I have seen this image on a few of my Facebook friends timelines this week. I think its hillarious becuase many people dont realise, that this is what time looks like in the ADHD/ADD brain. We have A consept of time, but dont really grasp it as it was meant to be understood, I guess. The past few weeks, time management has come up in my office meetings more often than I would like to admit.
Its easy to disguise your ADD/ADHD Symptons by passing your outgoing and sometimes obnoxious behavior as part of your personality. I have pretty much gotten away with it everywhere, accept with the people I have lived with. After a while, something just does not make sense if you are living with an ADHD/ADD person for longer than six months.
My hubby had no idea I was ADD when we married. He did not know becuase I was taught to beleive that I had outgrown it. You know when you reach the end of your time at your remedial primary school and the therapists tells your parents that you are ready to attend "main stream" school; they make it seem as though you had been fixed. I spent years taking Ritalin in two different remedial schools beleving that they were fixing my broken brain. I think my parents believed that too since they never gave it a second thought and expected me to cope in a main stream school. Well, I didnt cope. I got by, enough to just pass through high school without my meds and never even gave the thought that ADD was not something that could really be fixed, a thought.
A few months into living with my new husband, he started to get very annoyed with my "Tardy" behaviour. We were always late for everything and I had no rush to be anywhere in particular. A few years and a lot of arguments later, I spoke to a counselor who said to me that I still displayed a lot of the characteristics of ADD/ADHD and that I most likely still have it. Then my mother confirmed it too. Its strange how I assumed I was fine, aware that my world was vastly different from everyone else, but still thought I had miraculously grown out of the ADD/ADHD I once had.
The fact that time means nothing to me, was easier to figure out now. Well, its not that it means nothing to me, it means someting because it is so important to the people around me, I guess. But truthfully, I could wear a wrist watch, actually, I collect them; just because they look pretty. The consept of late is a bit strange to me, maybe because I am always chronically late for abosulately everyting.
In all serousness though, none ADD/ADHD'ers need to understand a few things about how time works for us. It seems funny when we talk about it, but it truly is very upsetting and frustrating at times.
On Sunday Mornings, I plan to wake up at 6am because I worked out that if I start to cook lunch at that time, I could have my kids, myself and the food ready before we have to leave for church.It all seems so perfect, our church is 30 minutes away from our home so I will have the kids in the car by 830am to be at church by 9am when it starts. Simple righ? Wrong!
Here's what really ends up happening:
My Alarm goes off at 5:50, I decide that I have ample time to still get everything done becuase 2:30 hours is a very long time. I lay a little longer until about 6:30 at which time I have to get up. The food goes into the pots and the oven and off I go to get the kids done. Then Jesse throws an epic tantrum, Liam fights with Aiden in the bath and Aspen refuses to wear the dress I took out for her to wear. In all the commotion I smell the rice burning, rush to the kitchen, throw out the old batch and put in a new while Aiden bites Jesse who eventually agreed to get in the bath. When I finally get the chance to look at the time, its already 7:40am. My mind says, "you have more than enought time to pull this off", just to sabotage me some more. I evenetually get everyone dressed, have Liam make everyone breakfast and jump into the shower myself. Half way through my shower I remember that I never turned the chicken around, jump out and go do that before I even really washed. It takes 10 minutes to look for and outfit and longer to put it on if there is something to talk about or one child screaming at the another. It's 8:20am and my brain, although a little frazzled at this point, is still so confident that we will be in the car and out the door by 8:30am.
Everything is going well, it will take 10 short minutes to find and make a bottle for Aiden, do Aspen's and my hair, brush my teeth, find shoes to wear, make sure everyone is moisturized, and OH MY GOSH! THE FOOD!
By 9am, I am yelling at everyone to get in the car, because we're already late, in too much of a rush to put my shoes or make up on. Then my brain says, 'What's 30 short minutes difference going to make', not taking into account the make up must be done in the car when we arrive, remembering to lock the doors and getting everyone to Sunday school.
Time management... meh,,, whats that??
All of this, just to get to church late anyway; AND wonder through the entire service if I will return to a burnt down home because I cannot remember if I put the oven off or not.
Luckily, I have my hubby their to help with the cooking before he goes to work, or we eat out because Lord knows, I cannot deal with this every week of my life.
So to those people who think we are Tardy, unorganized and lazy, take a peek into our brains for a second and understand that time to us, as it should be to everyone, is not everything unless you are making memories.
Mwah!
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