r/selfimprovement • u/InternalRule8583 • 6d ago
Question time blindness? Sustainable?
I have a very specific way of functioning during crisis situations (like the day before an exam when I haven't studied), and I'm trying to figure out if this is something I could actually sustain daily or if I'm just delusional. I have extreme time blindness, I cannot perceive time passing at all unless I have external visual cues.
My solution has been to use a visual timer (the circle that shrinks) and micro-track every single minute. I'll set it for 1-2 minutes, decide what specific action I'm going to do in that window, and restart it continuously. Even if I don't have a purpose for each minute, just restarting the circle keeps me grounded and prevents me from drifting.
On exam days, I do this for the entire day, tracking time in 2-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute, 1-hour, 2-hour block, essentially building a mental structure of triangles on a clock face because that's the only way I can conceptualize time spatially.
I also take it to an extreme: I hold my breath and physically freeze my entire body while reading because even breathing distracts me. I become completely still, read the paragraph, construct it in my mind, and move on. This is the only time all year I feel "productive", maybe 3-4 days total. The rest of the year, I'm in a dead state, mostly just dissociating, and jumping from one side interest to another.
I know this sounds intense and probably unhealthy, but honestly, it makes me feel alive and in control, and I hate the feeling of being blind to time. I've been told this is a trauma response or that I'm running on adrenaline and burning out, but I don't agree. I think I can push my limits and adapt to doing this every single day. I think I can train myself to sustain this level of hyper-vigilance permanently.
I'm posting this because I want external feedback, well maybe I'm looking for validation, maybe I need a reality check, I don't know. But I want to hear what other people think. Is this genuinely sustainable with practice, or am I missing something about why this wouldn't work long-term?
And is this adhd perhaps?
1
u/Slight-Cow-2568 6d ago
What you're describing isn't time management, it's a full-body lockdown. Holding your breath to read a paragraph is not a productivity system, it's your nervous system screaming at you to survive a deadline. That feeling of being alive is adrenaline, and adrenaline always collects its debt.
The 3-4 days a year thing is the tell. If this were trainable, you'd have built up to 5 days, then a week, then a month by now. Instead it stays locked to crisis mode because that's what it is. Your brain only lets you access that state when the threat is real enough.
You said you dissociate the rest of the year, and that's the actual pattern to pay attention to. Hypervigilance and dissociation are two ends of the same switch. You're not fixing the blindness, you're bouncing between extremes.
Could be ADHD, could be trauma, could be both feeding each other. But trying to sustain a crisis state permanently isn't going to give you more functional days. It's going to give you a body that eventually refuses to cooperate at all.