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Always Arriving late to appointments and meetings can be a problem for many people with ADHD. There can be several reasons for this. The two I hear about the most are the topics today.

The first reason seems to be a problem dealing with time. For those people there are only two times. Now and Not Now. If it needs to be done Not Now the task gets set aside for what is in front of them Now. Preparation seems to help more often than any other system. It doesn't matter if it is an appointment or a project this system can help.

Put the task on your calendar on the day it is due. Then go backward to set up the steps you need to take to accomplish it. If it is an appointment then the day before you would write on the calendar "Lay out clothes". If you need to take something with you then you would figure out how long it will take you to get all the information together and put that on the calendar on the appropriate date. You get the idea. Using this system can have those who deal with Now and Not Now ready at the right time because they have given each step a day that says it is due Now.

The other cause of people with ADHD being late is simply distractibility.

On the way to the car you stop to feed the cat or water a plant or make that call you forgot until now. Each thing tugs at your attention and you feel that you have to take care of it now while you are thinking about it or you will forget.

There are two systems that seem to help in this case. One is to keep a note pad with you. It can be a small spiral note book that you can keep in a pocket. When you are tempted to stop on your way out the door jot down what it was that tempted you. That way you will have a record you can go back to. This way you won't be worried that you will forget the task again. You can always pull out the notes when you get back and take care of the task.

The second system is harder to put into practice. It requires you to be steadfast in your path to the door. You have to keep reminding yourself that you will be keeping people waiting. Keep telling yourself that if you stop to tend to those attention pulling tasks you will be late again and keep going past them. Remind yourself that you will be back soon and the cat won't starve in the next 2 hours. That plant will survive without water for awhile longer but you may not if you're late to a meeting with your boss again.

The last few months have been a difficult time for me and I just want to pass on the lesson I learned.

I had been feeling not quite right over the last few months. Actually it was 6 months. I had mentioned it to my Psychiatrist on each of my last 3 med checks. I told her that the medication didn't seem quite right and that I wanted to work with her on getting it straight. The first two times I told her this she just sort of blew me off. Like it was nothing important. The third time I was more insistent that we work on this and was told that she couldn't help me. I needed to see a therapist not change my meds. I was totally crushed. Once again I was being told it was all my imagination. There was nothing physically wrong with me. It was me not the meds.

After I went home and cried for half an hour I pulled myself together enough to call a friend to get a recommendation for another Psychiatrist. I was able to get an appointment set up within a few weeks. This Dr. at least believed me enough to try another medication. It felt great to have someone trust that I knew what I was feeling. The medication didn't help. In fact it made things worse but it was enough for me to stop and think. I finally realized that maybe it wasn't that the meds were giving me problems because they were less effective. It could be that they were building up and I had too much in my system. So I stopped taking the stimulants since that was the medication we were trying to adjust. Within a couple of days I began to feel better. I lost the memory and attention problems that had been getting worse and worse as time went on. I have had a great couple of days while my system cleaned out the excess. I figure it may have something to do with the Omega supplements I have been taking off and on for the last year. I had been more regular about taking them and the combination was more than I needed. That's my theory anyway.

When I start taking the stimulants again it will be in much smaller doses and I will, hopefully, be more aware of what is happening with the meds in the future. I wanted to tell you about what happened so you will know that it is not always necessary to increase your medication when problems begin. Sometimes less is better.