Irulan wrote:
Do you also have problems concerning defining a time? The inspiration for asking this question is something I read some time ago on the Polish forum for aspies. There is only one forum of this kind in the Polish Internet and even though I don't take part in the discussions there, I read some words from the users giving utterance to their problems with defining a time. Having read it's characteristic for AS I already knew that I also belonged to those who have such problems although I even hadn't thought of it before. I'm often unable to judge how much time it will take to do a task and what is more, when I have to face the necessity of doing several things in more or less the same time I find myself hard to say which of those tasks is more important so should be done first. I mean, in theory I realize that one thing is of great importance while another one is trivial and insignificant but there's a discrepancy between theory and practice. A moment when I'll have to show the results of my work seems to be very distant in time or on the other hand much closer than in fact is. When I was a child my notion was that I would be stuck with my childhood forever, that I would be a child all the time and I was completely unable to believe that one day I'd become adult. "I am a child and I'll be always a child" - it was my inside conviction. Later, when I had already reached my teens I was in turn convinced subcounsciously that I'd be an adolescent girl, not a child any more but not an adult woman forever. Of course I know exquisitely well it sounds crazy and even then I knew it's crazy - to think this way - but it was a subconscious conviction and I couldn't get rid of it. When I want to do something important I've usually only very general vision how to achieve that particular thing. I like precision concerning the issue of time - very precise precision, I'd say. For example every time when I've just asked my mum what time it was I have a compulsion to check whether she wasn't wrong and I check the time on my own - if she hasn't told me an exact time I'm in a bad mood because I perceive it to be a discrepancy between reality and what was said while I don't like an untruth. I must also add that doing a thing I've a feeling that I have enough time to do exactly everything what I planned to do even if in fact there is no doubt it's far from truth.
Sometimes I can mysteriously figure out how much time has passed. The other day I set the timer on the microwave for 5 minutes and I wasn't watching the timer at all... when I suddenly said in my mind "12, 11..." and I looked up and it said "12, 11..." I got it right at the exact seconds. This is rare though. Usually I feel like a few minutes have passed, when actually it's been hours. Earlier this year my aunt died and I was told "she died 3 weeks ago" and I said that is not possible, I just talked to her last week. I had to call my phone company and have them tell me when I made the call to her (they looked for the number I provided them) and I was shocked to find out that indeed, we talked a week before she died. I would have bet a million dollars on that. It felt like I had stepped into the twilight zone.
As to the clock checking, I do that, too. I'll ask my husband what time it is. If it is 4:28, I want to hear that it is 4:28, not 4:30. Sometimes I check to make sure that what he said is exactly precisely true, otherwise I feel like I am being lied to and also living a lie. Strangely enough, sometimes it doesn't bother me at all to have my husband or someone else round the time off. I have no idea why that waxes and wanes.
I'm like you, I thought I'd be stuck in childhood forever but I think most people, NT or otherwise... feel that way. I'm 48 now and I have no idea how I got to be this age. I have no idea how the time went so fast. I still feel like a kid part of the time and the other part of the time I feel like I'm in my early 20's. I excuse my immature behavior by jokingly telling people that "I have Peter Pan Syndrome... I refuse to grow up!"
04 Jun 2007, 4:09 am
