Friend told me off

[Samibgton]

My friend exploded at me today for my faults (being chronically late) and basically time blindness. I am generally 5-10 mins late for things and it is probably my key flaw. It is definitely an ADHD thing and is not ok. I am working to address it. I am otherwise I am told a good friend. Caring, generous, a good listener. Very non judgmental and really try hard to be sensitive.

it was humiliating how shes addressed it tho and she knows I would never dare mock her for her faults. This is not the first time I’ve felt her try to exercise superiority towards me.

am I being too hasty in trying to cool the friendship? We are close but sometimes I don’t trust her or like her that much

I agree. Seems like ADHD is being blamed for a lot of things these days even where no formal diagnosis- I think it’s used as an excuse. Not fair on those with genuine ADHD. Being late on a regular basis is generally just down to poor time keeping and though it’s unavoidable sometimes it’s pretty disrespectful if happens a lot.

Yes, I am on waiting list for ADHD and I hate being late. sometimes it happens, but i try not to. i have several alarms for 10 minutes before i leave, 5 minutes before and so on

Absolutely this! 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

OP - surely your friend is aware of your ADHD so you would assume she would have approached it in a kinder manner if it is something that’s irritating her!

If she’s exploding at you and making you feel small, she ain’t really a friend and you’d be best steering clear of her.

sending hugs (both due to having a friend who has made you feel shit about yourself but also for all the judgey folk you’ve been subjected to on here!) x

I think this sums it up perfectly.

It sounds like you don't actually like her that much anyway and are looking for an "out". Cool it off on that basis by all means, but don't try to kid yourself that it's all because she pulled you up.on constant lateness.

Her attitude to your constant lateness and her reaction to it depends, to me, on the following (haven't got time to read the full thread btw so sorry if this has already been addressed)-

1. How bad the lateness is. If its just 5-10 mins max I would categorize it merely as an annoying habit, anything beyond that though is pure rude.

1. To what extent you actually try to be on time for stuff or whether you have a laissez faire attitude of just "I'm just always late and that's how it is and people have to accept that". For eg, I remember my husband and I once meeting another couple we are friends with in a restaurant. Both lovely people but both HORRIBLE time keepers. She is the sort of person who, even if already late, will still stop to get her hair straighteners out to straighten her fringe rather than doing the obvious thing of thinking "I'm already running late so I need to hurry up and skip all non essential tasks like using hair straighteners that will make me even later". On this occasion, said couple were already 40 mins late, we had lost the first table we'd been offered and had to wait for another, and when they got there, rather than hurry in ASAP to get to us, he then increased how late they were by stopping to have a fag. We still like them, they are good people and their shit time keeping isn't worth losing good friends over, but they clearly don't even try to be on time for stuff which is a bit annoying at times....

1. How did she react on this one occasion? Actual shouting? In public, humiliating you, or just in private? Or just non shouting based harsh truths said when it was just the two of you.

Not everyone who is diagnosed is medicated. I am pregnant and cannot take my medication as it is not safe for baby. Some people can't take it because it effects blood pressure, some people can't take it if they have heart problems.

Even if people are self diagnosed, their experiences are still valid. Many people (aka women) are often not diagnosed as we didn't a whole lot about ADHD in the 80s/90s. We're only really starting to learn about the effects on women now. And the wait time in some areas to get diagnosed is 7 years.

The problem is people don't tell you the reason they are late.
If they where honest you could make plans that are not time sensitive.

We don't know who is late because of a disability or who is late because they don't care.
We're not mind readers.

We're late. We're late dropping them off, we're late picking them up, we pay fines we get told off, we feel shame and disappointment in ourselves. And we do it all again the next day.
Being this way is not a choice it is a disability, and we live with the consequences of that disability every day.

Plus anyone find themselves late for the late person,they don't like that at all.

My friend who was always late,even if I timed the buses for her was really annoyed one day when I was late.

I actually fell back asleep and was 2 hours late meeting her.
I didn't do it on purpose,but she knew how I felt.
Standing there,but she was still late the next time.

ADD/ADHD, particularly in women, is something that is only really starting to become widely recognised. As an adult woman it is not straightforward to get diagnosed. Most adult women will not seek a diagnosis, or even realise that it may affect them, for many years.

That's why they don't tell you the reason. They don't know. They aren't being dishonest. They just don't know.

What they do know if that they are rubbish. That they are useless. That they are a failure. They can't even manage to meet a friend on time even though they felt they had tried really hard.

And even when they do know, it's not something that you can just decide to change overnight. It takes a huge amount of effort in terms of overriding your brain's natural tendencies. And when almost everything you do in the course of a normal day requires that sort of effort, the idea that people can just start getting ready 30-40 minutes earlier is utterly laughable.

The bottom line is that almost nobody is late because they don't care. Do you honestly think that are that many people who just don't care? You don't need to be a mind reader. You just need to have some perspective.

No, people are not mind readers. And you, as someone who cannot read someone’s mind would have little chance of doing so. In the same way that someone with time blindness has little chance of managing time. Not because they’re rude, or selfish, they just literally don’t have that ABILITY. Presumably people who have an issue with another’s lateness could enquire about any reasoning- sometimes people with time blindness do not know they have it (they are literally blind to the concept of time), and this could promote a discussion. I think that this highlights the discrimination that those with this type of hidden disability face all the time (no pun intended) - and unless it’s a workplace situation, why should they tell all and sundry about their disability if they don’t want to, because by the look of the answers on this post, it still wouldn’t be received well anyway! More judgement!

It’s not on to criticise someone for being neurodivergent. Would it be in to criticise a dyslexic person for struggling to spell or a dyspraxic person for not being able to catch?

As someone who is ND, I know it’s exhausting to constantly try to work on fitting in in a neurotypical world. Be kind to yourself and think about distancing yourself from others who aren’t.

If being late is beyond a persons control, I get that and would be sympathetic if they told me and in future we would make non time critical arrangements.

I do think that there are some NT people that are late - just because.

My cousin and a friend both arrived after my wedding start time and had to rush past me - luckily it was outside so it wasn't too noticeable- so they could get to their seats.

In my cousin's case she had forgotten her shoes so had to go out and buy some, but both of them are people who like being the centre of attention and I am not someone who likes the limelight, so it felt - however subconsciously- that they were being late to bring themselves back to the centre of things with the "Oh gosh I'm just so disorganised me, aren't I a case" , rather than respectfully arriving on time so that I was the focus for once.

@justgettingthroughtheday im on the fence with this. My friend is always late. Not 5 mins but anywhere between 30-60mins. I don’t get a text and I don’t get an apology and it’s every time we arrange to meet. I’ve never said anything becuase I know she struggles but she doesn’t even acknowledge it. She has ADHD but it doesn’t mean she should ignore it, it’s not ok to be that late all the time without even a simple apology.

Being late is incredibly disrespectful, it's basically saying to someone that you don't value their time and that your time is more important than theirs.

On a side note, why do people increasingly always have a 'condition' to excuse their behaviours/flaws.

I can guarantee you literally not a single person who’s late is doing it because they think their time is more important than someone else’s. This is so far from the truth yet always gets trotted out by people who are disproportionately triggered by someone being late. Disorders affecting executive function and timekeeping are absolutely real, and even in the absence of that, doesn’t being late happen to everyone at times? Traffic jams, public transport delays?

It’s been said several times already but I’ll just reiterate - no, late people are NOT on time for work, job interviews, medical appointments, flights or anything else either.

I do agree with this though. To just ignore it and never apologise is rude and means you can’t communicate about it and find things to do/ways around it.

"To the people saying they can't possibly help being late all the time and struggle with timekeeping, how on earth do you cope with train times, bus times, plane flights, getting to appointments on time for the hospital, doctor, dentist, optician, hairdresser, etc etc..., and how do you manage to get there on time for job interviews, and get your children to places on time, like THEIR medical appointments, and school, and suchlike." - I don't have ADHD but I know people who do and they struggle with all these things to some degree. I think this goes some way to explaining why people with it often can't hold down a job.

"You are either a wheelchair user or you are not, but there is a massive overlap between ND and NT behaviours, with no definitive demarcation line." - right, but there are people, including with my physical health condition, who need a wheelchair sometimes, people who need it most of the time but not always, there are people who need it all the time. Indeed there are traits of the physical health condition I have that lots of people have but to a different extent e.g. plenty of people have a couple of more flexible joints but what they don't have is most joints are over-flexible and they don't regularly dislocate them. In both cases it's about how it affects your life & it's not stealing valour from physical health conditions to talk about ADHD as a disability.

If you read my earlier posts I did what I could.
Telling her what time the bus was.
But her missing the bus and not telling me was an issue
I get people can be late and sometimes it's not their fault.
But it literally gets exhausting making plans and them being late.

Also same friend,we were in town separately and supposed to meet up.
We were both going to a different concert.
Rather than meeting me as planned she went home for something.
Which meant by the time she did meet me I had already eaten and was leaving.
In that case she was selfish.

I find being early is at least equally and if not more rude than being late.

The 10min earliness should not be factored into “wait time”, you actually are only “waiting” from the moment the agreed time is passed, not from the second you arrive.

I find chronic earliness incredibly rude especially when arriving at someone’s house.

Appreciate that it’s different meeting in public, but just as my own tangent anyone turning up early for dinner parties or house gatherings is outrageously rude.

This is going to be a controversial post and I’m willing to accept it but I’m sure I’m only saying what a lot of people are thinking but does it just seem that these days people are blaming absolutely everything and anything on ADHD? 🤷🏼‍♀️ All of a sudden every one is ND, like seriously you can’t blame being constantly late on ADHD, if you know you are late because of it, set an alarm, do something to stop yourself being late don’t just constantly blame something when there is actually a way for you to not be late

Maybe your friend has (undiagnosed) Aspergers and needs absolute tine keeping or it is both physically and mentally upsetting? Does she turn up exactly on time 99% of the time? If so, it might be a compatibility issue.

Why is it so absolute that they don't have any ability to manage their time? Why can't they look to develop coping strategies? This very different to the hypothetical paranormal ability to read minds.

I've developed, through hard work and support, a number of coping strategies to manage my anxiety so that it is less impactful on my life and those around me. Anxiety impacts how I think, feel and react but I am not bound by it and rendered powerless to manage it.

NO, self diagnosis is not “valid”. Jesus Christ - this is how we end up with teenagers all over social media claiming autism and multiple personality disorder etc with no diagnosis.

Having said that OP, I really can’t understand your friend getting so worked up over 5/10 minutes, and o say that as someone who always tries to be 5 minutes early. It doesn’t sound like she’s a good friend anyway from what you’ve said, so may be time to let this relationship fizzle out.

Yep, I totally agree. My brother had recently claimed to have ADHD, and apparently that explains why he’s a massive, lying, cheating none maintenance paying arsehole and we’re all meant to feel bad for him now 🙄