Dr. Stephanie Sarkis

Have a partner or friend that checks in with you to let you know, hey, are you going to that thing in five minutes?

You probably got to leave now.

And also, if you think that this is a sign of other things, like if you're having other brain issues, like difficulty with remembering things, difficulty with motivation, difficulty with anxiety, it may be worth talking to a mental health clinician to get an evaluation.

That's part of it.

And ADHD also, again, has to do with the executive functions of the frontal lobe.

So that means an issue with motivation, difficulty with time estimation, regulating your mood.

So it's part of a cluster of different symptoms.

A lot of shame.

Yep.

A lot of shame because people are treated differently.

They're treated differently by friends and family.

They're being told that, well, you don't really care about me because you didn't show up on time.

And this is a person that really makes every effort to try to be on time, but it just doesn't happen.

And sometimes they don't know why it's happening.

They know that they have a hard time estimating time, but it's made such a huge impact in their relationships.

It's even led to relationship breakups.

Yeah, it can be tied to social anxiety and other types of anxiety.

So if you show up early to something and you're the only one, there's only about two other people there, it can really put a lot of pressure on you socially to interact.

So that could be an issue.

Also, what do I do if I show up early and I don't have other people that I can kind of monitor or observe to see what I'm supposed to do?