Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

I'm sure there are those who self-diagnose without really suffering from a condition, but you do realise time blindness is a real issue, right?

https://www.simplypsychology.org/adhd-time-blindness.html

I don't watch TikTok videos, I don't use Instagram, but I have been plagued by these symptoms my entire life, and don't really care about others opinions on it. You probably don't have it if those symptoms don't resonate with you, but there are plenty of people who genuinely struggle, and there's likely some overlap with those who have undiagnosed ADHD.

“Time blindness” is not named anywhere in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5, 2013) nor in the DSM-5-TR (text-revision, 2022). It is not recognized as a stand-alone disorder or an official diagnostic criterion.

Even if it were in DSM-5-*, would that mean it's a standalone disorder?

I haven't read much psychology, but this article suggests a lot of psychological diagnoses are just labels for symptoms:

https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2025/02/06/the-mind-in-the-whe...

  Imagine that your car breaks down and you bring it to a mechanic and he tells you, “Oh, your car has a case of broken-downness.” You’d know right away: this guy has no idea what he’s talking about. “Broken-downness” is an abstraction; it doesn’t refer to anything, and it’s not going to help you fix a car.

Because that's a colloquial name given to a range of specific symptoms people experience, and it is in the DSM, covered by 1.e.:

> Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities (e.g., difficulty managing sequential tasks; difficulty keeping materials and belongings in order; messy, disorganized work; has poor time management; fails to meet deadlines).

The DSM doesn't list all minutiae of every general problem.

That article is not claiming that “time blindness” is a real standalone condition. As the other commenter already explained, it’s not among the conditions with actual diagnostic criteria and agreed-upon symptoms.

The first sentence claims that it’s something people with ADHD might experience, not a specific condition. In other words, it’s just the therapy-speak way of saying “chronically late”.

Note that the date on the article is also very recent: Only a few months old. This date is after the trend was popular on TikTok. It was likely written in response to the trend, as a way of capturing search engine traffic from people searching for it.

This is representative of the issue I was describing: There’s a sense among some people that using the therapy-speak terminology for something transforms it into a different type of personality attribute, for which they can’t be held responsible. Saying “I have a problem with being on time” and “I have time blindness” are functionally equivalent, but some people want to believe they the therapy speak labeled version warrants different treatment.

So because those people are ignorant of the nomenclature, they must not really experience those issues? I never asserted that it was a standalone condition, in fact I attributed it as related to undiagnosed conditions that do have names.

Applying formal-sounding nomenclature does not transform accountability like you’re suggesting.

Also, being able to Google a TikTok-famous phrase and get hits from SEO-targeted blog posts like this doesn’t really make it official nomenclature. They’re just trying to capture traffic with trending keywords. This is a very obvious SEO article.

Saying “I have a problem with being on time” and “I have time blindness” are functionally equivalent. Applying therapy speak doesn’t change the situation.

This is all very much missing the point, though. Someone who believes they have “time blindness” should recognize that they have a higher need for additional measures to address their issue, including more use of time keeping aids, alarms, and even accountability from external parties. Trying to use a labeled condition to escape accountability for one’s actions is not only unhelpful, it goes against the entire purpose of therapy.

The problem becomes more clear when you imagine the same idea applied to other issues: If someone is constantly lashing out and yelling at people, they don’t get a free pass for saying they have “an anger issue”. They’re still accountable for the consequences of their actions, regardless of what name you put on it.

FYI: SlimeMoldTimeMold has been heavily debunked across multiple topics. It was popular for a while in rationalist communities for the multi-part series claiming lithium in the water supply caused obesity, until everyone realized the author has a serious habit of misrepresenting sources, claiming citations say things they don’t, and omitting contradictory evidence.

You’re conflating symptoms with conditions.

Having a single symptom does not mean someone has the condition. The diagnostic criteria for the condition for which you took that quote (out of context) is more comprehensive. It’s not a simple matter of doing Ctrl+F on the DSM and seeing that something can be a symptom or something else.

This is more obvious when you start thinking of other conditions: Feelings of sadness are a symptom of depression, but not everyone who has feelings of sadness has depression.

The misuse and misinterpretation of the DSM has become commonplace in parallel with the use of therapy speak.

If you know you have time blindness and you still arrive late it is worse, because you knew it will happen and did nothing to prevent it

Thanks.

Any idea whether or not their characterization of psychological diagnoses is mostly correct?

The intersection of this with employment, specifically, seems hairy to me.

Is time blindness a disability that requires accommodation? To what extent, and who decides? If not, what makes it different from other disabilities that do get accommodation or some kind of protected status?

(These are meant to be rhetorical questions, but I’m sure someone has a direct answer, so I’d be interested in that too, because I really don’t know)

You've really missed the point there, what I said was that these people who are using the term "time blindness" are not using official terms, and that ignorance does not detract from their life experience. Psychologists refer to this as executive dysfunction, which that article specifically mentioned.

I'm not sure why you're attempting to discredit it, was the Masters in Science of the author, and the review by a doctor not sufficient for you?

I never missed your point, I made no comment on people failing to hold themselves accountable for their behaviour. You certainly seem unable to comprehend that not everyone experiences time as you do.

I'm really not, you've made an argument based on a semantic misunderstanding of my first response. I did not say "time blindness" was a condition, I said that people generally self-diagnose conditions, not just for those symptoms. I also described it as a set of symptoms in later comments.

They did not bring the DSM into the conversation, someone else did. And the person you are responding to made no such conflation! They also made no such claim that "[having] a single symptom [means] someone has the condition." That might be how you decided to interpret what they said, but it is quite literally not what they said!

They simply stated that time blindness is a real issue and linked to an article which acknowledges exactly what you are describing: "Many people with ADHD struggle with a lesser-known but deeply frustrating sign called time blindness." (emphasis mine)

Thank you for joining in with some sense.

Sorry, but you clearly have no idea what it's like to actually deal with this, at all. If I try to be on time to things, I will be stupidly early, or still think I have time to do tasks A & B before doing C, because they invariably take more or less time than I estimate. Or I start doing tasks X & Y, because I'm easily distracted, you know because it's a deficit in attention. Don't trivialise what you don't understand.

Your advice is as ignorant as saying 'just do more fun things' to someone with depression.

The problem isn't that time blindness is a fake issue.

The problem is that many people incorrectly self-diagnose as suffering from conditions like time blindness. Which they do for a variety of reasons: To externalize accountability for why they're late, to feel special, and so on.

A comparison is the large number of people who claim "gluten sensitivity" and maintain special diets. Now there are serious medical conditions like celiac disease that require one to avoid gluten. But the vast majority of self-diagnosed "gluten sensitives" do not have such conditions. Researchers conclude that for many of them there is no physical basis for their self-diagnosis.

Among other things this phenomenon makes it harder for people with actual conditions to be taken seriously, because there are so many impostors.

JAN[1] says "time management" is a disability (limitation, in their words) that requires accommodation.

[1] https://askjan.org/limitations/Managing-Time.cfm?csSearch=10...

That's half my point, which is why I lead with agreement on that very problem, i.e. people self-diagnosing when they shouldn't. The top-level comment seems to attribute all such people who identify with those symptoms as doing so because of a trend.

I am not an expert on neurology or anything but for ADHD at least there is definitely a biological difference, it's not just a diagnosis of a bundle of psychological symptoms

It is treated with stimulants, but if you give those same stimulants to a non-ADHD person you will see very different results

You have to do something about it though. You either come up with strategies to work with the condition or what? Just give up?

Yeah, but if you have it you need to compensate for it. It’s what calendars, reminders, todo’s etc etc are for.

Speaking as one with a huge challenge in this space. No one is going to go “oh, you have ADHD, well, I guess you don’t need to fulfil that expectation…”

Which is why I use those tools extensively. I never said these people shouldn't try to compensate for any deficit, my point is that what people describe as "time blindness" is a real problem, and should not be so easily dismissed.

> Applying formal-sounding nomenclature does not transform accountability like you’re suggesting.

"You have an unlicensed condition, citizen!"

Yeah, but the parent is moaning about people shirking their responsibilities because of a self diagnosis.

That might be a projection; just a punctual person peeved off with the chronically late; but I was just adding the point that being challenged in this area isn’t an excuse.

I’m on-time for work stuff; I’ve figured out how to compensate. Personal life, ok, different story, but the responsibility has always rested with me.

So you agree with nomdep? If you know you have time blindness it's a good opportunity to do something about it. I tend to choose the be really early option because that works for me. But it can be stressful for sure. And I probably don't get as much done as someone that can organise their time better. That's just the way it goes.

False dichotomy. You can both take measures to address an issue you have, and still know that won't always solve the problem. Being really early sometimes is the only option, but if you're always doing it, regardless of how critical it is, you're wasting a huge amount of waking life.

That's not what they said. Whether your condition is diagnosed or not, it's your responsibility to take care of it. If you're chronically late, you should set timers or write notes or whatever helps—whether you've got class-A ADHD and take meds or just assume there's something wrong with your sense of time.

Just saying "I'm time blind, sorry not sorry, deal with it" is not an appropriate reaction to causing trouble to your surroundings.

This isn’t such a great example. You don’t need to have celiac disease to benefit from avoiding gluten. I suspect some people avoid it because they feel better in some way. For myself eliminating gluten (or wheat, I’m not sure how to differentiate that) has been life changing, it immediately made breathing through my nose effortless, made concentrating easier, etc. I can tell you eliminating gluten is not easy, you have to cut out a lot of common foods, eating out is almost impossible. If someone is sticking to that diet they probably have a very good reason. I think a lot of people should give it a try at least and not worry about this being part of some fad. I’m a bit ashamed to admit but I only tried it because of a South Park episode...

I don't want to trivialize, as I am currently procrastinating due to axiety on something, I know it's not easy.

But yeah, let's be stupidly early. I think part of accepting that you have a mental condition means that your life will simply not be optimal. Which is harsh to accept in a society which values efficiency above all else.

You're missing my point. I'm not trying to deal with the 'conditions' that individuals or groups say they have. My point is that if a group says a person has a condition it's considered real, but if an individual says so, it's not. It's a point about deferring to authority over what is existent or not.

Who defines conditions, says that ADHD is real, for example? It wasn't in earlier generations. The are terms of social (group) art - special names that are generally accepted as meaningful.

Most wacky things start with a kernel of truth, so yes, the real tragedy here is people with a genuine psychological issue getting drowned out by a wave of trenders. The trenders denounce medical gatekeeping as exclusionary, but it’s also what protects resources for the genuinely needy, and what protects them from unnecessary medicalization.

Employers only have to provide accommodations for actual diagnosed disabilities. And even then legally required accommodations only have to be reasonable. If the job fundamentally requires showing up for meetings and completing assignments on schedule then employers don't need to allow disabled employees to be late.

Oh, come on.

“It takes me 15 minutes to get to my destination. I should leave 5 minutes earlier than I need to in case there’s traffic or whatever.”

Set an alarm for 20 minutes before you need to get there, and leave when it goes off. Done.

I will absolutely trivialize it because everyone I’ve ever known that’s like that simply leaves at the time they’re supposed to already be somewhere. Or yes, they get distracted and start working on stuff that they know will take 30 minutes when they need to leave in 10. Thankfully we all have mini computers in our pockets that tell us exactly how long it takes to get somewhere that can also easily set alarms.

In the USA it's mainly the American Psychiatric Association which defines whether ADHD or any other mental health condition is real.

https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm

Use a timer like the rest of us. There are solutions to the problem

You clearly don't have these issues, and I doubt you care about anyone who does, because your "Oh, come on." response positively reeks of 'that's not my experience, so other people's can't be that different.'

It's never just one thing like travel time, it's scores of steps in a routine, which aren't always the same, and can easily be derailed by anything unexpected. You can estimate how long something you do frequently will take, based on how much time it took previously, and still get an inapplicable answer because distraction is a constant problem, and the executive function deficit means you literally do not think 'don't do that, get back on task' in the moment. You know how long everything should take, and still struggle to apply that when you're doing the routine.

Do or do not, there is no "try". If you know you have to leave home at 7:00 AM to avoid being late then just set an alarm at that time. When it goes off then walk out the door, even if you're in the middle of some other task. Like if you're brewing coffee then just unplug the machine and leave: no coffee for you today. Don't allow yourself the opportunity to get distracted. Simple.

Everyone wastes a huge amount of waking life on something, whether it's sitting around waiting for an event to start or watching TV or scrolling social media. So what.

You can differentiate that by buying some pure food grade gluten and eating that. There's a lot of stuff in wheat beyond just gluten. Of course this won't be a truly scientific controlled experiment but maybe good enough for your purposes.

Most restaurants have menu items with zero gluten, so eating out is hardly difficult. Not much gluten in a plain steak, potato, and vegetables.

Some of us have families to take care of, and shit to do. I guess that's not you.

I’m sorry people are so dismissive of your reality. I really don’t understand why they feel a need to insist you are just lazy when you are clearly intelligent and hard working, but struggling due to wiring you can’t directly control.

Lol. I actually spend a lot of time taking care of my family, and plenty of other shit to do besides.

You're really missing the point. I'm trying to help by giving you practical, actionable advice which has worked well for other people. When it's time to leave, take the kid out the door even if that means carrying them out in the middle of a meltdown. This teaches children discipline and makes them understand that they can't get their own way by acting like spoiled brats.

Sure, I'm not disputing that.

> Im sure there are those who self-diagnose without really suffering from a condition, but you do realise time blindness is a real issue, right?

So is Munchausen syndrome, but somehow people don't self diagnose that one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder_imposed_on...

> The top-level comment seems to attribute all such people who identify with those symptoms as doing so because of a trend.

I think the only source of disagreement is in the way you chose to frame it in absolutes, i.e., "all such people" instead of "people".

Framing anything in absolutes counts as a strawman argument, because all you need to do to refute it is find a single case, no matter how isolated it is, where it doesn't apply.

AHDH is an actual diagnosed disability. If I have to take meds that would leave you tweaking for 3 days then employers better allow me being late sometimes.

I assume that your solution is having a professional diagnosis.

Sadly this doesn't really work due to the current state of psychiatry where many people with legitimate issues are being denied a diagnosis and treatment (see for example: trans healthcare and gatekeeping, adhd healthcare, etc). It is even more weird because often when you go to two different doctors you will get different results.

Not to mention that usually to even explore the idea of getting an official diagnosis you start with a self diagnosis.

> But the vast majority of self-diagnosed "gluten sensitives" do not have such conditions.

If you believe that you have celiac but for whatever reason you haven't been able to test it yet, then there is no harm to try going glutten free. The real issue is how many people deny the very existence of glutten sensitivity and put these people in danger. If you look at communities of people with the disease you will see what I am talking about.

Yeah this is sadly common. People with autism, adhd, or who are trans are infantilized and have their agency removed from them when dealing with the medical establishment. In a "I will tell you how you feel" way.

Reminds me of my doctor who thought that adhd was not real and his solution to my issues was "just do it lmao"

I think part of why time blindness / chronic lateness gets such visceral responses is that the behavior is a broken promise generator. The impact feels very personal.

Continuing with the walking stick metaphor...it'd be like if the person with the walking stick was frequently committing to go jogging, hiking, etc with others. They know the activity might be beyond their capabilities, but they keep saying they'll go on the difficult hiking trail or whatever. This impacts the plan for everyone else.

Saying you'll be somewhere at a particular time is a commitment to someone else. If you're making commitments and frequently breaking them, people will react badly to that.

Having had a number of chronically late people pass through my life, I've often heard "be there in a second", "I'm on my way", "5 minutes, max" and similar phrases once the person is late. What I rarely hear is proactive acknowledgement and ownership of the issue.

The commitments you make as a chronically late person need to include your chronic lateness as a factor, just as the mobility limited person should take their limitations into account before signing up for the group hike.

What a terrible analogy. Diagnosing a car with “broken-downness” would be like a mental health professional diagnosing you with “bad.” Diagnosed aren’t always great, but they’re not that ridiculous.

Still down a bit and you’ll find plenty of vagueness with mechanics. “You have a bad tie-rod end.” Ok, cool. What caused that, why did mine fail when my buddy’s didn’t, how can I avoid this? Shrug. Once you’ve got it down to a part, you just replace it with a new one. Can’t do that with mental health. “Your time management unit is bad, we can replace it with a manufacturer part for $2,000, or an aftermarket equivalent for $1,500.”

Things can be that ridiculous and still be our best effort.

I’m not arguing against your basic point as I completely agree arriving on time is my own responsibility, but when I do what you suggest, i forget my house keys lol

> better allow me being late sometimes

That would depend on the jobs requirements, wouldn't it? In some roles that might be a complete deal breaker. For example, anything customer/client facing. If you can't perform the jobs duties with reasonable accommodation, maybe you should find another job?

Similarly, if you are 3 feet tall you'll likely never be the worlds slam dunk champion. Not even if they provide you with a step-stool. It's not your fault, or the employers. Sorry, I guess.

You're really missing the point. No one here is claiming that ADHD isn't real. It's listed in the DSM. But there are practical techniques that people can use to improve their lives regardless of whether they have a mental health condition or not.

i would encourage everyone to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. you interact with these people in passing, they deal with themselves all the time. you might find them grating or difficult to work with, and that's fair, but i would hope people wouldn't extend "i dont like this person" to "I dont believe this person has a disability and they're making it up and i assume this because i dont like them"

neurodivergence can and frequently is a real debilitating disability. it is really fucking hard to cope with in a society that actively punishes it, and is full of perspectives like yours that invalidate these very real conditions.

i understand it's a difficult thing to wrap your head around. it isn't super visible like someone missing their legs. it's a really complicated, nuance spectrum of problems that are also really difficult to understand by people who don't have it, and frequently the people who do have it also don't know they have or understand how it impacts them

this response is like hearing someone has crippling depression and telling them "have you tried just thinking happy thoughts? have you tried thinking about things in a happier way?"

here's the real thought process (edit: the writing is all over the place but im not gonna spend more time editing)

it's the night before, you know you need to leave at 7am, you pick up your phone to set alarm, and you see a text from jimmy, you spend 3 minutes texting jimmy, put your phone down, and move on to something else completely oblivious to the fact that you didnt actually set an alarm. i never CHOSE to text jimmy, there was zero percent of my brain that said "i see a text from jimmy, but i should set my alarm first because i might forget otherwise, so im going to set an alarm and then text jimmy just to be safe". this is what it means to have lack executive functioning. I will find myself making actions i did not make a decision to do, and the smaller the action it is the more likely i will do it without having ever decided to do it. for example, i will be focused writing software at my desk. 30 seconds later im standing in the kitchen, looking in the fridge, pulling out a sandwich, and it occurs to me: i never decided to stand up and go to the kitchen. the decision making process literally never occurred. I have to literally TIE MYSELF TO MY DESK to stop myself from doing stuff like this.

luckily, you wake up accidentally at 6am. crisis averted! you still have 20 minutes before you need to get out of bed. no problem, scroll hacker news. it's now 6:35am and oh shit i should have been out of bed 15 minutes ago, i didn't set an alarm for that because i didn't think i would lose track of time when im literally staring at the time in the corner of my screen, i rush out of bed and jump in the shower thinking this will take a couple minutes, no big deal. however adhd makes you chronically underestimate how long something takes, because im generally really unaware of how much time elapses when i shower because i have time blindness. it's not 6:45am and i need to be leaving out the door, but my shower actually took 10 minutes, and im now soaking wet and still have to get on my clothes.

but wait, i need to take my meds, i really really cannot forget that. so i go grab my meds, but then wait i need water. so i go fill up my water bottle for the day like i always do, but its dirty, so i need to wash it first, and at this point im hyperfixating on doing what feels like a necessary step because part of adhd is losing bigger picture context and longer term rewards, my brain told me "i hve to take meds which means i need water which means filling water bottle which means washing it" and my brain literally doesn't ever take a step backwards until it's now 6:55am and i finally took my meds and FUCK i'm not 20 minutes late.

repeat at every single step of every single day for the rest of your life. this is also why people with adhd have the stigma of being lazy. the reality is that we can and often get less done when it's not something that intrinsically motivates us (most things) because everything is THREE TIMES HARDER. we're constantly stumbling, constantly having to set a million timers, having fatigue of so many timers, so sometimes we're over confident in not needing them because it's not reasonable to set 40 freaking timers every day, but then one in five times we slip up, and now im 5 minutes late for a meeting, and i show up and my boss is being pissy because he thinks im some self diagnosing tiktok idiot because has no idea what this looks like and how it impacts me despite trying really really fucking hard and absolutely hating it

Did this person ask for the advice? Also, treating children without empathy, like objects, is not the solution to the problem.

I think you're oversimplifying ADHD and its impact. It's not just a matter of using tools or strategies. ADHD exists on a spectrum, and it's often comorbid with other conditions like anxiety, autism, or depression. What works for one person might completely fail for another, especially if their challenges are layered or more severe.

Also, saying “regardless of diagnosis” is invalidating the real need for accommodations. People with ADHD often require not just personal effort, but systemic support, whether that’s in school, work, or healthcare.

Nope. A disability diagnosis isn't a blank check where employers have to accommodate everything you want. If the job requires being on time then at least under the Americans with Disabilities Act an employer is totally allowed to fire an employee who shows up late. There are some nuances here that won't fit in a comment so consult an employment attorney if you have questions about your legal rights.

He did not deny that it is in DSM or that there are people who fit the definition provided there.

Usually such techniques tend to not work when they are suggested by people who haven't experienced the consdition and haven't put serious thought into them.

> fun and easy

It's not fun or easy for anyone to find a new job. However, it's usually less painful than staying if you're poorly suited to your current role.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. The secret to living a good life is learning to take an honest inventory of your personal capabilities and then figuring out how to work with what you have.

I truly hope that things improve for you.

Demonstrating empathy is great but it's not a valid reason to tolerate misbehavior. And being on time for school is more important.

I get that he didn’t say that here, but I’ve seen other replies leaning toward the idea that “it’s easy if you just try hard enough” and that’s what I was addressing, too.

No one is saying that structure or boundaries aren’t important. Of course they are. But what is being challenged here is the assumption that a meltdown = misbehavior. Sometimes it is. But often what looks like “acting out” is actually communication. Discomfort, overstimulation, unmet needs, not manipulation.

Teaching kids discipline without empathy doesn't create resilience. It creates shame, masking, and fear of expressing emotions. And yeah, being on time matters. But so does understanding why the kid is melting down in the first place, especially if it’s a recurring thing. Otherwise, you’re just dragging a panicked, overwhelmed human out the door like a bag of potatoes and calling it a parenting win.

You think that society now, more than ever, punishes this after what we've been discussing—numerous instances of people glorifying it and (attempting to) excuse poor behavior through it?

I am talking about my psychiatrist. I think you are responding to the wrong person.

> If you believe that you have celiac but for whatever reason you haven't been able to test it yet, then there is no harm to try going glutten free. The real issue is how many people deny the very existence of glutten sensitivity and put these people in danger. If you look at communities of people with the disease you will see what I am talking about.

You just made one hell of a strawman argument about what GP said.

He merely stated that “the vast majority of self-diagnosed ‘gluten sensitives’ do not have such conditions”, as you quoted. This comment jibes with my experience.

The two folks I know who have full-blown celiac end up projectile vomiting for hours if they consume even small amounts of gluten (e.g., gross contamination in a fryer or on a cutting board).

The two folks I know who have milder versions were able to figure out that they needed to be tested in fairly short order due to “digestion issues” when they ate gluten.

On the other hand, the dozens of other folks I know who claim to be “sensitive to gluten” have no real basis when saying so. When I mentioned to them that I have friends with celiac, and I empathize with them, and I suggest they get tested if they haven’t yet (undiagnosed celiac is real), the answer I get are nothing short of glib - “oh, I’m just on a keto diet, and this is an easy way to do it”, “oh, I just found that I feel bad after eating things like cake” (sugar crash? diabetic?), or “oh, I’m fine, I just want them to make a fresh one (of whatever) for me”.

Your defense of folks who claim a problem that they can (often) fairly easily determine that they don’t have is enabling those folks’ dysfunction — that is, lying to themselves and (per this thread) using labeling as a defensive tactic.

People who actually have celiac need very specific accommodations. But the multiples of people who claim “gluten sensitivity” when they don’t actually have it causes large swathes of the general population to disbelieve the folks who really do have it.

It’s ok to call out the poseurs for what they are while still looking out for folks who have celiac or might have celiac and don’t know it yet.

No that's not how it usually works. People with a serious mental health condition don't usually start with self diagnosis. Instead they are referred to a mental health practitioner by another healthcare provider, a school administrator, or the criminal justice system because they are unable to function effectively in society. Many mental health conditions impair the type of objective metacognition needed to reliably self diagnose in the first place.

If you can you might want to install a door lock that uses a code number instead of a key.

People aren't being dismissive. The point is that whether someone is intelligent and hard working is utterly irrelevant to everyone else, especially in a work environment. What matters are results, not inner qualities.

>i never CHOSE to text jimmy

Yes you did. You are an adult human being with free will.

Everyone else manages to do it, you're not special. Be on time, or be a NEET I guess. You've decided you'll never be able to function properly so yeah you probably won't.

Don't talk to me about painful and please take the rest of your insufferable statements and shove them up your ass

Everyone has issues. For instance, I have idiopathic hypersomnia - I'm tired literally all the time. I don't get to say "Sorry wife, I'm just not going to be able to work."

There are things we're good at and things we need strategies to mitigate. I may not have ADHD but I have friends and family that do, so I'm familiar enough with it. What steps in a routine are needed to leave the house? Find your keys and wallet? Always put them in the same place. Go to the bathroom and maybe check how you look? Set that timer I talked about 3 minutes earlier. Other people with your condition can handle it; so can you.

Another one that just doesn't get it. In that scenario, if you texted Jimmy, it would be a choice, if someone with ADHD did, it wouldn't. Again as stupid a response as telling someone in a wheelchair they chose not to walk upstairs.

Not everyone's experience is the same as yours. Denying that only makes you look like an idiot.

Yes, you are, and punctuality ≠ productivity.

What a fuckwit. No, not everyone else manages it. I decided no such thing, you're just fabricating bullshit to feel better about being an arsehole to people who weren't born neurotypical. I have a career with pretty good pay and benefits, and you obviously didn't read anything else I wrote about managing my issues. I'd rather be late than a sociopath.

Omfg. A timer, for everything! Why didn't I think of that? And I'd set this timer for getting dressed, and showering, and making coffee, and conversing with my children. "Sorry, son, I can't help you any further with practising shoelace-tying this morning, I only allotted 90 seconds for that." I should probably set a timer for setting timers, too. Don't want to take too long doing that. Undoubtedly, this will also solve the distraction issue because the proximity of a time measuring device to my neurons will rewire them all to be "normal".

You're so ignorant.

So you didn't think they were dismissive or trivialised the issue? I mean, I can sympathise with the frustration of people somewhat 'giving up' after labelling their own issues, but it's not a logical conclusion to assign it all to a trend. That's what they appeared to be blaming and I didn't see them say otherwise, in any of their comments.

That rather depends on the job. Punctuality = productivity for many jobs, especially those in manufacturing, food service, agriculture, education, hospitality, transportation, security, etc. In the real world certain things have to be done on set schedules and anyone who can't reliably show up on time is worse than useless to those employers.

Why is it that you think you're offering life-changing advice? What makes you think I don't use repetition? What makes you think I've never tried timers? What makes you think I'm the exact same as person as your friends and family? What makes you think I don't also 'just get on with it'? Do you even think about what you're writing?

> Did you even search for anything before making that idiotic comment?

You acknowledged the fact that "there are those who self-diagnose without really suffering from a condition".

I, in turn, added to the fact that you pointed out that not only are there "those who self-diagnose without really suffering from a condition" but there is also a complex mental disorder where individuals play the role of a sick patient to receive some form of psychological validation.

This somehow triggered in you an emotional reaction. Why was that?

> So you didn't think they were dismissive or trivialised the issue?

What issue would that be? People falsely claiming they suffer from conditions they do not have? Or is it when they claim they struggle with a condition they self-diagnosed but somehow don't even bother to seek medical help not even to verify a diagnosis? Because if there is something that harms those who actually have to endure these conditions is people making fraudulent claims and trying to capitalize on everyone's goodwill.

> I mean, I can sympathise with the frustration of people somewhat 'giving up' after labelling their own issues, but it's not a logical conclusion to assign it all to a trend.

Is it "giving up", or is it just abusing a label they clearly know doesn't apply to them? You're somehow avoiding the elephant in the room and the whole point of this thread, which is the problem created by fraudulent claims by attention seekers.

this is like saying someone with depression is choosing to be sad.

this lack of executive functioning is a cornerstone of ADHD. this isn't a controversial opinion, it's universally accepted fact of the disorder

i didn't say more than ever, but in fact in a way it is: having a job and being able to support yourself is increasingly knowledge and skills based work, whereas in the past things were much more labor focused, which is a better fit for people with ADHD.

yes ADHD is better recognized and better treated these days. but as this entire comment section shows, there is still tons of stigma, misunderstanding, and a lack of compassion for a real disability

the problem is that ADHD impacts every single action of every single day for the rest of your life with no cure. yes you've fixed the coffee situation, but there are literally 50 other things i have to do every morning, sometimes they're things unique to that morning, and while i work really hard to be mindful of creating structure in my life to help cope with severe ADHD, it's not reasonable to have 50 separate techniques for the 50 things i have to do every morning and follow all of them perfectly or even have all of them perfectly setup.

there is massive, massive emotional fatigue to the amount of effort that getting through a day with ADHD entails, and this is on top of other things like having a ton of sensory sensitivity where literally just being around bright lights, is being bright outside, the sound of traffic, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, car horns, a door shutting loudly, someone clinking dishes while serving coffee, all cause emotional reactions in me that are intense enough for me to physically cringe. i literally cried while driving home a week ago at night because the oncoming car headlights are so bright the entire drive and i have to drive with one arm stretched out to block them from my view and etc etc

my brain is not an easy place to live. i am cognitively capable of understanding what technique can help with what issues. the problem is both recognizing every possible way my adhd can fuck things up and the amount of mental and emotional drain it is to have to consider everything all the time lest something fall between the cracks.

You can't see how, in response to a comment that was primarily about whether "time blindness" is real, which you quoted directly, your comment comes across as dismissing any self-diagnosis as Munchausen syndrome? Did you read about that either?

>Patients with FDIS intentionally falsify or induce signs and symptoms of illness, trauma, or abuse to assume this role. These actions are performed consciously, though the patient may be unaware of the motivations driving their behaviors.

I'm not convinced 'I have that!' statements quite meet the criteria for that. You may be thinking of malingering.

That's a good assessment, but it misses the fact that the person with the effective dysfunction genuinely believes they will 'be there in a second', because they cannot accurately assess time. The lack of forthcoming contrition is not difficult to explain, shame discourages people from drawing attention to their faults. If it's happening frequently, one would always be feeling 'faulty'. Aversion to that is expected.

So, knowing how much time and effort is required to maintain such responsibilities, you think someone with a similar situation, but who also has trouble being organised in general, has extra time to twiddle their thumbs for half an hour or something, before every single obligation with a time attached, just to be sure they don't get distracted? Do you have any comprehension of how ridiculous that sounds? If you're less capable of completing tasks you need more time than a typical person to do so, not less. They don't give students with ADHD less time in exams to ensure they can break task and put their pens down on time.

Still pushing those preconceptions, eh? Is this how you approach everything you could learn from? Assume you know all the answers before actually studying? Your teacup is full.