Speed

Yet something related to “time”.

The speed.

The speed of communication.

The speed of thinking.

The speed of execution at work.

The speed of decision making.

The speed of transitioning between tasks/ envirorments/ context.

The speed of transportation/ travelling.

The normative expectations of all this is that it shall be done FAST.

Having a slower speed at these occasions can easily label you as lazy, stupid, weird, not interested etc, as well internally (as a result of you trying to fit in to the norms for a very long time and don´t have any other references than those normative ways of functioning) as externally, from others. It doesn´t have to be directly expressed in words by others, it can be sighs or body language signaling a silent judgement.

The fact, though, is that the autistic brain constantly is so busy with so much more data than most other brains, that there is no capacity for doing most things fast. For every cognitive execution (thinking, decision making, task switch, communicating etc) the autistic brain needs to, kind of, sail through a storm to process all the pieces of data that is needed and putting it all together.

Imaging having to go through a storm every time you need to go somewhere. Would you be able to get to your destination fast or would it take a bit longer? And would it be ok if it did take a bit longer, given the circumstances?

Important to add is that, on the contrary, many autistic brains are super fast in finding patterns and/or coming to logical conclusions etc. The only “issue” is that these traits are generally not as highly valued in society, as being fast with the aspects mentioned above…