do you have a problem with time?

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ever thought you've been waiting for an hour when it was only five minutes? or maybe the other way around? do you have a problem grasping time?

i cant see time, and i'm a visual person. i cant see it in my mind's eye and therefore have a problem wrapping my mind around how long an hour is.

Yes, I have problems with estimating time. I can be online and think I've been so for 30 minutes, only to find 2 hours have passed. (That has happened too.)

And time can really drag on and I can think that surely half an hour must have passed by now, only to find it's been two minutes. This would happen a lot in math class.

Time does fly when I'm having fun, but time also goes too quickly when I dread something. Before I know it, it's time to do whatever the dreaded thing is.

In general, I have a hard time knowing how much time has passed (without checking a clock/watch).

Yes I have a problem with tracking time. Mostly it flies past. I put it down to hyperfocus, and to anxiety which makes me preoccupied. Time goes by the quickest when I'm afraid that I'll run out of time.

It's pretty rare that time goes slowly for me, it only seems to happen when I feel blocked and bored, e.g. at work when I had to attend meetings. I didn't feel safe enough to blatantly ignore what was going on, so I was just sitting there half listening to stuff that didn't seem to affect me in any way.

If I could control Time we would get along just fine

I have trouble with time normally, although I'm pretty in tune with the day. As long as I can see outside, I'm usually semi-okay at guessing the time. But if I can't see outside, I'm very poor at it. Thankfully my job has a lot of clocks to pick and use from.

But.. I remember back in high school, I was a pretty good kid. I went to all my classes, orderly fashion..

And there was just this one day, I got to school at 6am like I usually did (I'm always an hour to 30 minutes early for everything) and the day sort of flew by. And later on that day I was approached by my assistant principle, and he said I had missed fourth period's class of that day (it was odd because that was a class I liked). And I was completely bewildered.. because I couldn't remember not going, but I also couldn't remember going.. I was given my first and only detention ever..

To this day, I still wonder what I had been doing to miss an hour of class when I just sort of floated through the day like I normally did. Sometimes I think maybe I went into the library, lost track of time or something... I'm still not sure..

I'm freakishly good at tracking the passing of time.

Yeah, it goes by much more quickly than expected.

My problem with time centers around not having enough of it...

I do. I think it's called "concept of time". I've noticed that it's common in people with forms of autism. I know I have a hard time judging time. For example, my friend on Skype could be gone for five minutes, and to me... it will feel more like an hour. If I'm waiting in line for a long time such as on a ride or waiting in a waiting room too, it can feel like hours to me. If I wait too long, it can cause a huge meltdown.

There was one time when I was at a Doctor's office. They were taking people in based on their case and not the order they came like most do. Well, it felt to me like over an hour had passed. One guy came in long after I did, and they were taking their time calling certain people in. Well, finally, I got taken in to an exam after some time. Instead of actually coming to me, the other guy who came after me went in and got seen right away. I had been waiting for what felt like hours to me, and I began to meltdown.

My dad told them I was autistic and couldn't wait any longer. They had the nerve to say there was nothing they could do, which to me was BS. Here I am screaming bloody murder in a fit of tears right in front of them, and they have the nerve to say they couldn't do anything? The least they could do was make sure I was after the guy that came in after I did. They couldn't even do that. I ended up walking out with my dad and canceling the appointment for that day. I never went back there again.

That is another example of how much time can affect me.

Good call !


As much as I hate the passage of time I seem to have an incredibly intimate connection to it.
It's like one part of my brain can stand back and watch another part of my brain that is keeping time.
However most of my conscious thought happens completely independently of the passage of time, and if for some reason the time factor is forced into my thought process, then it all goes to crap. That happens when someone gives me some sort of time limit in order to complete something that requires a lot of conscious thought.

Some people, including myself, wonder if there's any link between our odd perception of the passage of time, and how we seem to not age emotionally or physically at the normal/expected rate.

There are some particulars about the nature of time passage that could possibly come into play based on conscious perception of reality.
Specifically, the linear passage of time that we know so well applies to interactions at the macro level, but not at the micro level of subatomic particles.
So far, the role that subatomic particles play in our consciousness is not known, but really cannot be ruled out.

Same here lol

I have enough trouble figuring out what day of the week it is, let alone what time it is.

I'm late for *everything*. Typically, if dealing with a professional of some sort, like my therapist, they need to be told in advance that I *will* be late most of the time, to make sure they're okay with that.

It was even worse when I used to work though. Since my mom was always shoving me out the door at specific times to ensure I get there promptly, there wasnt really the "late" problem, but there was the "every shift feels like 5 billion years" problem. I couldnt handle shifts of more than maybe 4 hours at once. And even that was just absolute torment. I'd never be able to work a full-time job. I cant even express just how much relief I felt when finally, I didnt NEED to work anymore. I mean just... ugh. Most people can do very long shifts without much trouble, and I just dont understand how they manage this.

About once a month, my life-long friend (who I have known for ~ 45 years) accompanies me while walking my dog. Typically, we walk for 2-2.5 hours. During our walk, we almost always play a “guess the time” game. Where, at some point, once of us (usually me), says, “Guess what time it is?”. My guesses are oftentimes very close (to the actual time). I have no idea if the accuracy of my guesses is based upon actual passage of time or what. But, it seems like I am pretty good at playing that game.

I have absolutely no concept of time, and I've been told that all my life. I didn't know that was an Aspie thing. Like a lot of you guys, if I'm doing something I enjoy I will get focused on it and can spend hours, but it feels like 30 minutes, but when I'm doing something I don't like, or even worse, waiting, ten minutes feels like four hours. I take public transportation, such as it is here in Mayberry, and a lot of times you have to wait forever on them. It really sucks when you've waited 15 minutes, but you feel like you are going to have gray hair by the time they get to you. This is why I have to bring my audio book reader with me. If I have to sit there doing nothing I will go nuts.

I would guess better than average. When I guess the time I am very seldom off by more than five minutes, and within two minutes about half the time. Partly this is because I take care to calibrate my internal clock by checking the time fairly frequently, and partly this is because I think I can tell when my internal clock is out-of-calibration because if I don't "feel" what time it is I won't offer a guess.

Time seems to pass more quickly when I'm occupied, less so when I'm waiting for something. But I think that's a fairly common perception not limited to people on the spectrum.