Time Blind
My oldest child's comments on living with no sense of time -- an "executive function issue".
Michele (AKA "My Mom") said:
First of all, a lot of aspies have no time sense. If that is an issue for him, he cannot understand what "30 minutes" means. It has nothing to do with "trust" in you. It is like asking a blind person to follow your voice across a busy street and trust that they won't get run over. You see the traffic and feel safe. He cannot. Does that make sense?
And I replied:
That's a pretty good picture, though not completely accurate. Being unable to track time... it's like being able to see, but not tell things relative to each other. I know time passes. I have a very vague idea of how much time has passed. But any guess I make will likely be off by at least a couple hours.
Here's the best example that comes to mind for me.
Let's say you can't measure an inch, foot, centimeter, etc. You have no sense of measurements. You know there's twelve inches in a foot, ten millimeters in a centimeter, so on and so forth, but you can't attach them to anything, and you are unable to see distances yourself (That is, for all you know, your hand is the width of the path 'cause it looks that way at a distance). Now let's say you have to cross a path over a pit. You don't know how wide it is, you don't know how long it is, you just know it looks like a huge distance, a thin path, and a huge fall.
Would you be willing to cross this path, no matter how much you trusted those urging you on?
Never.
Now let's take it one step further.
Let's say it's midnight. On a new moon night. With nothing but the minimal lighting of the stars to help you. Oh, and half the stars went out when you weren't looking.
Now you know there's a path over a pit. You have not one clue how long it is, how wide it is, how deep the pit is, and you can only barely see anything.
Everyone else has night-vision contacts, and they seem to think you did, too. (It's for comparison purposes. Night-vision goggles are easily visible, contacts are not, and being unable to keep track of time tends to be assumed to be incompetency)
So you can't see, you can barely guess, and everyone else assumes you can see just as well as they can.
I have just described what being unable to keep track of time is like. That last bit with it being midnight and all is what it's like to be unable to keep track of time and not have some sort of clock avaliable.
In America, time is a precious commodity. So now let's add one more piece to this visual aid. Let's say you have to stop at very specific points along the path over the pit and accomplish certain tasks. Doing them anywhere else will tick off everyone else. You also can't go back and simply re-do this stuff to get it right the second time, or do it at a later point.
Now we have added in the fact that Americans requires things at very specific times.
Of course, it's not all dark and dreary. Having clocks and watches of some sort or another available is like adding marks along the path that say the distance, accompanied by a line to show what it speaks of. Church bells and such tell you vaguely what time it is, which could be translated as night-vision contacts, meaning you can get an idea of what's going on and everything.
A person unable to detect the passage of time will never be able to do so, but there are advantages. Time is of no matter to them, since it has no substance to them. So what if a task will take three years to complete? That's like, uh, a little more than tomorrow, right? It's not that long.
Being oblivious to time's passage has its good points. I certainly enjoy it when it doesn't cause me trouble. I can work hard on a project, and not realize I spent over three hours on it. I'll think it was only half an hour. I don't feel like I've wasted my life or anything.
As they say: Ignorance is bliss.
Mind, I prefer being aware of my ignorance so I can get around it, but it's certainly nice to be ignorant of time's passage.
Signed:
"Swiss Cheese for Brains"
PS: You know what's cool about having no sense of time?
I'm immortal.
(No, I won't explain)
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Asperger's Syndrome: A Working Hypothesis
- Giftedness
- Personality Type
- Sensory Issues
- Compounding (Biomedical) Factors
- Eccentric Geniuses
- The Big Disconnect
- Socially Deaf
- Time Blind
- Rapid Brain Growth and Vitamin Deficiencies
- Different Minds
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