How does time blindness affect people with ADHD?
And how to get fired by your dentist.
When I was 19 years old, I was fired by my dentist! How is that even possible? Well, it works like this.
First, be late to your appointments (and not 5 minutes late, we’re talking 15-30 minutes late). When you arrive late, blurt out your best excuse. “GPS took me to the wrong place”, “the traffic was terrible”, “I set my alarm, but it didn’t go off”, you get the idea.
Next, forget about your appointments. Don’t show up. Wait until the dentist calls you to see what happened. But your anxiety is peaking, so you let those calls go straight to voicemail. And you don’t dare call them back. Any of this sounding familiar?
When your tooth hurts so much that you HAVE to call the dentist, be ready with more excuses.
Even better, blame someone else. Here are some classics: “You didn’t email / text / call me with a reminder!”. “You said my appointment was next week, that’s what I wrote down”. “My boss made me go to a last minute meeting”. We call this the “victim mindset”.
Now you can get fired by your dentist. I did all of this. My dentist finally told me “You need to find a new dentist. We will no longer see you as a patient”.
INJUSTICE!!! I was outraged. How dare they “do this to me”! I was an innocent victim of a heartless, mean, and terrible dentist.
I cringe to remember all this. Ooof.
It was years later before I was able to take true accountability for my actions. And more years before I could really empathize with how this affected their business and their other patients.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t want to be late. I didn’t want to miss my appointments.
It caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety.
I was a people pleaser. I wanted them to like me. I wanted to take care of my teeth. So why were my behaviors going the opposite direction?
Answer: Time Blindness, disorganization, and lack of self awareness.
What is Time Blindness?
Time blindness refers to a difficulty in perceiving and/or managing the passing of time. We struggle with accurately estimating time and have a ton of trouble with punctuality, planning, prioritizing, and meeting deadlines. It can also make it difficult to stick to a routine or manage time-sensitive tasks. The wonderful doctor and researcher Gabor Maté hypothesized that individuals with ADHD perceive that time is slipping by, and this causes distress that leads to inattention or hyperactive and impulsive behaviors. We behave in a way to lessen the distress in the moment, but it leads to more distress (much like an addiction).
How does time blindness affect daily life for people with ADHD?
Difficulty with time management:
difficulty prioritizing tasks, estimating how long tasks will take to complete, and planning our days accordingly.
Being late:
We struggle to accurately estimate how long it will take to get somewhere, leading to chronic lateness.
Procrastination:
trouble getting started on tasks because we underestimate how much time we have available.
Missed deadlines:
struggle to meet deadlines because we fail to accurately estimate how much time is needed to complete a task.
Difficulty with routines:
difficulty sticking to a routine or schedule, leading to inconsistency in daily habits and activities.
I could write a blog for each of those bullet points. There’s a lot to unpack with each one. I’ll save (procrastinate) those for later.
Ready to get help and take the blinders off?
Let’s improve your life.
For now, Let’s stick to chronic lateness.
How does chronic lateness & time blindness affect you? (or your loved one)
Being chronically late to things can have serious negative effects on both the person who is late and the people who are waiting for them.
For the person who is late, it can create feelings of stress, anxiety, and guilt or shame. (Cue the excuses and avoiding communication). Btw - We do this as a form of emotional self-protection.
They (chronically late people) often feel rushed or like they are running behind schedule, which cranks up their stress levels.
Being consistently late can lead to a reputation for being unreliable, which can affect their relationships and opportunities. Oooof.
They are more susceptible to speeding, road rage, and risky choices that affect them and whoever they share the commute with.
You will lose the time you paid for. Example: show up 15 minutes late for your massage, you just lost 15 minutes of a massage!
You will lose a lot of time when they refuse to see you. Example: show up too late for your tattoo and you just lost the time slot. Your stressful commute was wasted. And now you have to wait a month for the next opening.
You miss parts of events, like concerts, theater, shows, etc. Have you ever been really late to something important to you?
Our time blindness creates so much unnecessary stress, anxiety, anger, shame, etc.
You can become time aware.
How does time blindness and being chronically late affect others?
Being late can be super frustrating and disrespectful of others' time.
Wait … what? They have a life and things to do?
When I was younger, I never considered how the ones waiting on me felt. For me, it was another big blind spot. I made all kinds of justifications in my head and assumed they were enjoying themselves? That they didn’t mind? That they didn’t have anything else to do? I dunno?
I just didn’t consider anything. I was too wrapped up in my own tornado of uncomfortable feelings.
For the ones waiting, it can create feelings of anxiety, stress, anger, frustration, etc. We have no idea what all they have going on. Our lateness could be putting them in a really bad position. Or just plain taking away time they could have spent doing what they want to do.
Trust me, they don’t want to wait for you.
Consistently being kept waiting can strain relationships and may cause others to view the late person as unreliable or inconsiderate.
And they’re not wrong. Until we learn how to take the blinders off … Our behaviors are unreliable and inconsiderate.
Not on purpose … our hearts are usually in the right place.
Friendships
Time blindness can seriously impact our friendships. I did a lot of damage to friendships because of my time blindness. Friends get tired of waiting. They might exclude you from certain time sensitive activities. They may distance themselves, feeling that the time blind friend is unreliable and doesn’t care about what’s important to them.
Family and Significant Others
The tornado of stress that the chronically late person creates will suck up and spin everyone around. Your significant other and/or family members may also be late because of your time blindness.
The chronic effects of time blindness on relationships can lead to resentment, frustration, conflicts, & fighting. This combined with other undealt with ADHD symptoms are plenty to break up relationships. Sadly, it happens all the time.
In professional/work settings
Being consistently late can also have negative consequences for one's career, as it can be perceived as a lack of respect for colleagues & your boss, and it’s viewed as a total lack of professionalism.
In the rest of the professional world (your appointments, classes, events)
It can cause delays in the schedule for everyone else that day. You may now have made the appointments after you run late. It causes scheduling stress. It can disrupt teachers and classmates when you enter late. It strains the relationship you have with these providers.
Is there a cure or a fix for time blindness?
Yes!
Time Awareness.
ADHD Coaching will help you develop time awareness and end your time blindness. Which will then improve your relationships at home and work. Reduce your stress and anxiety, and lead to better opportunities and outcomes.
I’d like to talk to you. You’ve read this far. I both invite and encourage you to book a free consultation.
It’s not as difficult as it might seem. I’ve helped all of my clients develop better time awareness.
It’s completely do-able with the right coaching, habit science, and practices.
Don’t allow time blindness to sabotage your life for years to come.
If you’re ready to build time awareness skills, let’s talk!