“Every Clock Is a Handgun Pointed at My Head,” details in Alt Text.
I want to give you my experience of time. Not chained to clocks & calendars. Different enough from what most folks think… that I’ve struggled for two years to use my words.
So I’ve turned to art.
Every clock is a handgun pointed at my head
III
Every clock is a handgun pointed at my head Every tick, tick… fucking tick Tolling Fear, Doom… dread Click. Slide. Cock… click.
Every night a mantra echoes through my head TV static… a crazy-making hum Singing Dream, Dreamt… dead… Not done. Not done. Not done… undone.
10, 9, 8… Dread 7, 6, 5… Fear 4, 3, 2… BEEP. Shoot the moon… or the country next door Countdown. Deadline. Bow down… dead.
Bound behind doors, bound in my head Pace, paces, pacing… paced Every BEEP. Of the phone. Stops… my heart. . . . I crash out with a scream for escape
II
Woods
Deep woods
Deepest woods
My ears fly from bird song to bird song.
A raptor circles then spirals Crossing lines now dead Wind steals my breath Taking words never said
This skin bag of atmosphere Breathes new air
When the sun rises First it is cool Then it gets warm The day passes
Clouds above my head. Shaped by wind
Outside my body The same wind
Inside my body The same wind
Yet…
I
10, 9, 8… Dread 7, 6, 5… Fear 4, 3, 2… BEEP. Shoot the moon… or the country next door Countdown. Deadline. Bow down… dead.
Every clock is a handgun pointed at my head
zero
“Every Clock,” details in Alt Text.
The Māori must be a wise people. They really get autistic time.
Or at least, Keri Opai did back in 2017. That’s when he coined their new dictionary entry for autism, "Takiwātanga," in his or her own time and space.
Keri is an author, educator, and social activist. He certainly knew of the Western Medical Model of autism. But… it seems, Keri’s childhood pal, Peter, was autistic. So he just could not bring himself to define us as broken.
No medical pathology in Keri’s words. No disabling pity. Rather, respect. Even admiration…
He, and his people, saw what many of us feel. Our deep connection with natural rhythms. Our walk through the world at our own pace. On our own path. Maybe in our own dimensions of time & space.
Takiwātanga. A dictionary definition born out of love. It captures the heart of my autistic life — a different walk through time and space.
My guess? The Maoris, at least, are glad we're on the planet. Not because of our needs. Because of our contributions. Rooted in our different perceptions, our outsider experiences.
So, maybe the Maoris offer the understanding we autistics need. But Western science still struggles to catch up. Their “Autistic Spectrum”? A laundry list of supposed problems… From an ableist point of view. In an industrialist society.
Try as I might, I could never measure my time by checkboxing goals met. How many widgets I punch out each hour. Nothing to do with my quality of life... which is very much wrapped up in the joy of my process.
Why do I want to make you feel how I experience time as an autistic person? How can we understand each other... care for each other... if we don't explore each other?
Why do I use art? Because research trends and terms change with the times... like all things human made. I could wave my hands and quote neuroplasticity & quantum effects all day and night. But that would negate my words in a few years. When the whole research paradigm changes… yet again.
But raw human experience endures. So… I offer you poetry. So… I offer you images.
Right up front, every time…
We autistics are not all the same.
Example: Most folks know autistic kids and adults may have sensory differences. What most don’t know? Some of us are not overwhelmed by loud noise, bright lights.
Some of us are exhilarated. And some… like me… experience a bit of both…
So what do we share in common as autists? An un-common sensitivity and response to extreme sensory input.
Keep that in mind as I discuss my personal experiences of time, memory… thought. Research and personal stories both show we experience time in uncommon ways.
But each of us experience it differently. Even as polar opposites.
“The Worship of Time Is the Root of All Evil,” details in Alt Text.
In My Autistic Time
Want me for dinner? I may bust a gut to please you. AND yet…
I’ll end up mumbling some variation of “I have no freaking clue how so much time could have passed... um, again.”
But get me focused… particularly on my passions… writing or music? I effortlessly monitor fractions of a second... To hit precisely… The right hesitation.. of that one… musical note… Or the perfect combo… of word choice… and white space… That. Makes… The phrase.
Now, weirdly, any period much longer than a day? All kinda melts together. I can forget to send in a vital Social Security Form, thinking, “I just got it yesterday. Still got time…” Weeks later. Months later.
Or I might pick up a conversation in mid-sentence when I see a friend. From the last time I saw him. Two jobs… and a career... ago.
Like I have one button on my clock, “NOW.” And for bonus points, its alarm function has no mega-freaking clue… How long it takes to complete any task invented by any human. At any time in history. Or any space we’ve ever occupied.
"Sure, hon, I’ll make dinner tonight! That fake rice-a-roni I make takes 14 minutes to boil. I’ll see ya in about 20.”
One annoyed emoji text later…
🤬
I thumb-type back,
"Oh, my g-d! Never takes this long. BRT.”
But mebbe you think you can help me out with my little schedule problem. Say, give me a time limit? A gentle reminder?
So my brain freezes. And my heart follows. Ass remaining firmly implanted in front of some screen or other.
Planning? Keeping commitments? Deadlines? Family life? Education? Jobs? CAREERS…?
Did I mention there were just two things that almost kept me out of kindergarten? Sure, the “Tying Shoe Laces” gotcha. But, omfg, learning to read a clock?
Civilized time requires commitment, plans, deadlines, goals, milestones, production…
Let’s say I’ve burned through dozens of jobs… average span less than 6 months. At least 6 careers… average span a couple years. Marriages… 3. Let’s not go there…
Civilized time is beyond me.
“Heinlein Invents the Countdown,” details in the Alt Text.
Why? Let’s Explore Autistic Dark Time…
Einstein broke the news. Time is relative. For all of us. He said time is a measure of the curvature of space-time between two events… basically. Physics says he’s right. So far. At least if you’re bigger than an atom. Most places… That we know about…
“Einstein: Autistic Prophet of Dark Time,” details in Alt Text.
And it seems as if most humans who I know, in their own way also measure time by events. What happened. How often.
But my autistic time isn’t a measure of events and the distances between them. I measure the depth of feeling and its quality as events unfold. From high to low. From joy... to pain.
It’s like most humans experience time and space the way Newton or Einstein would. In precisely measurable dimensions… filled with matter, energy, and consumable products.
“The Persistence of Production,” details in Alt Text.
Either Imperial OR metric units make perfect sense…if you’re punching out widgets. With guys hovering and lurking in the shadows… counting our pieces per hour. Every bit of that modern industrial world makes sense. Fast food. Convenience packaging. Microwaves... Low monthly payments. Superhighways. This season's fashions. Time-limited sales. Slip on shoes. No-iron shirts. “Skip ad” buttons…
But me? I’m stuck in some quantum world with weird dimensions… like “spin” & “charm”... Things you cannot count on factory floor.
Mebbe Joy quarks ... like light quarks… can be waves or they may be particles. But they disappear if you observe them too closely…
“Time Stream Meltdown,” digital illustration by author, details in Alt Text.
Time doesn’t flow smoothly for me.
It’s more like waves and troughs.
If I’m interested in what you’re saying, what I’m reading… hours fly by. In fact, if I’m really into my passion… painting, cooking, whatev… time has no meaning. I’m outside of time. Indistinguishable for me from… Joy.
But boredom? A slow, annoying hands-and-knees crawl across wooden schoolroom boards… taking secret, furtive over-the-shoulder glances at a second hand stubbornly sweeping.
So, depression, anxiety… DEADLINES? Grinding out, second by agonizing second, in my gut.
My very definition of… Dread.
Now, shoehorn my autistic experience of time into your punchclock world.
I'm autistic. Pretty sure ADHD, too. In my 70s, every ticking second is a countdown to some duty, obligation, deadline... death…
No. That's a lie.
Shoot the moon… or the country next door Countdown. Deadline. Bow down… dead.
Reality? Hours of numbness... obsessively flicking through screens... frightened to look away and notice the time of day... the season. Leading to days of dull semi-awareness... punctuated by trips to the bathroom between delivered pizzas. And moments of terror when despite my best dim-witted efforts, I see 9:27 out of the corner of my eye. And the sun screams,
"Hey, it's morning. You gotta get going. You got stuff to do."
Or maybe it's 3:19 am. So the moon shames me with,
"Well, there goes another day you didn't meet expectations."
Every timepiece I can remember like a prison guard's gun... the real power enforcing order. The calendar that told the doctor that 2 weeks late is too long... so he forced my delivery with forceps. Or the school bell that announced precisely when I must be silent... or pee. The alarms shrieking at the factory door. Punch clock measuring the distance to starvation. Calendars til the next vacation, back to school, parental promotion... or move to a new town. Report cards. Standardized tests. Bank clocks and clock tower counting down seconds to disaster.
Bound behind doors, bound in my head Pace, paces, pacing… paced
Procrastination… The Black Hole I Hide in
"Where's the waitress...???"
I glance at the watch on my wrist. Again. A plaintive cry in my head…
"That paper was due a WEEK ago..."
I'm sitting on a pizza joint chair. Oldskool tubular steel and fiberglass. Dirty, glaringly orange, butt killer. The kind grade schools stacked against walls... back before Kennedy was shot.
“Waitress of Time,” details in Alt Text
"Fuck. I wanted a pizza cuz it thought it'd be fast..."
I'm checking the clock robotically every few minutes. It's like 9 at night. The prof believed in me. He knew I needed an A for my cume. Promised he wouldn't mark me down for lateness. IF it was my usual quality. AND I get my 10 pages in… before class. Tomorrow. 10 am. Tapping his watch.
“No excuses.”
"Challenges of Cognitive Therapy for Middle-Old Senior Clients." Great topic. BUT I couldn't make it come. Hadn't even started. I paced for hours in my apartment. Nothing. Zip. NADA.
So, my bright idea?
“I know, walk and grab a quick slice. Kill two birds. Get my blood pumping. Get dinner outta the way. I’ll write all night if I gotta… When I get home.”
An hour and a half later, after waitress delays, problems with the credit card, bumping into a classmate I can’t duck…
“Um, I’ll get up at 5. Pump out a page an hour… He’ll take it if I skate into class at the last minute.”
Right. Couple weeks later… I get The Letter.
…after careful consideration by the full Committee…. blah-blah-blah-de-BLAH…. Effective immediately withdraw from the Graduate program and cease issuing your stipend.
But…Pizza? Save time? Prioritize?! Every link in my logic made so much sense… at the Time. It always does. Til I look back. And feel stupid.
I can never be certain of any commitment I make… no matter how heavily they weigh on me. Even ones that kill paychecks. Kill careers.
Even the most dear ones that I make to myself. How much does a dream weigh? Enough to slump shoulders. And strangely? Even more as they die…
The Spin-Charm of My Emotional Experience
But this is what I’ve come to believe. This time-centered agony is not my natural state. In the environment I was built for… the Pre-Industrial. In the life I was designed to live… before Henry Ford’s punchclock…
Because in the world I was born for you don't need a watch, an alarm, daily planner not even a Bible, self-help book… or scholar’s study to know when the sun rises when to eat when to sleep when to pick berries on the fence row when the sun sets when to sleep
My natural state is this…
When the sun rises First it is cool Then it gets warm The day passes
Clouds above my head. Shaped by wind
Outside my body The same wind
Inside my body The same wind
Out of the Blue… and into the Black… Data
I only know my personal experience. So it seems only fair... I must give you highlights of current research on autistic and neurodivergent time. Notes below.
1. Research on time perception in autistic individuals shows mixed results. Some studies show autistic differences. Some don’t. Particularly when it comes to complex tasks. But the complexity of the task may influence time perception differences.
2. A study in 2022 found there were no notable differences for autistic adults. At least not in interval and event timing judgments. This challenges the notion that autistic individuals sense time differently.
3. Research suggests autistic folks may struggle synchronizing the passage of time. When matching visual and auditory stimuli.
4. Encyclopedic Overview. "Time Experience in Autism Spectrum Disorder" discusses theories of time perception in autism.
5. Controversial Sources. Note that sources like Autism Speaks are controversial in the neurodiversity community. Their research is included for completeness. But perhaps be cautious.
So after trying to use my words for 2 years…to just explain...
I offer you simply this…
My art.
I have no agenda. I have no tips. I offer my life… Take what you can use. And leave the rest.
Time’s short. And it moves in one direction. Always shorter.
Key Takeaways (summary by Perplexity)
Time Perception and Anxiety The poem vividly depicts the intense anxiety many autistic individuals experience around time and deadlines. Lines like "Every clock is a handgun pointed at my head" and the countdown sequence illustrate how time pressure can feel threatening and overwhelming. For many autistic people, difficulties with time perception and executive functioning can make deadlines and time management extremely stressful. The ticking clock becomes a source of dread rather than a neutral tool.
Sensory Sensitivities The poem references sensory experiences like "TV static" and a "crazy-making hum", highlighting how autistic individuals often have heightened sensory sensitivities. Sounds or stimuli that may not bother others can be intensely distracting or distressing.
Need for Nature and Sensory Regulation The second part of the poem describes being in nature, with vivid sensory details about birds, wind, and clouds. Many autistic people find nature soothing and use it for sensory regulation and stress relief. The contrast between the anxious first section and calmer nature section illustrates this.
Internal Experience vs. External Pressures The poem juxtaposes the speaker's internal sensory world with external pressures like deadlines. This reflects how autistic individuals often experience a disconnect between their internal experiences and external expectations.
Difficulty with Change and Transitions The abrupt shifts between sections and the countdown sequences may represent the challenges many autistic people face with changes and transitions. Moving between different mental states or environments can be jarring.
Intense Emotions and Experiences The vivid, intense language throughout the poem reflects how many autistic individuals experience emotions and sensations very intensely. What may seem minor to others can feel overwhelming. In summary, this poem powerfully conveys common autistic experiences around time perception, anxiety, sensory sensitivities, and the contrast between internal experiences and external pressures. It highlights the intense and often overwhelming nature of these experiences for many autistic individuals.
References & Further Reading:
Neither exhaustive nor comprehensive. Articles that made me think.
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I'm autistic and I'm an ADHDer. Until recently I said "I have time blindness", but I think it's ableist. I'm not blind, but time does not provide any meaningful support to structure my day, week or life. Sometimes well meaning colleagues ask me if I have planned any vacation. I can't tell them "In August I'll be at the beach for two weeks", because I can't plan like this. Because I can't think like this. "I'm on vacation in two weeks" is as meaningful to me as "I'll be on vacation in two meters and a liter".
Short time time perception got more aligned with the neurotypical world with ADHD medication. Now it rarely happens that I go into the kitchen to make a coffee because I have ten minutes left to the next meeting and then get back at my laptop half an hour later because an ADHD cascade broke loose. Like in front of the coffee machine are some dishes, so I put them in the dishwasher. But I can't, because it has run and is full of clean dishes. So I start emptying the dishwasher. Damn, too late for the meeting. Now I have a bit of sense for these short periods of time.
Another thing is, that my memory is not organized in periods of time. Everything that happened in my life is either lost or it had enough emotional impact to stamp the situation in my brain. But then it's not like a movie but like a still. I see a picture of the situation and sense the emotions with full intensity. Which is fine for good ones, but like going through a daydreaming nightmare for the bad ones.
I've spoken to other neurodivergent people and for some of them, memory is organized in a similar way. I'm not sure what I'm going to make of it, but here you go. Take care!
I'm autistic and I'm an ADHDer. Until recently I said "I have time blindness", but I think it's ableist. I'm not blind, but time does not provide any meaningful support to structure my day, week or life. Sometimes well meaning colleagues ask me if I have planned any vacation. I can't tell them "In August I'll be at the beach for two weeks", because I can't plan like this. Because I can't think like this. "I'm on vacation in two weeks" is as meaningful to me as "I'll be on vacation in two meters and a liter".
Short time time perception got more aligned with the neurotypical world with ADHD medication. Now it rarely happens that I go into the kitchen to make a coffee because I have ten minutes left to the next meeting and then get back at my laptop half an hour later because an ADHD cascade broke loose. Like in front of the coffee machine are some dishes, so I put them in the dishwasher. But I can't, because it has run and is full of clean dishes. So I start emptying the dishwasher. Damn, too late for the meeting. Now I have a bit of sense for these short periods of time.
Another thing is, that my memory is not organized in periods of time. Everything that happened in my life is either lost or it had enough emotional impact to stamp the situation in my brain. But then it's not like a movie but like a still. I see a picture of the situation and sense the emotions with full intensity. Which is fine for good ones, but like going through a daydreaming nightmare for the bad ones.
I've spoken to other neurodivergent people and for some of them, memory is organized in a similar way. I'm not sure what I'm going to make of it, but here you go. Take care!
ADHD and time blind. Time just doesn't make any sense to me.