You wake up Saturday morning, and the whole day is stretching ahead of you, no appointments to keep, no place you have to be, no demands on your time. For hours on end, that time belongs just to you.
Your head swirls with plans. Well, not really plans, more like possibilities – all the things you can do, you should do, you want to do. And hours in which to do them.
Endless possibilities in your head, endless time on your hands – and a fluttering uneasiness growing in your stomach.
Those butterflies are the beginning of anxiety. You have entered the ADHD Twilight Zone – unstructured time, where time means nothing, and nothing is certain.
Time is a four letter word …
For many adults with ADHD, unstructured time is a mixed blessing at best. Like anyone else, we need time to kick back and relax. It’s a relief to be able to follow our own internal rhythms instead of keeping beat with a world where we’re always out of synch.
The problem comes when we want to do something with that time, even if it’s something fun like a hobby or meeting up with friends or getting ready for vacation.
Anxiety can even creep in when we have just a few unstructured hours before some scheduled event, like work, an appointment, or picking up the kids, so much so that we not only get nothing done, but we end up late for wherever we were supposed to be.
The Inverse Time Equation
One of my friends put it this way: “The more time I have to get things done, the fewer things that I do. If I have 3 weeks to prepare for a trip, you can bet your paycheck that I will do absolutely nothing until 2 hours before we leave, then I do ALL THE THINGS! I need structure and hate it at the same time, without it I get nothing done.”
Fortunately she has a structured (and very loving) husband who helps keep things on track.
Another friend agreed, “Unstructured time is my favorite time but I don’t accomplish much. . . . There’s some anxiety but not enough to push me to do something about it. There’s guilt because the things I’m supposed to do aren’t going away. But I’m also defiant because I want to claim my time as my own to enjoy and not lose it to stupid obligations.”
Another put it like this, “I’m a last-minute/best-work-ever guy as well, but anxiety leading up to work time drives me crazy. CRAZY! I have to fill it with food for thought and other stuff.”
As for me
Well, weekends were made for Michelob, right? Except I don’t much like beer. Homemade lemonade would be good. With strawberries! Sangria? I’ll go to the farmer’s market! Nope, it’s closing in an hour.
… Sun tea would be good. Do I have any mint? Nope, so I go to the grocery store and buy blueberries, lemons, fresh vegetables, a roast for the Instant Pot, burgers for the grill, a curry sauce that looks interesting, and a piece of ginger because I wanted one for some reason a while back.
… But I forget the mint. Back home, I decide I really need to mow the lawn except it starts to rain. I could go to that exhibit at the art museum … except it left last week. Oh well, I need to do something about this room, so I go online. New curtains, colorful storage bins, an electronic label maker – and the card’s declined. I should’ve finished my budgeting project last weekend. I’ll definitely do that tomorrow, too late to start it today. I don’t feel like cooking so I head for bed, frazzled and dejected, another weekend shot.
Unstructured Time
People with ADHD don’t always have an innate sense of the passing of time, so it’s hard to “feel’ how much time has passed and how much is left. We also struggle with creating structures and systems that are meaningful to us.
Unstructured time creates uncertainty because we can’t orient ourselves in terms of either time or task.
Uncertainty isn’t safe, so deep in our brain, a little section called the amygdala sits up and takes notice, flooding our brains and bodies with chemicals to prepare us to face danger – the “flight or fight” response.
We feel it as anxiety, and respond to this invisible foe by fighting (becoming angry or irritable) or fleeing (doing something else or simply shutting down).
What’s the solution?
Cruel as it sounds, we need to use the same “productivity” techniques for unstructured leisure time as we do for work, school, bill-paying, and other “adult” activities.
Because if we don’t, the best parts of our lives will be spent in the twilight zone, and there’s a lot of sunny skies and moonlit nights out there, just waiting for us.
Kriss McLaughlin is a freelance medical writer in Virginia, where she writes about the business, realities, and myths of aging. Kriss McLaughlin is a freelance medical writer in Virginia, where she writes about the business, realities, and myths of aging. One of my favorite sayings is ‘You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.’ Learning about ADHD for me has been like learning to surf. So jump on in, the water’s fine. Kowabunga!