sorry mom 😅
one time the bus driver discovered my passed out ass once the bus was all the way back at the depot, and they kindly had someone drive me directly home in a company truck
I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD but I’ve kind of been jealous of these carefree memes. Like, I wish I could be late for things or forget to show up to something. At least in the way it’s portrayed in a “quirky carefree” way.
I definitely have the executive dysfunction and procrastination part. But, if there is some “event” happening at a specific time I literally can’t do anything else for the rest of the day (“trip” in the memes case) but prepare or wait for it.
It’s been a thing since I was a kid. I remember sitting in my baseball uniform all day before a little league game waiting.
Wondering if it’s just my anxiety being stronger than my ADHD for specific social events. Or events that would be embarrassing to miss (missing a bus stop).
It’s like my brain knows I’m really bad at being ready for something, can easily forget, so it goes into hyper-focus on it and doesn’t let me do anything all day until the event time comes.
I really wish I could just chill out on a bus and occasionally miss my stop. It would be much more enjoyable than spending the whole time counting the stops and checking the gps for a second opinion. Anyone else with ADHD get this? I feel like sometimes the “memes” here are more representative of how people “see” ADHD people and less about how it actually is to live with.
Like, I’ll still fuck up. I’ll still miss my stop or be late, but I didn’t spend all day chasing squirrels. I spent all day thinking about it, unable to do anything else, then met a moment of brief false confidence that kept me distracted long enough to misremember that the appointment was at 11 NOT 1130. Wtf, I looked at it 100 times. I set an alarm. How did I fuck this up again? I gotta somehow explain again why I missed something while spending the whole time leading up to it being completely disabled because I was hyper-focused on not missing it. Normal people don’t understand that; so gotta come up with some normie relatable excuse for them that will sound completely fake coming from me.
My girlfriend is this meme, but I am like you. Both ADHD, but whereas she loses time and ends up late to things, I end up going to things stupid-early because I’m like, “I’d just be sitting around waiting to go to [whatever I’m waiting for] anyway, so I’d rather wait extra long when I get there than wait around at home and risk being late.”
On the plus side, this habit of mine has been recognized at work. When they needed someone to start coming in earlier to accommodate a student whose parent needs to be at work earlier than our usual start time, management came to me because I was always super early anyway. Now it’s part of my regular work schedule to come in a half hour earlier than my coworkers, and since my schedule is shifted, I get to leave a half hour early in the afternoon. That’s a win-win to me!
For me, it was more like “I can’t do anything else or I’ll miss ____”. But I had plenty of time to kill to get something done. So I’d be ready to go 3 hrs early and just sit there. Especially if it was something where I had to look nice.
Then you can sit and “relax” until its time to leave. At which point you realise you cant find the McGuffin and you have to panicsweat turning the place upside down while the clock laughs at you
Yup and it’s always something you NEVER lose, like wallet, cell phone, keys, because they’re so important. But this one time, THIS FUCKING TIME!
I have the ADHD where I start getting ready so that I’m (mostly) ready to leave when I’m supposed to be where I’m going. Half hour trip? Half hour late. Adjust for trip length.
Yeah this is me. Gotta thing going on at 1500, I need to be 10 minutes early and it’ll take me 20 minutes to get there so I need to leave at 1430. It’ll take me 10 minutes to get ready, so I gotta start getting ready by 1420, better make that 1410 just to be safe, I’ll set an alarm for 1345, 1400, and 1410. Can’t do anything from 1100 on because my alarm is going off “soon” and then I still somehow end up late for the event because I start getting ready at 1400, get distracted, and don’t leave until 1450.
Yeah. It’s definitely the time dilation that occurs when you start to get ready and how the act of actually doing something starts to allow you to get distracted during that time.
“Wow, I’m getting ready already. I can definitely take some extra time to trim my fingernails. They’re looking long.”
And then it’s fucking over once you let yourself agree to that.
Sometimes it do be like that for me, but it’s not always.
Not diagnosed, but even if I am not adhd, I am preeeetty close to it in some regards.
The “active waiting” made me flinch due to how relatable it was for me for a long time. Got better by relegating a lot of to my phone and keeping said phone constantly cleared out so I won’t miss an alarm or anything. Also with yime I saw how many folks just don’t give a flying fuck about these things and found it easier to chill out (if I have my alarm/reminder set).
Still, if anything big is meant to happen that day, I am gonna watch paint dry while looking at time every fifteen minutes. Intensifies with each hour passing and getting me closer to the leaving time.
Thank you for this. I was losing it after an hour of trying to get my youngest out of bed…it was 2 minutes until the bus when I saw this post and remembered I didn’t give him his Adderall and he only had on one sock on.
Just the reminder I needed to put down my phone.
it’s tough just existing with Not Enough Dopine let alone parenting a kiddo who shares our phenotype. Hang in there! ultimately, you got this :)
When it happened to me the bus driver knew me and knew my stop so he came at the back of the bus to wake me up. He was great !
A few of my drivers also learned to check for me specifically, bless them haha
