in a blind bind
“If you have been told that you are late and unreliable more than once, then not only do you lack punctuality, but you also lack decency and seriousness, which is certainly very annoying.”
―
i was always the last in the car in the mornings
always
my siblings and mother still make half-joking comments about this
no matter how early i woke up
no matter how prepared i was the night before
i was last
my tardiness was perceived as a deliberate act of will
my tardiness was an expression of my moral failings as a human being
i was shamed for always being late
possibly subtly possibly not even deliberately
let's talk about hyper-vigilance another day
but i lived with the shame of Lateness for my whole life
because of course, it didn't end
did you know that the adhd brain struggles with this very abstract social construct of time
we struggle every day with time blindness
to varying degrees of course - because we are nothing if not varied
we carry the dual burden of being unable to interact with the neurotypical concept of time in the same way a neurotypical does along with the shame of regularly failing to meet the societal expectation of being on time
my diagnosis has gone a long way to helping me learn about things like timeblindness and begin to heal from this shame
helped me understand that i need to find my own neurodivergent way to honour the time-bound customs of the neurotypical world in which i choose to live my life
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash
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