Perception Shift: From Time Management to Transition Management

On the cost of leaving your own zone

When my phone pinged this morning with a new text message inviting me to the graduation party of a friend from from my singing group, I felt a little dread. To be clear, that dread had nothing to do with the party or the people who will be there or the person we’re celebrating.

The dread was about everything that happens before the party.

So, if I want to go to this party (and I do), the last Sunday of this month around 4 or 5 PM, I have to stop doing whatever I’m hyper-focused on at the time, get dressed, make sure I’ve eaten enough that I’m not starving by the next time food is available, brush my teeth, make sure I have all of the usual necessities my bag (this is another entire list), make sure I have a graduation card ready, brush my hair, put on sunscreen, and put on and tie my shoes, and that’s just to get out the door.

If you don’t know me, it’s easy to look at my patterns of being late, missing deadlines, and cancelling plans last minute and think, classic ADHD time-blindness (or, if you’re a less forgiving person you might just label me as flaky and unreliable).

But the picture I painted above isn’t really about any of those things. When I imagine doing that first step, putting down whatever I’m hyper-focused on to start the chain of events that lead to me arriving at this party, I feel vaguely like I’ve jumped into an ice bath.

Scheduling isn’t hard because I’m bad at time. It’s hard because every scheduled thing is a negotiation between my actual operating environment and the external world’s requirements. My scheduling problem isn’t a time problem. It’s a transition problem.

Earlier this week, I posted a piece about putting off scheduling a dentist appointment for three years. There’s so many reasons it took three years—the hurdles of navigating the find-a-provider UI, calling the office, managing my anxiety so that I wasn’t sick the day of the appointment, the shame and anger of being reprimanded for cancelling last minute because my anxiety did make me sick, and then starting over at the confusing find-a-provider UI.

All of these actions cost time, energy, and (not to be overdramatic) emotional agony. The actual dentist appointment was just one of many costs.

For a long while now, whenever I schedule an event or appointment, I’ve been factoring in physical prep and travel time because I know I can’t do that intuitively the way so many neurotypical people seem to. But this self-directed accommodation only fixes part of the problem.

What I need in addition to the physical prep and travel time is support for the emotional and mental transition from the state of being in my safe place (my home), where everything is set up to be soothing and/or inspiring for my neurodivergent self, to the danger zone (the world), that is built for neurotypicals and full of unknown actors (other people).

I’m not sure what that support looks like, but this reframe has at least made me aware of this need so that I can start considering what might help me navigate these every-day transitions.

Have you thought about the cost of leaving your own zone? How do you manage the transition emotionally and mentally? Share in the comments.

Best,
Hannah