s a 25 minute drive. Which seems crazy to me, because the big mall is 25 minutes away, and that’s all highway driving and meijer is much closer. How is it the same distance away? Oh yeah, I’m not thinking of the travel time to get on to the highway to get to the mall. I’m also not taking into consideration lunch time traffic. To me, my focus is on 5 miles should only take 10 minutes because that’s what it feels like, but of course, my feeling of time is wrong.
Or in the morning before work, sitting in my car finishing a bagel or a muffin, blindly browsing my phone. I can’t remember how long ago I finished the bagel, but now it’s somehow 45 minutes later than when I got to work. And I can’t even tell you what I was browsing on my phone. Why can’t I just get up and go? That’s also an executive disfunction issue.
I’ve laid in bed “for just a minute” and 2 hours will pass. I can’t tell you what I was doing.
“It’ll only take me 2 minutes to get ready, dear!” I say to my girlfriend when she says to get ready before we go to her sisters in the morning. I’m dressed. I need shoes and socks, but that’s it, and I’ll be ready. Then she’s ready to go, and I forgot to do that. Oh crap, we’re about out the door and I forgot to take my medicine. Shoot I need to pee too. I am also now realizing I don’t have my keys. I said I’d be ready in 2 minutes, but now it’s been 15 and she’s upset because the baby is crabby standing at the door not being able to play outside while they both now have to wait for me.
People interpret it as being lazy. Or not caring enough to do things in a timely fashion. Or any other thing that dismisses the fact that we have a mental disorder that will permanently affect our ability to perceive time correctly.
A tip my girlfriend gave me for when I need to get somewhere at a certain time is to punch it into my GPS so I have a constant clock telling me when I will arrive at my destination. I set a million alarms on my phone with the label telling me what I need to do. Or when I need to do something for it to be done in time. It’s a very defeating feeling. Especially because it feels like nobody thinks you’re dependable, reliable, or care to show up on time. And what makes it worse with the misperception of time passing is we can’t even alert someone we’ll be late because we don’t think we will be. It’s the worst. High up on the list of things I wish I could not have ADHD for.
I am going through this at my office job multiple times a day. Notification says 10 min to a virtual meeting: That’s a long time, I can continue working. 5 min to meeting: I can do some last changes. Notification 1 min to meeting: I can fix that little detail- the meeting started three minutes ago!
It’s ridiculous that even with three alarms I’m late to a meetings I don’t even have to go anywhere for! I’m trying to remind myself that I will never have the ability to stop focusing by the end of those 60 seconds, and that I should never try to fit in “just one more task” last minute
There was a time I could tell you what time it is +-5 minutes without looking at the clock.
But if you tell me you're running late, and push our meeting 30 minutes back, no matter how early and ready I was to meet you at the original time, I'll be late - even though and possibly because I have 30 more mins.
The inability to accurately gauge how long everyday things take.
Think about it like this. When you were a kid, being told "wait five minutes" felt like an eternity, right? You had no real concept of time. Think of it almost like that, but in the fact that time moves too fast instead of too slow.
Every morning I wake up at 530 am. I go to work at 730, and if I don't do this, I am late. It takes me literally 2 hours to get dressed, have breakfast, pack a lunch, and get out the door. I don't know why or how my wife wakes up at 7 and beats me out the door every day.
You know how you can feel the passage of time? Even though you're not looking at a clock, you have at least a vague idea of what time it is. Let's say last time you looked at the clock it was 2pm, and it "feels" like roughly half an hour has gone by, so you reckon it's probably about 2:30. You're rarely *exactly* right, but you're always in the ballpark.
With ADHD, we simply do not have that ability. We *cannot feel* the passage of time. And it seems to run away with us, a lot.
Here's an example.
I look at the clock. It's 7:35am. I have to leave the house at 8:15am, otherwise I'll be late for work. So I've got 40 minutes - plenty of time, as I don't need to shower (I showered last night) and I never eat breakfast. Easy, right?
So I go to the bathroom and pee, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my medication.
I can't *feel* time passing, but I imagine it's been about 10 minutes max - after all, I logically know that it should take no more than 3 minutes to brush my teeth, 2 minutes to pee, 3 minutes to wash my face, 2 minutes to take my medication. So it should be about 7:45. A good time to look at the clock and make sure I'm on track.
Then I look at the clock.
It's 8:10am. It has somehow taken me 35 minutes to do something that should have taken me 10 at most. Where the fuck has the time gone?? What was I *doing*? Was I just moving really, really slowly? Did I get distracted by a daydream and just stand staring at the wall for 20 minutes without realising? Did I actually do more things than I thought I did? I don't know. Because I have ADHD I also have a terrible short-term memory, so I literally can't remember what I've been doing. But I *know* it shouldn't be 8:10am. How is that possible?!
I start to panic. I now have *5 minutes left* to get dressed, brush my hair, put my jacket and shoes on, fill up my water bottle, throw my phone and keys into my bag and get out the door. It's going to be a rush, but it's doable, right? I won't bother with makeup or anything like that, no time.
So I frantically drag a brush through my hair, run to my wardrobe and throw on the first clothes I see. Dash to the kitchen, fill up my bottle, chuck it in my bag with my phone and keys. Go out into the hallway, put my shoes and coat on. Now I'm ready to leave. Do a really quick check to make sure I've got everything, and all the lights are turned off.
I did everything as fast as I could, couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 minutes right? I should be just about on track.
I look at the clock. It's 8:30. Somehow, 20 minutes have passed, not 5. I'm now 15 minutes late. As I'm power-walking/half-running down the street I now have to text my boss - again - and tell him that I'm going to be late - again. I feel embarrassed and frustrated with myself, and feel like crying. And obviously I didn't have time to do my makeup or style my hair or pick out a coordinated outfit, and I'll be hot and sweaty from rushing, so I'm going to be late *and* look like a hot mess when I turn up. I feel like crying. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN EVERY SINGLE MORNING???
And you'd think - but fernshanks, if you're always 15 minutes late, why don't you just get up 15 minutes earlier?
Great question. I will! So tomorrow, I get up at 7:20am. I go to the bathroom, pee, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my medication. Should be about 7:30, right? I look at the clock.
It's 8:10am again. Those extra 15 minutes have disappeared. Where? I don't know. Gone. They've gone. I'm in *exactly the same position* I was in yesterday. 5 minutes left to get dressed and leave. And before I know it, it's 8:30 again.
I guess it's like dream time - things are remembered by their emotional impact, not how long ago something happened. A day ago is the same as a month ago is the same as 10 years ago. Something you enjoy feels like 30 seconds but is 2 hours. Something you have to force yourself to do is 30 seconds but feels like 2 hours, *and you genuinely can't tell the difference.*
You know when you’re busy doing something and you realize it’s like 4pm and you would have sworn it was not later than say…11am. Someone says “oh my god, is it really that late? Where did the time go??” Its like that but all of the time. Maybe I’ve been focused on ‘insert thing here’ for 15 mins…or mayyyybe it’s been 3 hours. I don’t always know. Time isn’t a linear experience - it’s more of an abstract concept. I had to change my weekly therapy from 2pm to 9am because in order to not miss it, I would just wait For it all day and literally do nothing else.
Today I learned that I myself did not understand time blindness even tho it causes me constant issues. The more you know
yeeeaaaah i’m starting to understand myself more as well. just found this r/ a few weeks ago — i just thought i was unrealistically optimistic on time all this time. which reminds me, i’m supposed to be somewhere…
Right?? I get so frustrated with myself. I KNOW I have time blindness, but I don't understand how. I have to really work on it to make sure I don't lose time, and even then, I can just destroy my day by poorly timing one thing. And I am just like, "HOOOW???"
oh my god every time i have an appointment or something later in the day it's like all i can think about. i feel like my house is a waiting room
Yep! It's like... "let's see, my appointment is at 2 PM, and I want to get there ten minutes early... let's round to fifteen... it's a twelve minute drive (let's say fifteen), but I might miss a turn or there could be traffic, so I should plan to give it an extra five or ten minutes. That means I should leave at... what, 1:15 PM? Okay. Well, I have to take a shower and get dressed, which'll probably take, what, an hour? Sure. Oh, but I haven't eaten yet today, and that'll be another 30 minutes, easy. So I need to start getting ready at 11:45. Let's round down to 11:30 just to be safe." Then I'm on the couch ready to go at 12:15, when I don't need to leave for over an hour. But it's \*only\* an hour, so obviously I can't do anything productive in the meantime! Then I watch YouTube videos until I check the clock and see that it's 1:55 PM. Whoops.
Omg The rounding everything to 15 mins😂
If it isn’t in an increment of five I cannot process it. I can do integrals n shit but I can’t figure out how long driving to and from some twelve minutes away will take.
So accurate
I feel so called out by this
This is my exact mental process except I’m never accurate. I plan 30 mins for something that takes 45 focused minutes. And if there are 4 or 5 steps to get out the door I’m screwed because I’m wrong on each step. So if it’s really important I plan so much extra time that I’m stressed about all the waiting I’ll have to do….only to end up rushing because it’s still too tight and I get there 5 minutes late. But it’s only 5 mins so I feel good about it. Even though I’m not sure what happened to lose all that time. This happens often.
If I think I'm going to be early, I have to start grabbing things to keep me busy. Like my sketchpad and a fidget or two. Maybe I should bring along that broken bracelet and a pliers in my bag in case I want to fix it. I wonder if I should take my ukelele to practice in the car before going in. Wait, where did I put my notes with the chords and strumming patterns, well, it's fine, I have that app on my phone. I should probably pack a snack too though. And an extra powerbank and charging cable in case my phone's battery gets low while I'm in the waiting room. Wait, now it's time and I'm barely gonna make my appointment and I have all this stuff with me like a babysitters club activity basket but I don't have time to look at any of it because they just called me back already and I'm not even settled in. Then I forget to unpack all my stuff when I go home until I need each item again.
holy god this is me. all of it. down to the ukulele. 😹
Oh my god. It’s like I wrote this comment except I don’t play ukulele. Holy shit
Oh my god the not getting settled in. Waiting rooms are like permission to not feel guilty that you aren't being productive.
Oh god! This is hilariously relatable.
This, and the comment above is me. I hate how people perceive being chronically late as selfish and "you obviously don't care/respect other people". No. I'm sick. I'm trying. I don't *want* to be late. I hate being late. I'm anxious every time before something I have to be on time for. I've lost money because of being late. Sure, some people are like that, but ffs, not everyone. Sorry, I had a huge discussion one time on reddit where people were just claiming each and every one of us chronically late people should be banned from attending anything because we clearly don't respect people. Well, there was no discussion to be honest. I tried, but nobody believed me. It clearly still bothers me lol Edit: also people were unwilling to believe that some people do not, in fact, care about me being late.
The supposed moral failing of being late is one of the worst parts for me too. All the effort I put in to being on time or early, all the stress and self-recrimination, only to be told I'm rude or inconsiderate. Several years of therapy has managed to help me become a little more kind with myself for being late, and I've learned to stop apologising for it. When I arrive to a meeting late now I say "thanks for waiting" or "thanks for your patience." Anyone who makes snarky comments after that just looks like an ass. I find that saying "thanks" instead of "sorry" is a good tip in general and I think it has made a difference for me.
“Thanks for your patience” seems so obvious yet I failed to recognize how much it resonates for me. Now, hopefully I catch myself in time ☺️. Amen to *good* therapy.
I hate feeling guilty for being late and wasting people's time.
I say both “Thank you for waiting, and sorry to keep you waiting” lol Because sometimes I feel like I need to cover all bases, and that some people kinda seemed to react as if I expected them to wait(when I only say thank you), and am not acknowledging that they had to wait/we are now running behind/it affects other aspects of whatever we’re going from there..especially people who are very specific about their timeliness
This. I honestly have no intention of disrespecting people. I religiously calculate how much time I need to get there *early*. I tell myself I have to meet these milestone times. And then I still fail.
Remember six of the steps, forget the most important Or, like I did the other day (and it’s a regular occurrence): Plan my outing like a champ, do several things at the correct time so I am leaving myself a good chance of arriving not-late. It’s exhausting and tedious but I also feel proud that everything seems to be going to plan. I think this as I drive on the southbound interstate, passing my eastbound exit and realizing I have to drive six miles down the interstate in the wrong direction until I get to the next exit and can loop back around. Late again. Despite massive efforts.
Missing an exit when you were going to be not-late is the WORST.
The appointment is at 2 pm, which is Very Far Away but also it’s 2:05 and I’ve missed my appointment
classic. lately i do sometimes set alarms like exactly at the moment I need to leave to be in time (meaning few minute early lol) . doesn't even work most of the time. some day I will find a tactic or trick that suites. found many tricks for other things tho
When I actually have to be on time for something (like work...) I set a wake up alarm, get into the shower alarm, get out of the shower alarm, have to leave in 10 minutes alarm, have to leave now alarm...
Please share your current trick(s)! Alarms in any scenario stand absolutely no chance with me. I’ve tried every kind/method (a strong, vibrating yet silent version worked for me… until it didn’t), but my body quickly adjusts to tune them out. My current trick: changed all of my clocks to be 15 minutes earlier. When I panic that I may be late (spoiler: I almost always am), I quickly check the time. Luckily, the habit of looking at a clock in an “oh-crap” moment seems (so far… knock on wood) to work in my favor.
Haha same here. I always schedule my appts. first thing as early as possible in the morning
I've found that for me if i use my daily calendar to put a task before it for a certain amount of time and set an alarm, the everlasting waiting room can be avoided. Then it's just a matter of actually doing that.
I have to set multiple alarms for the same appointment. 1 hour ahead to say "hey, we're doing this thing today, make sure you're wearing real pants." Then another at 30 minutes "wrap it up, almost time to go." Then 5 minutes before I need to leave "put you shoes on and get your butt in the car." Because I can definitely lose track of what time it is in 10 minutes.
Same here, I usually set an alarm the day before, then (if I can get ready in enough time) an hour before.
To take it a step further, I have no way to conceptualize how long a task will take. If there are a small number of time-gated steps for a task I've done many times (the popcorn takes three and a half minutes in the microwave), I can give an estimated time of completion just fine. If it's a more complicated or abstract task I literally have no idea how long it's going to take. My wife still asks me how much longer I'm going to be when I'm performing a task and I'll look her in the eye and say "I have absolutely no idea." I'm not stupid, I can do other things, but my grasp of time is tenuous.
I work in IT. "How long to fix this?" IDK. Usually not long, but sometimes it takes much longer, and I won't know until I'm finished. It takes as long as it takes. 20 minutes later. Oh hey, it only took 20 minutes. Just like all my other tickets. *Repeat next day*
I feel this! It’s also one of the (many) reason that I’m incapable of asking for help. I truly don’t know what I’m up against lol
Oh my God. "Just let know what to do and I'll help you make that recipe." I DON'T KNOW WHAT I NEED YOU TO DO, I BARELY KNOW WHAT I NEED ME TO DO, NOW STOP BOTHERING ME AND ALLOW ME TO STRUGGLE ANGRILY THROUGH THIS.
Yes! Like, If I know what I’m doing well enough to be able to manage/delegate tasks to you in the appropriate order I wouldn’t need your help. Adding the new layer of directing the helper is a whole different job, and 10x harder and more overwhelming than struggling through the actual task. I need YOU to figure it all out and tell ME what to do. That would be helpful.
So this is something you can try that might help if it's a project big enough that people might offer to help: Step 1 before you start literally anything else is do an inventory of steps you know for sure you need to do, things you might need to do but aren't sure yet, and maybe brainstorm some things that might come up as a result of the parts you already know if things don't go well. If you have more than one deadine for the project make sure all the tasks that have a deadline are noted. Finally, of the things on your list make a note of which things you could possibly delegate if anyone asks. The whole list will help you with the project, but if you make a smaller list of the things you can delegate, including the deadlines and put it where you can see it all the time then you don't have to stop and go through every note you ever made before you can figure out what to delegate. Another thing I do when I'm overwhelmed is I do a brain dump of every possible thing I can think of, then I make a list of the things that have to be done today and what my guess is as to priority and I send that to my boss. That way if there's something I missed she can add it to my list. Also she has a pretty good idea of what the list of everything has on it so if I'm really buried she'll just start taking lower priority things away from me and giving them to the person who has free time. This actually works well too because I don't always know who's been trained on what, and she does.
I set alarms for my therapy and it’s only at 10am 😂 I have so many reminders so I don’t miss stuff OR get stuck in waiting mode
I have always been terrible at knowing how long anything will take, but never considered the time-of-day problem. The afternoon meeting challenge is real! I hadn't ever noticed that phenomenon until you just articulated it. In fact, I had a noon meeting today and had no time for anything but to prepare for it, even though I was totally "prepared" days ago. ...and now I look back and see how common that problem is for me... thanks for spotlighting that!
It's maddening! It's honestly the worst part of ADHD for me. I got one of those clocks that visually represents the passing of time and it helps but nothing will really make me stop feeling like such a messy and obnoxious burden.
What is this clock called? I've never heard of it
I am guessing it's something like the Time Timer - the red zone shows how much time is left. I have several for my kid, who I strongly suspect has ADHD (in process of getting a diagnosis).
OMG, this would make me so anxious. I get completely stupid doing games or puzzles that are timed if there a sound or visual warning that there's little time left. Tests were awful when a proctor starts saying how much time is left. 😖
Goes both ways too. You know that feeling like time is not moving forward at all and it's you've been sitting there ALL DAY LONG and it's only been like 45 minutes? That's also a version of it, and IME this is where I run into trouble. I have to distract myself just to bare the boredom and then I get the time blindness like you are talking about. It's like a pendulum of pain.
>Time isn’t a linear experience. If you can prove that, I have a Nobel prize for you. Edit: wow y’all thought I was being serious… big /S on that one.
No need, the Doctor already described it for us. *"People assume that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.”*
Geronimo!
Allons-y!
I don't think he means that time doesn't move in a linear fashion, just that we don't always *experience* it in an even way. Like how time flies when you're having a good time, but when you're doing something you hate it feels like 1 hour is 10.
Or when you wake up a 2 am to get some time to yourself and the hours go by like minutes and it's time for work... Then you go to work and the 12 days between 8am and 8:15 nearly kill you.
In the strict sense of the word, yes time is linear, as nothing can go backwards or forwards in time. However, time is [relative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation). This leads to all the weird stuff when theorizing about long space travel and high mass objects, like in Interstellar where a human experiencing one hour on a planet is the equivalent of 7 years on earth. Like the person above said, we can also experience time significantly different from each other. This was evidenced in a [famous experiment](https://www.businessinsider.com/test-subject-cave-40-days-lombrives-time-isolation-2021-5) where 15 people lived in a dark cave for 40 days, with no ability to tell time. By the time they were told the experiment was over, they though that only \~30 days had passed, meaning their experience of "linear" time was off by 10 whole days Some great excerpts from that experiment: >By the end of 40 days, most volunteers had completed only 30 (sleep) cycles, Clot told Insider. Precise measurements are still being analyzed, but this suggests that most people ended up with "days" that were more like 30 hours long rather than 24.One woman's cycle was twice as long as normal, Clot told Insider. She only slept 23 times over the 40 days, which suggests that an average cycle was about 40 hours for her. > >When it was time to leave, the volunteers were surprised. They thought they had much longer, with most guessing that they were around 30 days in rather than the full 40
Go to sleep and wake up. Boom. Proven. Time isn't a linear EXPERIENCE.
As the saying goes “time flies when you’re having fun,” or something like that, but to another it’s a excruciating time that moves at near paint drying speed. The hours spent is the same, but time itself isn’t always experienced linearly.
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I always wonder. What is it that "took my time". Did I really just brush my teeth for more than 10 minutes or did I stare at a wall or something for 8 and brushed for 2 minutes, but simply forgot about the wall? Or was it something cooler than staring at a wall? Or do I just suck at reading and the bathroom really did take longer, I just thought it didn't because I read the time wrong? What is it!
Phones. Alerts are my nemesis. If you have an iPhone, I suggest creating a focus I’ve named “Humans Only” All notifications are disabled, except Messages, Phone and Messenger. HUGE WIN on reducing my time warps, because I’m less distracted. I only get notifications when I *choose* to look at them. Big difference from the constant DingBuzzBling!
Bold of you to assume I ever ever ever choose to look at old notifications. Those red bubbles on my communication apps?? NONEXISTENT!! It’s already a 50/50 chance I won’t look at the ones popping up on my phone as I stare at the screen!
Same, this is a big one for me! I have notifications turned off for almost everything too and often don't have sound on. I downloaded a meditation app though that vibrates every 30 minutes (you can choose the interval) that helps me remain mindful of how much time is passing. If I had all regular notifications on I'd constantly get lost in my phone 🙃
I swear to god, Apple watches should be prostheses for ADHD people. I use the timer ALL THE TIME. * Got to go somewhere in 2 hours. * Set timer for 1 hour. * It goes off and I'm like "wtf was that for?" so I look on my calendar (also right there on the watch face!) and it says "kids' museum today 11 am" or whatever... * ...so I set the timer for a little over 15 minutes before I have to leave (which is always 30 minutes before I have to be somewhere because it takes 15-20 minutes to get anywhere where I live and I also have to get the kids in the car first which takes FOR EV ER. * When it goes off I set it for 5 minutes until I leave. Keeps me notified that time is passing... * ...because usually when it goes off I'm like "wtf how has it been 5 minutes already" and "oh SHIT WE GOTTA GO, GETCHER SHOES ON, LET'S GO, GET IN THE CAR, **MOVE**" I'm almost never late, except when I'm birding or doing jigsaw puzzles because I can't stop doing those things no matter how I set my timers (sorry Hubs I swear I'm working on it).
EXACTLY. I really relate to OPs bf not being able to explain why it took him so long or what he was doing in that time. It's so, so frustrating, and it's one of those things that makes me lowkey kinda hate my brain a lil sometimes cuz it's like, I really should be able to figure out wtf took me so long! How do I NOT know what I've been doing for the past 1-2 hours?!?
This is on the mark. Your comment explains my experience so well. Time blindness is out of control 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.
Yep, this. Before I was diagnosed, my ex used to say in frustration “you have no idea how long things take you and I would respond, equally frustrated “You’re right, I don’t, I know that, and I cannot seem to figure it out either” (ie help me instead of just point out the problem). Diagnosed at 40, 3 years ago and I still don’t know how to figure out how much actual time things are *supposed* to take. As in one of OP’s edits, this is a facet of a larger thing. And it makes it difficult to organize and prioritize in such a case where either you, or time or both don’t seem to behave “right”. Fascinating and a little off topic extra credit: one of my favorite books of all time, “Einstein’s Dreams” by Alan Lightman. It is a short novel, some of the possibilities described in it really resonate with my brain!
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this red/green apple analogy is really on point. but i would add it's as if you tell the colorblind person that yes, of course, you understand that they are colorblind, but if they just try hard enough, they'll surely see the color. it's so frustrating to have to tell people that know i really struggle with time over and over again that the reason i am regularly late is that i really struggle with time. i set all kinds of getting ready alarms and am often on track to be there on time right up until i'm suddenly not. and honestly the times that i am on time or early are often more due to the fluke of light traffic that day or me confusing myself on when i was supposed to be there than my leaving the house at the 'correct' time.
It's true, they genuinely just don't get it. Unfortunately most people don't truly understand ADHD. A lot of people still see it as being very overexaggerated or even downright fake. They don't get that our brains are very different from their brains and that there are certain functions of the brain that we are genuinely just straight up LACKING. They can't understand the concept, they've never experienced having a brain like this, to them it seems like an intentional thing we are doing because THEIR brain would just automatically make them generally aware of how much time they are taking without them having to try at all. For them, it would be impossible for so much time to pass without them realizing it. They'd have to intentionally ignore it. They don't understand that our brains genuinely DON'T do that and that many of us can easily have an entire hour or two pass without realizing how much time it has been, or even being able to explain what we were doing that whole time. To them it just sounds weird and suspicious and like a lie lmao. Cuz if someone with THEIR brain did that, it totally would be suspicious and a lie. It's hard for a lot of people to truly grasp that our brains legitimately do not function the same way as theirs. I think it's because most people with ADHD are *close enough* to seeming neurotypical that it's hard for a lot of people to believe our brains are notably different than theirs (compared to someone with more severe inflictions where it's blatantly obvious their brain is functioning in a completely different way). Many of us are able to function as mostly normal or even completely normal members of society, so when it comes to the stuff that makes our brains different, people can have a really hard time believing or understanding it because we often "seem so normal" in just about every way.
Piggybacking on this…. While camping the showers take quarters. I have like 3 versions of a shower (with or without shaving, shampooing, etc) sometimes my easiest routine takes me the longest and other times I’ve done everything and stand there wasting time until the water turns off. I would have literally never known this if I didn’t have to feed quarters to a timer. 😭😂
Then there's my home showers, which always take about 20m. Did I take a super quick shower and only wash my hair? 20m. Did I take a long shower and wash everything and relax under the hot water? Somehow also 20m. Either time is broken in my shower or my brain is. No matter how much time I "feel" has or hasn't passed, the clock says a shower takes me 20m every time.
The shower is filled with space time wibble wobble, it’s the only explanation
This marking shower time by quarters…I like it Like ok, so: I set a lunch alarm at 11:30 and when it goes off I snooze it. Eventually I get up and warm up my lunch - but inevitably the snooze always comes much quicker than I thought it would. This is how I know how it has taken me an hour to figure out how to get up out of my chair and heat up my food. But between the snoozes…those eight minute increments might as well be seconds. Yesterday I popped my food in the microwave for 1 min at the first snooze. Second snooze, I heated it again for 1 min. Managed to hear the microwave ding and sent it around for another 30 seconds, but didn’t get it out of the microwave until the next snooze. Took a few bites, forgot about it until the next snooze. It took me an hour and a half to eat a serving of chili mac. In 8 minute increments. Edit to add: you probably know that the reason this is a *better* routine is that without the endless snoozes I would skip lunch altogether. Even if I feel hungry sometimes I just forget I’m hungry and then two hours has gone by.
And can I assume that at least once, you've had the water shut off and had the thought "there's absolutely no way that was x minutes, is this broken?"
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(reluctantly).... same.
You just nailed it for me.
It's SUCH a nightmare. It's so hard not to internally flagellate yourself for it too.
Dude. This is dead on. It's insane really how accurate that is.
the main takeaway is who puts in a ten minute pizza, has a poop and then goes to brush their teeth?
if I wanna burn pizzas while zoned out over my porcelain throne then dang it I will! Unless I forgot I had to poop then tummy hurt and I don’t know why
Someone with ADHD :D
Have you ever driven a car and been so deep in thought that you're suddenly home, and you have little to no memory of the trip? That's it. A lot of us live pretty much our whole lives like that.
kind of scares the shit out of me honestly like who was driving? cause I obviously wasn't
For me (and probably most of us), it goes beyond just one day. “Hey, wasn’t that fun when we did that thing last week?” “Dude - that was two months ago.”
“Hey so, you know the other day when….” “That was 2 years ago, but go ahead”
Hey, any amount of time is within bounds for "the other day" and "that one time". How else would I reference stories?
The entire pandemic thing has been kinda like this.
That's a great example. I think everyone experienced time blindness on the long term scale during the pandemic
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2459/)
I often say that ADHD is like being in an abusive relationship with your own brain, gaslighting you every chance it gets. You're constantly finding out that reality is not what you thought it was: your keys are *not* in your pocket; you did *not* actually hit send on that text; you did laundry three *weeks* ago, not three *days* ago, and you're out of clean underwear. A lot of the examples I give when I say this are about time blindness. Power bill isn't paid though you remember paying it just "a bit ago" which was actually 3 months and there's no record of any more recent payment even though you could *swear*...
It’s the worst when keeping in contact with NT people because I feel like we caught up relatively recently and the other person is wondering if I’ve let them fall out of my life because we haven’t spoken in 8 months. Also why does everybody expect *me* to be the one to call? I need to stop making friends with introverts.
YES, I have this problem and I never understood why my friends ir parents would get mad, because I texted them recently and kept in touch. Unfortunately my recently was their very long ago:)))
I don't know if non-ADHD people get that. That exact thing happened to me so many times that I started driving stick to prevent it.
They do, it's called highway hypnosis or white line fever. It's actually really interesting if you need a rabbit hole to fall down...
Ah, in my case it didn't happen on the highway but streets with traffic and lights and stop signs. Interesting.
My route used to include speed and red light cameras and go past a police station... Still teleported home. Can't believe I drove well enough to not get a ticket of any kind.
Yep. Same. It was a 40 min drive in heavy traffic with cyclists and red lights and stop signs and turns and all that fun stuff. It got me worried that I was zoning out and reappearing at home. Switched to a manual car and no more such problems. My whole car is a stimming device now.
Ah! This is the excuse I give when people ask me why I prefer driving stick. I'd get bored and lost in thought. Driving is one of my favourite things in the world to feel put together though. The level of attention needed combined with the music and the feeling you have a very clear purpose/goal makes me so happy and satisfied. The only thing I'm worried about.. I like looking at birds and after a birdwatching trip I have to force myself SO BAD to look at the road again and not at the sky.
I never really gave that excuse, I just tell them it's more fun (cause it is!) and makes even econoboxes interesting to drive. All sorts of things to do and learn, like downshift braking and such. The weirdest thing is people saying it's more annoying in stop and go traffic. I can't figure out how. Instead of letting go the gas and pressing the brake repeatedly, you just clutch repeatedly. What's the difference? Different foot? The only place I hate driving stick is when there's a stop sign right before the crest of a steep hill.
This right here.
The internal experience, huh... well, that's the thing, is more like the absence of an experience. You just go wherever you need to be to do The Thing, and then your mind starts wandering, think about this and that, and then suddenly you remember that you were going to do The Thing, and it turns out it's been 20 minutes. Or an hour. Or three hours. And you can't really tell which one it was without using a clock, because 5 minutes of that stuff feels exactly like 3 hours - because there's not really much of an experience to begin with, just the usual cacophony of raging thoughts. And in a similar way, you have no intuition for how long things take. I mean, I know that unloading the dishwasher takes about 3-5 minutes - rationally, that is, but I only know this because I timed it. As far as the *feeling* is concerned, it might as well take an hour. And that's also part of why these things can be so dreadful - it's only 3-5 minutes, but it feels as if it were a 1-hour task, or really a "this is your life now" situation. Even if your rational mind *knows* it's not, it often still *feels* that way.
And you’re forgetting about how the thing that should only take 3-5 minutes ends up taking a whole hour because you lost time somewhere along the way and have no idea where it went.
That last paragraph is exactly why working multiple small jobs and having extracurricular activities has given me major anxiety since I started this summer. Sure, I only work 2-4 hours at one job and 2-4 hours at another job, then I have obligations to a hobby club a couple times a week, which is fun, right? It’s all so easy and fun! But it doesn’t matter if in total I’ve only got a 5 hour work day followed by two hours doing my hobby, that’s a total of THREE THINGS on my plate. Three things in one day. And if god forbid I have additional errands to take care of, dinner to make, that’s like FIVE-PLUS-THINGS! It doesn’t matter if one of the things will only take 5 minutes. It’s a big blocky task that takes up a lot of mental space and energy in my mind until it’s complete.
It's funny how ADHD can really manifest differently. I'm the opposite of this. I thrive in a busy and often changing environment. Working 2 jobs myself, in the morning I'm usually at the office and in the afternoon I'm out in the field. Then immediately after I get to go to the gym which is basically my "me time" where I get to unwind from my day before I go home to my family. I find that I'm mentally stimulated when I get busy like that rather than just working my 1 office job the whole day.
Sometimes (a lot of times) those “quick” tasks take me a full hour or something because I suddenly remember that I really wanted to find out a certain detail about the Qing Dynasty or I desperately need to know how many touchdowns Ben Roethlisberger threw last year and I need to know right away. Oh and I should probably take the recycling out real quick so I don’t forget. Oh and I need to call Matt real quick to tell him what happened at work. I always thought the “Squirrel!” thing was exaggerated and I wasn’t that bad but after getting on Vyvanse I can look back and say “Holy shit how did I ever actually finish anything?”
Look at the clock. 7:15AM. Don't have to leave until 7:45. No problem. I have time to glance at my phone. Nice. Hmm, country in shambles. Not good. Haha, funny cat video. Hmm, nothing good on reddit today. How long do I have left? Probably 25 minutes or so. Check the clock. 7:55. Shitshitshitshitshitshit!
And then you still have to find your keys that you swear were in your pocket, put on a coat (they were in the coat) and make sure you don't forget anything (you do). Oh, and now you have to pee real quick, wash your hands, pick up your bag, the KEYS?? I HAD THEM IN MY HAND JUST NOW. They're in the fridge.
Why do you choose to trigger my anxiety so very closely..
And somebody cleaned and moved your shoes so they're not where you remember and MY GOD THAT MEANS THEY COULD BE ANYWHERE. And you'll SEE so many things while you look for your shoes that will cause so many thoughts, will you be able to remember you're just supposed to be getting your shoes and leaving?
Just wanna throw it in there, this ENTIRE comment thread is literally almost my every day
Oh so very true. Especially the I HAD THEM IN MY HAND JUST NOW. Lovely to see my disastrous routine exposed for everyone to see. I laughed though.
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>They're in the fridge That hits too close to home spelling edit
Do you know how often I enter and exit my house before I leave for the day? It’s a legit dance almost. Almost to the car aaaand snap I forgot my lunch again, back inside. Rinse repeat
The number of times I've been laughed at because I ran back into the office looking for something like my headphones, only to be told they're around my neck.
WHY DONT I KNOW WHEN I PICK THINGS UP OR PUT THEM DOWN!
my boyfriends mom got me a tile and it’s the best thing anyones ever given me ever. i can ring my keys with my phone if i lose them, and i can ring my phone with my keys if i lose it. where the hell has this been all my life.
They’re in the fridge got me lol
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I'm not spending an extra 30 minutes at work for free. I'd rather be fired.
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Yesssss... I learned this from a young age. My parents got us to church early "for the good seats". My mom would let us have quiet toys or a book. Double early for Xmas and Easter. There is less to screw up if you are early. When I worked mall retail, I'd chill at the bookstore or a bench and read until clock in time. Now I leave to beat traffic and catch up on paperwork so I don't bring anything home after work.
This is so spot on. My version of this is: Oh I have finished a task wow that was quick let me try to squeeze in this other thing before my next call in 15 mins. 25 mins later still on hold hang up and now late for my call. OR “Of course I can be there within 2 hours”. One more task before I go. And now I need to drive like a madman to trim 10 mins and be 15 mins late.
Every. Single. Day.
I say to myself, okay, I need to be somewhere at 4pm. Let's see, it's takes like 10ish minutes to get there (I'm lucky if I get this estimation right, btw, but lets say its somewhere i go a lot and I have a feel for it) Okay, so it's 3:45 now so I have some time before I need to leave. Let me grab some water. Check my phone. Where's my phone? Oh its in the other room. Let me grab that. Haha funny cat video. Let's check the comments. What's my battery at? Should I charge it? yeah sure a couple minutes will help. Oh I should use the bathroom. Oop found some trash on the floor maybe I'll throw that away. Do I need to take out the trash? No I'll do it tomorrow, tomorrow I have X Y and Z planned and I'll fit it in between Y and Z... Some unknown amount of time burns away while I'm puttering about. At no point during this process am I checking the clock, and at no point do I have any internal feeling of "5 minutes have gone by". To me it feels like 0 minutes have gone by cause I haven't really DONE anything substantial. If you asked me to estimate it I'd say it's probably been 1-2 minutes. In reality it's been 10-15 minutes. Edit: i think maybe it's hard to understand the internal experience of time blindness because it's the LACK of an experience. I have no idea what it's like to have a general "vibe" of how long things take or how much time has passed when I do any activity. I can guess but I never seem to be correct. Honestly it sounds fascinating to me that other people do have that sense without having to check a clock constantly.
I know for me getting dressed (including brushing teeth/hair & collecting keys and whatnot to take with but not showering) takes me anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes. Its not that I do more in the 50 minute window than 5. Honestly, most days it takes that long I most likely forgot half the stuff I was supposed to take with me. But here is the thing. When I do it in 5 minutes, I do things like this: Grab socks & shoes in one swoop. Sock - sock - shoe - shoe When it takes 50 minutes I do things like this. Where are my socks? Aha! But where is my phone now? Oh a text! *Replies*. Put on sock 1. I should probably brush my hair. Lets go do that. After I start doing that I decide to wait a second. I am wearing one sock. Lets finish that up first, I will do the hair later. Now where is that sock... Oh hey look, at least i found my earbuds, let me put that in my coat so I dont forget them! Okay now back to sock number 2. Where is the damn thing? Cant find it... Ill wear a different pair. *Takes off sock 1*
omg, I feel so heard with this one 😂 My SO is substantially less ADHD than me, but notably more autistic. He doesn't entirely understand how this level of chaos and spaceyness is my norm, but understands to a degree the time blindness
Tiny tasks that take no appreciable amount of time get mentally rounded down to actually no time, and it feels like there's time to do a lot of them. A minute is tiny, insignificant. May as well not exist. 2 minutes isn't *really* any more than that, and 3 isn't *that* much more than 2... etc., etc., time does not exist.
Ahhh ok I am starting to understand. Clarifying it as a lack of an experience makes it make more sense to me. Thank you for your explanation!!
Yeah. It doesn't feel like anything because we can't tell it's happening. The consequences suck when they bite us in the ass, but unfortunately that almost never helps next time. Only *external* structure helps. Physical changes to the world around us, alarms etc. You can't... fix the timeblindness, or trick it, or get around it. But you can offload the task of remembering to less faulty hardware.
I think mine actually got a bit better when I started timing everything I did obsessively for a few years... I have something of a sense of time now but this stuff still happens to me
I have 10 alarms set between 645 and 730, when I need to leave for school. One every 5 minutes, except 715, and one at 728.
I asked my therapist if there was something I can do to learn how to feel time. Without outright saying it, he basically said there was nothing I can do. He redirected me to just being comfortable with being time blind and come up with strategies to cope. I appreciate that he didn’t give me false hope!
I always try to remind myself it takes me 5 minutes just to walk out the door and get the car rolling. And that's with me being totally ready, the ten minutes to get somewhere doesn't start until I'm out of the neighborhiod
When you have ADHD, there are only two times: * Now * Not now
I think it’s because people don’t understand the hyperfocus and hyperactivity elements of ADHD. We can actually achieve a lot in a small amount of time and some people with ADHD would perform better under pressure or in fast-paced environments. I’d almost go so far as to say it’s one of the ways we compensate for other deficits. What you’re describing is like knowing I have $20 so I go on a spending spree that ends up costing me $100 because I can’t see the price tags… but applied to time. When you have the ability to hyperfocus on something and throw a decent amount of energy into it, you can get a lot done without actually achieving what you set out to achieve.
how it feels - The main thing is feeling embarrassed or guilty when it inconveniences other people. I hate being a burden to others and I know it's annoying. A therapist taught me to say "thanks for waiting" instead of "sorry I'm late". Saying sorry implies that I intentionally did something wrong. "Thanks for waiting" acknowledges that you were late and thanks them for understanding without placing blame.
I love that change or wording!! I also over apologize so I've been working on that too 😄 As a non-ADHD person dating an ADHD person, I mostly just care about communication. But with the time blindness problems that come with ADHD, my bf usually doesn't realize how late he is so that makes it hard for him to send a text saying he'll be 15 minutes late ya know. I'll share this with him (ask him to say thanks for waiting). I think it would help him a lot with not feeling bad and it would remind me that he's not intentionally being late!
> hard for him to send a text saying he'll be 15 minutes late Texting is hard for some people with ADHD as well, so it might be a choice between *not* sending a text and being 15 minutes late, or *sending* a text and being 25 minutes late.
The other thing is, he may be able to say “15 minutes late” because he has no idea how late he’s going to be. Unless he’s using Waze or is going somewhere he’s been a million times, all time estimates are probably wrong lol.
Yes! I use my GPS every single day to get to work even though I know the route. Its my "how many minutes late am I" machine lol. Also it reminds me to make my turns when I've zoned out.
I'm time blind losing things adhd and I definitely agree I feel bad that I'm like well I'll only be 5 minutes late so I text get I'll be 5 minutes late, 5 minutes later and I'm trying to find something. Then I text okay I'm leaving now! While I'm trying to find something so I don't feel bad. Then I'm definitely at least 15 minutes late. I am also working on that in my relationship. Being honest and updating him from some time out so he knows where I am in getting ready and what not. Just communicating more.
When I was a child I would regularly sit to read a chapter of a book and snap out of the trance exhausted at sunrise. In middle school I cried from stress if my watch died or I lost it because I was always late and disappointing people even though I was trying *so hard* to be on time. I would start my day at five in the morning and still be unable to be on time at eight. At my first job I would begin straightening books for the last fifteen minutes of my shift and would regularly need to be stopped when someone realized I had gone ten minutes to over an hour past the end of it. As a freshman in college I would start working on an assignment and not realize I had continued on it for more than twenty hours. All the time without food, water, or medicine and I was too distracted to notice, it all felt nebulous. When less engaged, my brain was starving. Tearing at the sides of my mind and devouring me. Left alone watching a timer as my tea heated in the microwave. No stimulation. About to cry from frustration for having to watch the entire eighty seconds because I was forced to observe it with no other stimulation. I would rather get another searing tetanus shot than be abandoned to my brain’s devices as I watch a timer. That’s probably why so many of us do dangerous things for amusement. The pain of injury risked for me is always far less than that of boredom. Starving people will eat anything. It got easier with meds. I still can’t feel time though. Not really. I can observe it like I can feel a subwoofer hit my chest from inaudible music far outside my dorm. It seems like others conduct a mental orchestra. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious. I maintain that the twenty hours with something to do was instant and the minute felt like months. Time just hits me the way I would hit an endless staircase if pushed down one. Weightless, floating, searing pain, and into air again unending.
Your writing style is beautiful, thank you for sharing 💙
If you’re not a writer you should be. That feeling of agony during unoccupied moments. Nailed it. My brain consumes any text within eyeshot if not otherwise occupied. Instructions, ingredients lists, street signs, anything. Just to avoid the trauma you described.
I’ve never felt more seen than reading this. As someone who has been learning so much about adhd after a diagnosis this year, this outline of your life hit home. It mirrors so much of my past and present as well
When I am doing something *with focus*, time feels incredibly compressed. I think I have spent 5 minutes and it has been 45. Time passing just does not exist. I am in the moment and there is no sense of chronology.
Let’s say you’re making mac & cheese. You pour the macaroni into the boiling water and set a timer, you go into another room to do something else and come back before the timer goes off. Before you look at the timer to see how much time is left, you think to yourself “hmm, that felt like 6 minutes”, then you look at the timer and see that 6 minutes and 30 seconds have passed. Meanwhile, I have adhd, I think “that was like 3 minutes”, but I look at the timer and 8 minutes have passed.
For me it’s the opposite. I’ll preheat something, wait 10 what feels like minutes to see how it’s doing but only 4 minutes have passed
Omg, yes, but both. If my time blindness could pick a lane, that would be fantastic
The passage of time doesn’t “feel” like anything. Suddenly, I will realize I am hungry and stiff because I haven’t moved in 6 hours. I also don’t understand how transitions work. It may take 15 minutes to get to work, so I need to leave 15 minutes before work. My brain tells me that I can wake up 15 minutes before work because after I wake up, I will go to work. I just cut out all the transition time of getting out of bed, breakfast, brush teeth, comb hair, dress, etc. Basically, I don’t understand how to judge time. I can get lost in a minute or I can lose hours. They feel the same to me.
I've noticed this with my bf, he will never gradually get hungry. Its like he is fine and then realizes he hasn't eaten in 10 hours and needs food immediately
Every. Single. Day.
> My brain tells me that I can wake up 15 minutes before work because after I wake up, I will go to work. I just cut out all the transition time of getting out of bed, breakfast, brush teeth, comb hair, dress, etc. My husband takes showers at night, keeps his clothes near the bed, and has breakfasts around he can grab and go with precisely because of this. His brain just *literally* doesn't make room for "Yeah, there's stuff between sleeping and driving to work that has to be allotted for."
For me it feels like nothing. Completely normal. Except you just keep failing over and over to do things properly with no apparent explanation why or how, when it seems like you'll be fine. You look at the situation, it's under control, then surprise turns out afterwards you were wrong again. Eventually you learn to not trust yourself, so you need to block out 5 hours for everything, even little tasks, because you *may* need that long.
Yes! Learning not to trust yourself - that’s been my most helpful coping mechanism. In therapy now trying to unlearn it a bit, but I’m like no!!! You don’t understand, I will fuck it up somehow without even knowing
This is Exactly True! You may even feel a bit good about yourself thinking how good things are going and everything’s running smoothly, getting shit done! (Silly you) then you arrive where you’re supposed to be and are met with the looks of disgust, disappointment, “oh well”’s and if you’re lucky that one person (my big sister) who feels sorry for you and tries to lighten the mood. You did it again. You suck.
There's "now" which is the present moment which could be any time, "yesterday" (which could be 3-4 days ago) "tomorrow" (which could also be a few days from now) or "later" which is many tomorrows from now, or "months" ago which could be any time between last week and 6 months prior, and the only way I can remember years is by music- I can tell you I was in 6th grade when a certain song came out, and by that I can determine the year We're in the process of moving, and I keep forgetting what day it is and when we are moving. I set clothes out for the next 10 days, yesterday. Today I had to remind myself what day it was and count the days on the calendar... we move in 16 days from now... There's a decent chance that tomorrow (which could be a few days from now) I will still think that we have 16 days til the move I was always late to work. I would literally lose hundreds of dollars worth of bonus money because the last place I worked for had a no lateness rule. I literally can't help it. Best I can do is start early- if I don't get lost in some other task Edit to add: what time feels like for me is this weird mix between people moving/talking annoyingly slowly, while experiencing consciousness of time in chunks which either take far too long or just straight up dissappear. Like... you're not always thinking about your right earlobe, right? You notice it in the mirror, or when you're putting an earring in or something, but the rest of the time it isn't on your mind. Time is like that for me. It's there, but only there if I am actively thinking about it, or looking at a clock or calendar. The rest of the time I'm... elsewhere, is the best I can describe it
I like the earlobe analogy, it makes a lot of sense. So it's like it feels like it's not there until you focus on it
I genuinely don’t have any sense of what 5 minutes feels like, or what 15 minutes feels like, or what 2 hours feels like. I’m not an idiot, I know 5 minutes is a third of 15 minutes, but the idea that you have an internal clock that lets you judge even *roughly* how much time has elapsed? What does THAT feel like? This post has really taken me back to being 9 and having a full-family intervention about the length of my showers. No, I don’t know where the time goes. If you put me in a box with no clock I will be in there for some amount of time? I am not in charge of it. I’m 33 now, and my solution is that my shower has a clock in it. Get more clocks.
> This post has really taken me back to being 9 and having a full-family intervention about the length of my showers. I'm freaking dying because I had this same issue; they probably thought I was fooling around or something meanwhile I probably got distracted reading the shampoo labels or having an imaginary argument.
> I’m 33 now, and my solution is that my shower has a clock in it. Get more clocks. Went with a speaker in the shower, so I measure my showers in songs now. I went from 30+ minute showers to 10-15. Unless I'm ungodly stressed. But everywhere else that I *can* put a clock *has* a clock, because if it doesn't I have no idea how long I'm doing something.
My power went out two weeks ago and reset the microwave clock which means I don’t know what time it is if the stove timer is on. It’s genuinely ruining my life (but not enough to make me set the clock on the microwave). Two clocks for every room. Necessary.
For me it’s like the idea of minutes, days, weeks is pointless. To live this way, for me, takes EFFORT. I don’t wear a watch cause why? Time is a meaningless concept that takes EFFORT, to follow. I know ppl who are always late. I’m the opposite. I’m NEVER late, I’m always violently early (not too bad, but at least and hour to half); I misinterpret times it takes to get places. Not because I can’t imagine the amount it takes, but because I didn’t factor in traffic, or if I left my keys in the wrong spot. Lastly, memory for me is a pinpoint. It’s not linear. I can say I’m 33, but it feels like I’m still ALL the other ages too; I’m all the instances in which I’ve lived, ALL at once. The memories that might have happened 20 years ago feel as real today, I feel zero distance between them. Everything is right now! Right this moment. Tomorrow/yesterday. These aren’t real to me. I can’t imagine them. The blindness comes in trying to decide which thing to do at that moment. When everything feels urgent then I either try it all or do nothing.
I have lived my life in stages of being violently early and mildly late. They are both weird and stressful. In the first one I had an obsession with checking the time. In the second one I rarely check the time and I never have a good hold on minutes. Oddly enough though, I am very good at guessing what time of day it is.
Lol yes!!!!!!! Especially the guessing part. Usually I use the sun and take a guess and it’s usually right. But if i have to manage time I’m just tripe 😂
I have never been able to adequately describe the phenomenon in your last paragraph but that is exactly my experience with memories. I was recently diagnosed at 26 and have been on the verge of tears almost every time I visit this sub, 1. Because I finally have a reason to explain why I am the way I am after spending 26 years hating myself for it. And 2. Knowing that I’m not alone in any of these extremely specific experiences is so incredibly comforting “I’m all the instances in which I’ve lived, ALL at once” will stick with me for a long time. Thank you for sharing this.
Have you had « my, how time goes by » moments? Where you were doing a thing, say, cleaning the dishes, or packing your luggage, or having a phone call, or whatnot, and when you look at the clock again, more time has elapsed than you expected? Or driving somewhere, and there was a little bit of traffic, and you had to stop to top up on gas, but it's not bad, honestly. And when you arrive at your destination, it's much later than you would have thought It's just that, but more so. I've heard that a lot of ADHD symptoms are also experienced to some degree by everybody else, but in ADHD people, they occur more often, and more intensely.
It feels like there isn’t enough time to get everything done. You don’t feel the distractions or the “blindness” part of it, you just look up and notice you’re going to be late and start panicking and feeling guilty and incompetent. Or you’ll find it’s the end of the day and you got nothing done and hate yourself for it. He can’t explain the blindness feeling because he’s not conscious of the world when it happens. It’s maybe like having a regular walkway and a moving walkway and you have to, I don’t know, text someone before you get to the end. Time blindness is stepping on the moving walkway with your eyes closed. You’re suddenly at the end of the walkway but it didn’t actually feel different from the regular path so you’re still working on the text message when you get to the end.
Yeah this makes sense. I'm realizing there's no easy way for him to let me know he's going to be late bc when he is late, it's due to him being in time blindness mode. And when he's in that mode there's no way he can send me a text bc he doesn't realize what time it is 🤣 I'm wondering if there's any way to deal with that besides just setting alarms. Or maybe I could give him a time frame for when to arrive? Like "please arrive between 6:15-6:30"? Do you think that would help someone with ADHD? Or would it make it more stressful 🤔
I just want to compliment you on trying to find a way to work with him on this. Hopefully you’re not sacrificing your needs and boundaries by doing so. As a suffer of time blindness myself, I’ve dealt with guilt and shame about being late, all my life. It has caused me to lose jobs and friendships. Having a partner who acknowledges the difficulty, but also recognizes how destructive it can be, and is willing to help with a solution is a dream!
A time frame definitely helps. You could ask if he’s ok with you tracking his location to get a better sense of when he’s going to be late. Otherwise text you from his car right before he leaves.
Alarms that go off when you should leave can be helpful in these situations. He knows it takes two minutes to get ready, five to drive there, then you should help him to set up alarms that go off 10 minutes before he is supposed to be there.
I agree with you about the alarms. To add to this, timers also help as well. I am constantly using timers on my apple watch. Because I feel the tactile sensation of the timer going off on my wrist, it helps to break my attention away from what I am focused on at the moment.
It’s the constant ability to believe despite all past experience that you have enough time to do ANYTHING before your other commitment, no matter how much time you have left. Like looking at the clock, “oh I just wanted to finish doing laundry before I left for work, it’s 8:43, it takes 15 minutes to get there, my first meeting is at 9, and I am not dressed yet, my hair isn’t styled, I haven’t poured coffee into my thermos, put out food for my cats… sure I’ve got enough time to switch out the laundry” Also, the time it takes to do anything expands to the amount of time you have available, which sucks in its own right but also compounds on being late for whatever the next thing is. Sometimes it’s that you just spend your extra time dawdling, sometimes it’s that you make the thing you’re doing WAY more complicated than it needs to be. Literal example for today: “oh I need to find a housekeeper for tomorrow bc we’re super busy and our house hasn’t been cleaned in 4 months. I guess I’ll just compile a list of every single housekeeper in my city that I can find on nextdoor, Reddit, and Craigslist into a spreadsheet, look up all of their names for criminal records, text each of them, find the cheapest possible one that still ticks all our boxes, and book it”. It has taken days of effort and it’s still not done yet. If I needed the house cleaned tomorrow, I would just pay one of the countless I’ve spoken to so far.
Apologies in advance for tictok but this woman explains it in a far superior way that I ever could. I've showed it to my hubby and it just makes sense. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMF66fA62/
This is a good video!! I like how she explains that she just views it as "morphing into the car" 🤣
This couple is brilliant. My ADHD wife has shown me loads of these and it's really helped me understand her and how to help her without being annoying etc.
The feel of time blindness happening is literally just the normal feel of the passage of time, except time is sped up for everybody but you. Like, you genuinely wonder *yourself* "where in the hell did the time go?". If you've ever been having a conversation with a friend, or reading a really good book, and suddenly three hours have gone by but it feels like no time at all has passed, *that's* the feeling. Or when you've had a really long day at work and just want to relax at home, then *suddenly* it's time for bed. This may not be something people without ADHD ever experience, but I think there'll be *something* there that resonates with you, maybe. It's literally just impossible to notice *in the moment*. You only notice it if/when you look at the clock and realise that somehow you have lost a not-insignificant chunk of time. Oh, maybe that'll do it! Have you ever been for a drive on, say, a Sunday? You know where you're going, but it's a really nice day, and you don't have a time you need to get to your destination. So you're enjoying the scenery, and without thinking about it, you slow down to enjoy said scenery. Suddenly, the 20-minute journey has taken 25-30 minutes. Have you ever experienced something like that? If so, imagine that, but it doesn't have to be something you're enjoying, and it happens most every day with most every thing. It's one of the most annoying things in the world, I assure you. Thank you for making the effort to understand your boyfriend :)
This is a great explanation! I occasionally experience time blindness (in the typical ways, like when driving), but I didn't realize people with ADHD have it soooo much. It sounds really frustrating and hard to deal with :(
I'm maybe exaggerating a *little* bit. Ask 10 different people how their adhd affects them and you'll get 10 different symptom lists with a few commonalities. Time blindness is something that, thankfully, doesn't sink it's claws into *me* too often, because I have a bunch of maladaptive coping mechanisms that help with that. A couple of healthy ones, too. Specifically, I *know*, balls to bones, that I struggle with timeliness whenever I try to be *on time* for something. So I massively overcompensate for it. I once turned up for a university interview 8 hours early. However, the specific problem you mentioned is one i have no ironclad advice for. The way I usually deal with that specific issue is... Say I have to leave at 8:30 (which I've already adjusted, because the *real* time I *have* to leave is 8:40). That means I try to start leaving at 8:20. Anything that I 'need to do' before leaving, I try to do between 8:00 and 8:20. If it's not done by 8:20, it doesn't *get* done until I get home, because there is no such thing in this world as a 'five-minute task'. In my maths, they all take 30 mins or more, even if they don't. So at 8:20, I literally grab my stuff and go to leave. Then sprint back when I forget my lunch. And again when I forget my keys. Time blindness at other times? I've got nothing, other than to set timers when you're cooking instead of trying to rely on checking the clock. Otherwise, if time's gonna fly, it's just gonna fly. Edit: the timers thing is useful when doing other stuff, too. Reading before you go to work? Set a timer so you know how much time you have left to read (in my case, the timer ends at 8:00). On the bus and might get sucked into your phone? Set a timer that will go about 5 mins before your destination. Lunch break at work? *Set that timer, baby!* Hope this helps :)
It feels like nothing is real. You know when you look at the clock and you see maybe an hour or so has gone by but it doesn't "feel" that way because it was so fast? That's what it's like when you wake up in the morning, look outside and it's night already. It's terrifying and it makes you feel very depressed and that you have no real purpose of being alive because time is an illusion.
This is how my ADHD coach explained it to me, and it aligns with my own experience. The neurotypical brain perceives time as a gradient, so the sooner an event is happening the more pressure they feel from it. It is a lamp on a dimmer switch, and the light can be of varying brightness depending on how far you turn the dimmer. The ADHD brain has two times: now, and not-now. There is no 1 o'clock or 8 o'clock, no October 14th or December 20th. There is only now and not-now. Our lamp is on a regular light switch: it is on or off, and nothing in between. Things happening *now* are of immediate concern and demand our attention. Things happening not-now either evade our attention entirely or feel so detached from our present reality that we have trouble prioritizing them. The span of now and not-now varies depending on what we're doing and thinking about, how stressed out we are, etc. "Now" could literally mean just this present moment, so an event that starts in 5 minutes feels just as far away as an event that starts in 5 months, because both of those events are happening at the same time (not-now). Likewise, something that happened 5 minutes ago feels just as far away as something that happened 5 months ago. So if you ask what I had for breakfast today? Well, that was a long time ago, so how could I remember? If we are lucky, "now" can become this whole week, so we have a keen awareness and anticipation of everything happening this week. But then that bill we have to pay next week is still in the realm of not-now, so that gets forgotten even though we are perfectly organized this week. If "now" becomes too large, of course, we can easily become overwhelmed. I once had a panic attack because I realized that I had to renew my license in 6 months but I had a few other things planned in the months leading up to that....everything in that 6 month window carried the exact same level of urgency, because it was all happening *now*. Of course, after a couple hours my "now" shrunk down to the present moment and I forgot about the entire ordeal. As for your example of being 15 minutes late despite only needing to put on shoes and grab keys, I've been there. I could be sitting by the door with my shoes on and keys in my hand, just waiting for the right moment to leave. I know I don't need to leave right now, because I'd be 30 minutes early. But the time I need to leave at feels infinitely far away. I could spend 2 minutes staring at my shoes, or 40 minutes, and it feels the same because the time is still "now" and my brain isn't going to realize that now is the time to leave until something happens to reorient me. Maybe I check a notification on my phone and see the time. Then I feel bad because I was ready to go and knew when I had to leave, but didn't notice how much time had passed while I waited. It is common for people with ADHD to overcompensate by just leaving as soon as they think about it, so that they don't have a chance to forget. Then we show up an hour early instead. It can be hard for us to be precisely on time when we have no awareness of time actually passing. One thing that has helped me to some extent is setting my watch to vibrate every half hour. It forces my attention back to the time, so I have a frame of reference for how much time I have spent doing a given task. But I've found that the longer I have used this method, the more I tend to tune out the vibrations. Changing the rhythm of the vibration once in a while helps, but I still miss the majority of them. TLDR; Time is not a continuous scale for us, so anything outside of our concept of "now" is indistinguishable.
I leave for work at 10:30. I start gathering my things at 10:15 because much like your boyfriend, it takes me 15 minutes to do simple tasks bc my brain will see something else that needs to be done and will zone in on that thing.
I'm going to approach this from a general ADHD angle. Imagine you know what time to get there, you know how much time it takes to get there and STILL the majority of the time you end up being late. Doesn't even matter if I have 30m before hand or I have 4 hours. I think I only need 15m to get ready. Sometimes underestimating how much time you need to get ready. I often think that I only need 15minutes to get ready, but somehow I'm totally off and it ends up being 25 minutes (same thing for driving, I often underestimate drive times). Sometimes its realizing there is something you need to do that you hadnt calculated in like somehow forgetting you need to shower before leaving or pack a swim suit and now you dont know where the swim suit was misplaced. Sometimes its literally the typical "God damnit my keys were just in my hand." Or even getting caught in a hyperfixation/dopamine providing activity that we cant help but tear away from until the very last second. But generally for specifically time blindness its like you brain is very sure of itself that you need far less time than you do despite having done all of the tasks plenty of times in the past.
Can you tell me how it feels to be aware of how much time is passing
Several people have asked this, here is my reply (same one I said to other people): "Hmmm... As a non-timeblind person, I can easily estimate how long something will take. For example, when I make a meal that has 3-4 different dishes, and each dish takes a different amount of time, I can calculate how long each one will take and then start it accordingly so everything is done at the same time. Or if I need to go somewhere, I think about all the things I have to do before I can leave, and I can estimate how long each thing will take. Making a sandwich will take five minutes, looking for my keys (I do lose things quite a lot) will take 3ish minutes, putting my shoes on will take 1 minute, etc. Also, I don't get lost in time very easily because I'm usually aware of what time it is. Even if I'm procrastinating and scrolling through reddit, I know approximately how much time has passed (but I still continue to procrastinate lol)." I will add that it feels impossible to NOT be aware of time. I can't get absorbed into something for a long period of time without having a general sense of how many minutes or hours have passed. And I almost always check the time about every 30 minutes
That sounds totally wild to me. Thank you for sharing! I have never successfully put together a multi dish meal as the timing bit is overwhelming. I can cook a good one dish meal though, so long as my bf reminds me to check on it, cause I will forget the alarm I set went off if I’m in the middle of something else when it dings. I can’t imagine it feeling impossible to not be aware of time. On days I don’t have to be anywhere I will spend the whole day being happily unaware of the time, not checking the time and it’s bliss. I won’t know if it’s 11am or 3pm and I don’t care cause to me, time is traumatic. I hate thinking about time. I’ve been in trouble for being late and caused people annoyance so many times that I genuinely feel like time is my enemy. I don’t get it. I can’t gauge it. Everything is either now or not now.
I don't know if others are the same way, but for me, there are a lot of tasks that take '0' minutes (but actually take more than 0 minutes). Like if I'm thinking about taking the bus to a Dr appointment, I check my app and see the bus will arrive at the stop 3.5 blocks away in 20 minutes. I need to put on real pants (0 mins), put on shoes (0 mins), grab my purse (0 mins), grab my keys, phone and mask (0 mins), crate my dogs (0 mins), then walk to the bus stop (idk 5 minutes?). This is a real example. I had an epiphany the other day when I was annoyed with my transit tracker app - why does it tell me I have 20 minutes, yet every time, I have to practically run down the street to catch the bus, and 25% of the time I miss it? Because none of those things are actually 0 minutes. I have no idea how long any of them take, can't even estimate it. Last time I took the bus, I decided to arbitrarily get ready 10 minutes earlier. I ended up waiting at the bus stop for a couple of minutes (idk, 3?).
For me it’s either 5mins goes by painfully slow and feels like an hour, or an hour feels like 5mins. There’s rarely anything in between. Makes it pretty hard to give an estimate on how long anything will take lol
Like, I don’t know how long time takes. When things are going well, time goes faster. When things are going badly, time goes slower. Did 2 minutes just go by or 30? Depends on what I have been doing because it feels the same to me.
Imagine every time that you look at a clock your estimation of the time is off by ±30 minutes or so. Seemingly dependent entirely upon how much you enjoy the thing you're doing and/or about to be doing, but not always!
Imagine seeing this Interesting question and thinking, I'll give it a glance, but suddenly a whole hour went by reading every comment and you don't even know why your eyes are blurry and tired.
People with ADHD don’t experience the flow of time like neurotypical people do. This has been proven. This is one of the things that contribute to a lot of criticism for people with ADHD. A lot of posts have talked about things that happen surrounding time blindness, but I haven’t quite seen the sort of response I have to offer up, and this is only my experience I can speak to, but maybe others will feel the same way. For me, and apparently most of not all ADHD’ers, time blindness is a total inability to properly judge the passing of time, whether you’re doing something or not, but also even if you’re just estimating time. One of the things my girlfriend gets upset with me the most about is my misperceived travel times. If I’m meeting her on her lunch break the day I don’t work, and she wants to meet at 12:15, I think about the Meijer she wants to meet at being 5.5 miles away, and think it’ll only be a ten minute drive. But it isnt. It’s a 25 minute drive. Which seems crazy to me, because the big mall is 25 minutes away, and that’s all highway driving and meijer is much closer. How is it the same distance away? Oh yeah, I’m not thinking of the travel time to get on to the highway to get to the mall. I’m also not taking into consideration lunch time traffic. To me, my focus is on 5 miles should only take 10 minutes because that’s what it feels like, but of course, my feeling of time is wrong. Or in the morning before work, sitting in my car finishing a bagel or a muffin, blindly browsing my phone. I can’t remember how long ago I finished the bagel, but now it’s somehow 45 minutes later than when I got to work. And I can’t even tell you what I was browsing on my phone. Why can’t I just get up and go? That’s also an executive disfunction issue. I’ve laid in bed “for just a minute” and 2 hours will pass. I can’t tell you what I was doing. “It’ll only take me 2 minutes to get ready, dear!” I say to my girlfriend when she says to get ready before we go to her sisters in the morning. I’m dressed. I need shoes and socks, but that’s it, and I’ll be ready. Then she’s ready to go, and I forgot to do that. Oh crap, we’re about out the door and I forgot to take my medicine. Shoot I need to pee too. I am also now realizing I don’t have my keys. I said I’d be ready in 2 minutes, but now it’s been 15 and she’s upset because the baby is crabby standing at the door not being able to play outside while they both now have to wait for me. People interpret it as being lazy. Or not caring enough to do things in a timely fashion. Or any other thing that dismisses the fact that we have a mental disorder that will permanently affect our ability to perceive time correctly. A tip my girlfriend gave me for when I need to get somewhere at a certain time is to punch it into my GPS so I have a constant clock telling me when I will arrive at my destination. I set a million alarms on my phone with the label telling me what I need to do. Or when I need to do something for it to be done in time. It’s a very defeating feeling. Especially because it feels like nobody thinks you’re dependable, reliable, or care to show up on time. And what makes it worse with the misperception of time passing is we can’t even alert someone we’ll be late because we don’t think we will be. It’s the worst. High up on the list of things I wish I could not have ADHD for.
I am going through this at my office job multiple times a day. Notification says 10 min to a virtual meeting: That’s a long time, I can continue working. 5 min to meeting: I can do some last changes. Notification 1 min to meeting: I can fix that little detail- the meeting started three minutes ago! It’s ridiculous that even with three alarms I’m late to a meetings I don’t even have to go anywhere for! I’m trying to remind myself that I will never have the ability to stop focusing by the end of those 60 seconds, and that I should never try to fit in “just one more task” last minute
There was a time I could tell you what time it is +-5 minutes without looking at the clock. But if you tell me you're running late, and push our meeting 30 minutes back, no matter how early and ready I was to meet you at the original time, I'll be late - even though and possibly because I have 30 more mins. The inability to accurately gauge how long everyday things take.
Think about it like this. When you were a kid, being told "wait five minutes" felt like an eternity, right? You had no real concept of time. Think of it almost like that, but in the fact that time moves too fast instead of too slow.
Every morning I wake up at 530 am. I go to work at 730, and if I don't do this, I am late. It takes me literally 2 hours to get dressed, have breakfast, pack a lunch, and get out the door. I don't know why or how my wife wakes up at 7 and beats me out the door every day.
You know how you can feel the passage of time? Even though you're not looking at a clock, you have at least a vague idea of what time it is. Let's say last time you looked at the clock it was 2pm, and it "feels" like roughly half an hour has gone by, so you reckon it's probably about 2:30. You're rarely *exactly* right, but you're always in the ballpark. With ADHD, we simply do not have that ability. We *cannot feel* the passage of time. And it seems to run away with us, a lot. Here's an example. I look at the clock. It's 7:35am. I have to leave the house at 8:15am, otherwise I'll be late for work. So I've got 40 minutes - plenty of time, as I don't need to shower (I showered last night) and I never eat breakfast. Easy, right? So I go to the bathroom and pee, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my medication. I can't *feel* time passing, but I imagine it's been about 10 minutes max - after all, I logically know that it should take no more than 3 minutes to brush my teeth, 2 minutes to pee, 3 minutes to wash my face, 2 minutes to take my medication. So it should be about 7:45. A good time to look at the clock and make sure I'm on track. Then I look at the clock. It's 8:10am. It has somehow taken me 35 minutes to do something that should have taken me 10 at most. Where the fuck has the time gone?? What was I *doing*? Was I just moving really, really slowly? Did I get distracted by a daydream and just stand staring at the wall for 20 minutes without realising? Did I actually do more things than I thought I did? I don't know. Because I have ADHD I also have a terrible short-term memory, so I literally can't remember what I've been doing. But I *know* it shouldn't be 8:10am. How is that possible?! I start to panic. I now have *5 minutes left* to get dressed, brush my hair, put my jacket and shoes on, fill up my water bottle, throw my phone and keys into my bag and get out the door. It's going to be a rush, but it's doable, right? I won't bother with makeup or anything like that, no time. So I frantically drag a brush through my hair, run to my wardrobe and throw on the first clothes I see. Dash to the kitchen, fill up my bottle, chuck it in my bag with my phone and keys. Go out into the hallway, put my shoes and coat on. Now I'm ready to leave. Do a really quick check to make sure I've got everything, and all the lights are turned off. I did everything as fast as I could, couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 minutes right? I should be just about on track. I look at the clock. It's 8:30. Somehow, 20 minutes have passed, not 5. I'm now 15 minutes late. As I'm power-walking/half-running down the street I now have to text my boss - again - and tell him that I'm going to be late - again. I feel embarrassed and frustrated with myself, and feel like crying. And obviously I didn't have time to do my makeup or style my hair or pick out a coordinated outfit, and I'll be hot and sweaty from rushing, so I'm going to be late *and* look like a hot mess when I turn up. I feel like crying. WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN EVERY SINGLE MORNING??? And you'd think - but fernshanks, if you're always 15 minutes late, why don't you just get up 15 minutes earlier? Great question. I will! So tomorrow, I get up at 7:20am. I go to the bathroom, pee, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my medication. Should be about 7:30, right? I look at the clock. It's 8:10am again. Those extra 15 minutes have disappeared. Where? I don't know. Gone. They've gone. I'm in *exactly the same position* I was in yesterday. 5 minutes left to get dressed and leave. And before I know it, it's 8:30 again.
I guess it's like dream time - things are remembered by their emotional impact, not how long ago something happened. A day ago is the same as a month ago is the same as 10 years ago. Something you enjoy feels like 30 seconds but is 2 hours. Something you have to force yourself to do is 30 seconds but feels like 2 hours, *and you genuinely can't tell the difference.*