panic attacks and losing time
Mae has been having panic attacks every day and every night the past couple of weeks. Its kept us awake at night and kept my heart beating fast during the day.
I think I may have finally partly figured out why Mae’s having panic attacks over summer/winter/back to school. Well, I don’t know for sure… But I know how I don’t have much of a sense of time… and Mae has absolutely none. All of time just piles up on top of her at once I think. She asks all the time (not just me and Carolineine, but she asks others all the time too) things like “Is it going to snow today? Is winter going to start today? Winter’s not going to all of a sudden be here tomorrow is it?” “What day is today? Well is it STILL Tuesday, like it was this morning?” And even though she knows its May or June or July, and she KNOWS the order of the months (I asked her)… she will say things like, “But what if today its June, and tomorrow its all of a sudden Christmas?” “What if I close my eyes tonight and tomorrow I wake up and its next week?” THEN I figured it out-- that is EXACLTY what losing time is like. You look at the clock, it might be 1:00, you’re talking to someone. Mid-sentence, you look at the clock again, its 5:30, the person is gone, you don’t know where the conversation or the person or the time all of a sudden went, but you don’t remember it. You go to bed on Friday night, and you wake up on Wednesday morning. You get tired and triggered and scared and think, I’ll just disappear for a little bit, and before you know it, 4 months have passed and you realize you don’t know what’s been going on. And Mae, and Jo-- they lose time a lot too, Jo mostly, but Mae does as well. I think that’s why she gets so confused and so panicky that all these things are going to happen RIGHT NOW and that she thinks she has to deal with them all right now.
She also can’t tell how long 5 minutes or 30 minutes is, and time goes by REALLY slowly when we’re alone, but it goes fast like at our T's office and when we’re doing things we like, like Christmas morning goes by fast, spending time with Lisa goes fast. The dentist goes by slow, night time goes by slow, bad dreams go by slow. But there’s supposed to be the same amount of time in each day, always 60 minutes in an hour. But an hour can go by fast or slow. And that just doesn’t make ANY sense. How can time change like that? As much as I think about it and get confused by that, I’m sure it only confuses Mae even more. Her little timers help some- she gets a better sense when she can see time passing or numbers counting down. I don’t know why she can’t catch on to telling time on a regular clock or figure out how much time passes that way.If asked when her birthday is, Mae ALWAYS says, “53 days” or something like that. Always. It doesn’t matter if its January or September-- her birthday is in 53 days. If someone tells her “20 minutes til we leave”, she can’t gauge that amount of time in her head. So we try to practice with Mae like we do with the kids at school--- 30 minutes is enough time to watch Blue’s Clues, 5 minutes is time to brush your teeth, 60 minutes is time to watch Little House on the Prairie or Sesame Street, 1 minute is how long you can jump up and down before you get out of breath, we sleep for 10 hours a night.
I guess the thing to do is just keep practicing until she gets it.
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
I don't understand time either. How one hour can go by so fast, but can also drag on forever. It seems like time flies so fast at times. And then I try to think back to what I did. Like yesterday, I went to work and I remember chatting with a few co-workers, but then all I remember is working on an urgent issue in the afternoon before I left. I know I didn't go to lunch and I am just not sure what happened. I certainly don't think I accomplished anything. And then, I found out that I had filled out a report in June and I could have sworn that I didn't do it and had screwed up. So, what happened? I don't know. I understand time, but I guess I just don't understand what happens to it. I don't know, but I thought I would share and say that I relate to what you are saying.
You have explained this perfectly. Great insight. Is it okay if I put up a link to this entry here because I mean you spelled it out exactly how it is that we experience such a distorted view of time. I'm trying to get a collection of entries from various sites that are really, really good entries. I'd like to include this one. Let me know. The email address is fake, you have the right one so let me know.
later,
Austin