Neuroscientist podcaster with 20+ hours of ADHD content discovers it MIGHT be genetic "but there are too many variables to separate"!!!

[u/Budget_Shallan]

[u/MrDownhillRacer → u/[deleted]]

I can't speak for everyone with ADHD, but for me, "time blindness" has always felt like a misnomer for my experience of being bad with time.

I rarely "lose track of the time." I usually know what time it is. I usually know I'm running out of time to start my task, or to leave without being late. I can feel each minute passing.

And yet that knowledge is not enough to translate into doing anything about it.

And it's not because I don't care, either. If I just didn't care, I wouldn't be feeling anxiety about it or telling myself "come on, move it."

The way Russell Barkley describes ADHD clicks for me. He says it's not so much a deficit of attention as it is a deficit of intention. For normal people, the desire to do A + the knowledge of how to do A (in the absence of overriding reasons not to do A) just kind of naturally leads to carrying out the intention to do A. For us, though, it doesn't. Like the link between the intentional state part and the action part is just broken.

I actually have wondered what the implications for this characterization of ADHD would be for other fields, though. Like, the field of economics makes use of the concept of "revealed preferences," but does behaviour under different conditions reveal the preferences of people who have a disconnect between their intentional states and their behaviour? Hell, a lot of philosophical accounts of "desire" in general tie it to behaviours and beliefs in such a way that seems to be complicated by such a disconnect.

[u/Delicious_Tip4401 → u/MrDownhillRacer]

Personally, “time blindness” is an apt description for me. I’ll think I have everything timed with several minutes to spare, and by the time I get to the car I’m somehow already 7 minutes late and about to cry because I genuinely can’t fathom where the time went. It subjectively felt like 30 seconds to comb my hair and step outside, but my 5 minute head start evaporated and I can’t even be on time.

[u/kahrahtay → u/Delicious_Tip4401]

Probably because you're not remembering all the stuff in between. Like remembering that you forgot to brush your teeth, so you need to do that real quick. Then going to grab your shoes and noticing that they aren't where you thought you left them so you have to run around the house to look for them, then you put them on and get ready to head to the door, but wait, where's your phone? Okay, I found my phone, do I have everything else I need? Wait, let me grab some water for the road. But where are my keys? This shit can easily turn into 15 minutes that feels like no time at all.

I've just got to the point where I always put all my stuff in the exact same place every time. No exceptions.

[u/Delicious_Tip4401 → u/kahrahtay]

Nope, there’s nothing between the bathroom and the back door. I’ll check my phone and be early, comb my hair and step out the door, and suddenly I’m late.