Re: I'm only usually late by 5 minutes…what's the big deal?

[Anonymous]

I remember when I was first getting diagnosed with ADHD, my psychiatrist asked me about ‘procrastination’. He asked me if I put things off until the absolute last minute. No one had asked me that before. I kid you not when I say that tears came to my eyes. I always thought that maybe,deep down, I was just inconsiderate, or lazy. Knowing that unfortunately, procrastination in ALL forms is a ‘symptom’ of ADHD helped me map my biggest issues and work on them one at a time. My father is perpetually prompt. It’s the most marked characteristic about him. He’s EARLY for everything in fact. If he’s ‘just’ on time, then we think that something is wrong with him. I honestly believe that having him in my life is what helps me be ‘on time’ because without that type of conditioning, I would be in the same boat as everyone else. The ‘snooze’ button on my alarm clock is near collapse, and if it wasn’t for my 2 large dogs that absolutely MUST go out at the same time every day…disaster. The things that I have done to really help me is set both my alarm clock and the clock on my cell phone. I don’t alter the actual time, but the snooze times on both the clock and the phone are completely different, so I am basically turning something off every couple of minutes. I get up and out of bed out of sheer aggravation.

I can’t say if it’s the meds, the behavior modification or both, but what I try to think, every night when I go to bed is how awful I feel when i have to rush around in the morning, the anxiety that leads to frustration which makes me short tempered and seems to begin the spiral of starting the day off on the wrong foot. A lot of my own ‘training’ is just focusing on how I feel. How great do you feel when you are on time or even (gasp) early? How awesome do you feel when you get things done on time? How horrible do you feel when you’re late? How defensive do you get when people comment on your lateness or chalk it up to you being inconsiderate or lashing out against authority? I think a lot of the time, us ADDers get exhausted just by explaining ourselves all of the time, and sometimes, we become victims of our own symptoms. Yeah, I’m late all the time, that’s who I am. My family used to call me Calamity Jane because I was always falling prey to ‘circumstance’. Most of the time the circumstance involved me putting something off, neglecting to do something all together, and then spinning to ‘fix it’ when chaos ensued. Take it one day at a time and don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s like when I first started jogging. I hate jogging. I always said that I never run on purpose. I run away from danger or towards a naked Brad Pitt, other than that, forget it. I started jogging, very very short distances at first, and when I was done, I was sore, but I felt this little spark of accomplishment. As I kept going, the spark got bigger. Now, when I don’t want to jog or go to the gym, I just focus on how good I feel when it’s done. Think of how great you’ll feel when you get over this hurdle, but remember, you gotta walk before you can run. Good luck!

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