Tuesday, November 1, 2016

On Autism and the Sensation of Time

Catsidhe writes "On Autism and the Sensation of Time" at Catsidhe.




November 1 keeps catching me by surprise. Every year. Every Autistics Speaking day.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have an accurate sense of time: to remember an event and Just Know how long ago it was, to see an event in the calendar and Just Know how long I have to wait. But I don't. I have five times into which all events are sorted: there is the Now. There is the Recent Past and the Near Future... maybe up to 24 hours in either direction. And then there's the Past, and the Future. And within those two groups, there is no ordering. If something happened a week ago, or twenty years ago, it feels the same to me. If something is scheduled for Thursday, or for April, the urgency is the same to me.

As you can imagine, this doesn't help with things. If something was more than a couple of days ago, I don't remember if I've done it or not. The death of my father's father in 1993 feels as immediate and painful as the death of my mother's father in 2009. For any event which has happened, I must consciously remember context to put things in order: This person was at that event, so it must have been while I was working there. That narrows it down to five years or so... now I have to look up which years those were...


Read the rest here!

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Powerful words. You illustrated your dilemma/struggle perfectly to me, the reader. I hope more people tune in and read this, and I hope you find some peace in the midst of your depression and anxiety.

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