I have a fascinating history with hyper-focus and the resultant loss of time that ensues from these episodes. In fact, I had one just the other day and lost 8 hours of my life. One minute it was 6 pm and the next time I glanced at the clock it was 2 am. Knowing what I know now, I know it's a special kind of ability that ADHD and autistic folks have in common. When I was little, I sometimes thought I had been abducted by aliens, or experimented on by the government (I may have had a special interest in X-files from when I was around 12 to whenever it ended). I was not given the knowledge I needed back then to make sense of these strange time jumps, because I was assumed neurotypical. So of course I clung to the only knowledge available to me at the time, pop culture and conspiracy theories. Although completely and utterly incorrect, my little autistic brain needed some rules as to why this was happening, and those were the only ones that were presented to me, especially since I was terrified to tell my parents that I was losing chunks of time, lest I be classified as insane and diagnosed with schizophrenia-like my cousin (this was a long-standing fear for me, especially as I had very terrifying encounters with my not properly cared for cousin, who now that I think of it, could quite likely be autistic and not schizophrenic at all, but I don't want to go into the long history of autism spectrum being classed as a type of schizophrenia in this post, so I will digress).
I will, however, find some excerpts from my journal of this "missing time;" and show with these examples how looking through the lens of autism has turned scary moments into just moments.
Hyperfocus is something I discussed from a different angle in an earlier blog post about Flow. Autistic and ADHD hyperfocus is when a person is able to remain intensely focused on an activity for a prolonged period of time. In the neurotypical world, it's called flow and is highly prized. In the autistic and ADHD world it's labelled hyperfocus and seen as a detriment, and in all fairness, it is detrimental in a lot of cases because hyperfocus causes me to forget to eat, forget to go to the bathroom, forget to clean myself and my home, forget to sleep, forget to drink water, etcetera, etcetera. The most detrimental aspect in my case growing up was not having a name for it, which made me paranoid and scared for a large part of my life.
March 4, 1999
"Okay I just had something really freaky happen to me. I was doing my homework and I had like two questions left and I was starting to feel kind of tired so I looked at the clock and it read around 9:30 p.m. I was happy cause I was going to get to bed before ten. So I went out and said goodnight to mom and came straight back to my room and that took me a total of at the most ten minutes and I looked at my clock and it reads 10:21 p.m. I think my clock is wrong so I look at my watch and it reads the same time. Then I check the t.v. and it reads the same time. What I would like to know is where that hour went. Did I fall asleep during my homework? Well, I don't remember falling asleep and besides my head wouldn't have been in the position it was. It would have fallen forwards or backwards it wouldn't have stayed upwards. And I was still holding my pen, which I wouldn't have been holding if I had fallen asleep. So where did it go? This is what I call an 'X-files moment' or in this case, an "X-files hour'. (As in unexplainable and kinda creepy.) This is something that will be nagging at me all day tomorrow. Well since I have written it down I guess I can go to sleep knowing I won't forget it."
February 13, 1999[sic] (Actually 2000)
"What if time goes on without you? My blackout periods were like that. And that time when I gained an hour. Who's to say they never happened? Who's to say I was dreaming? I know they happened. I just haven't found out how, or why? I know I will not rest until I do.
What happened 2 me in that lost time, what will happen to me now? Will those blackouts come again? And if they do will anyone believe me or will they think me insane? Believe me, I'm not insane I'm more sane then[sic] most of the people on this planet. I'm not insane!"
Hey little me, I just wanted you to know, you never gave up. It took 24 years, but you finally understand what was happening, and it's made all those moments way less terrifying. You did good keeping a record of all of it; it really really helped.