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Today's my first day back on my #ADHD meds after an intentional break, and here's the biggest difference:
I am aware of the passage of time.
It is moving, at one minute per minute. I'm not looking up to find five hours gone in a subjective 20 minutes.
And it's... wonderful.
I am aware of the passage of time.
It is moving, at one minute per minute. I'm not looking up to find five hours gone in a subjective 20 minutes.
And it's... wonderful.
I cannot express how profound a change this was.
NT folks will talk about "losing time" or "getting caught up in something." I had thought that that was what they meant.
No.
My experience, unmedicated, of the passage of time, BEARS NO RELATION TO REALITY. In either direction.
NT folks will talk about "losing time" or "getting caught up in something." I had thought that that was what they meant.
No.
My experience, unmedicated, of the passage of time, BEARS NO RELATION TO REALITY. In either direction.
An hour is a minute, or a minute is an hour, whatever, any combination or permutation thereof.
It's like I was constantly in the time dilation caused by the gravity wells of the various things that caught my focus.
I have lost days before. Whole days. I was aware DURING, but...
It's like I was constantly in the time dilation caused by the gravity wells of the various things that caught my focus.
I have lost days before. Whole days. I was aware DURING, but...
Without medication, I am well and truly unmoored in time. I have no anchor. It's always forward, but at a rate that I can't possibly guess, and which will bear no relation to the actual rate.
Nobody ever explained to me that that wasn't normal. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1288551863919362048
Nobody ever explained to me that that wasn't normal. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1288551863919362048
Time Blindness, as it's called, is tied with Executive Dysfunction for the most hands-down disabling manifestation of my #ADHD.
Because how can I possibly order my day when I don't have the foggiest idea how many hours will be in it?
Because how can I possibly order my day when I don't have the foggiest idea how many hours will be in it?
It really, really is lacking a sense. I typed "like" lacking a sense there, but it's not "like" anything. It IS. I lack the ability to perceive time.
Imagine having no sense of temperature, and having to figure out that something was too hot only after the burn set in?
Imagine having no sense of temperature, and having to figure out that something was too hot only after the burn set in?
Now imagine trying to just guess your way through the world on that?
Trying to estimate how long tasks will take, when I'll be ready, what time ANYTHING will happen.
I string it together as best I can from the times when I was burned before. Trauma-driven understanding.
Trying to estimate how long tasks will take, when I'll be ready, what time ANYTHING will happen.
I string it together as best I can from the times when I was burned before. Trauma-driven understanding.
And the whole time, thinking that everyone else went through this but found a way, and thinking (or being told, often enough) I'm just the worst, laziest kind of person because I can't. Never realizing "can't" was literal.
Everyone else can. I can't.
Trauma on trauma on trauma.
Everyone else can. I can't.
Trauma on trauma on trauma.
