Delayed cognitive processing?

Post Reply New Topic

Delayed cognitive processing?

This morning right after I woke up it occurred to me that I'd misunderstood someone's reply-post and gave what I now realize was a confused answer.   The trouble is that was 3 days ago.

And when driving home I'll often realize what someone had earlier been trying to tell me, or have an insight into what was going on with someone or between people,  and all sorts of other realizations.  Sometimes these realizations happen days, weeks, or even years later.

So,  my question is does anyone else experience this "delayed cognitive processing"?  I figure some amount of it is normal, but I havw that happen a lot. At times I feel like I understand very little in real-time,  and feel pretty bone-headed about it. The annoying part is not realizing that I didn't understand, at the time.

Since I have other cognitive problems I'm curious if others generally also experience this.  

Absolutely. My record so far is... well I'm 30 so... maybe 27-28 years. And I'm still working on things from back then.

That would definitely count as "delayed." The furthest back I can think the off the top of my head is about 10 years. There's probably others further back that I can't remember ATM.

I get this a lot. I only figured out in the past few years (I am 41) that interactions in high school implied that other students didn't believe I was heterosexual.

I have stuff that goes back days, weeks, months, years. Mostly weeks or months. Sometimes stuff is obviously percolating - it comes up and there seems to be more to it than the last time I thought about it. Sometimes it just re-appears fully formed.

I am not sure how much I understand in real time. Sometimes it seems to be a lot, sometimes not so much. I find I have to process several threads here before I can reply to them for hours or maybe a day, but this isn't always the case.

This topic has actually been on my mind for a few weeks.

Completely - mostly happens relating to academic work, for example trying to do some horribly confusing maths stuff today in uni, but after looking over it at home, hours later, I can make sense of it.

Also happens if I am writing something or talking I won't be able to think of a good reply to a question when asked, or won't undertand it but a couple of hours later I will.

Fairly sure there's other longer term examples I can't think of at the moment. (Which is probably going to be another example itself )

All. The. Time.

That happns to me a lot of times. That's the reason that I'm not hesitant to say that I'm a little slow.

ALL the time.

That happens to me when I can't piece together what people are doing. It takes a little longer for it to occur to me. I definitely think I experience this phenomena and that I seem a little slow because of it, or ditzy. I like to have time to ponder and consider and seriously think about things.

Yes, all the time.

Would this be like realizing years later that the dudes I ate lunch with in high school every day were the COOLEST of the COOL kids? I'm pretty sure I was the token 'be nice to the weird harmless guy' entity. Sort of like the uber-babe having an fat ugly friend (offensive stereotype, I know, but it is descriptive) I know they didn't think I was cool because they would talk about me to each other while I was there. What? Am I invisible standing here?

OR twenty years later realizing that girl in the back room of the bakery was hitting on me? OH! DAMN! So when she was pumping the cream into the eclairs with the plunger thing and looking at me like that and saying those things what she was saying (without saying it of course) was she wanted me to do THAT???



So is this an aspie thing?

Happens to me.

Also, I sometimes get slightly delayed sensory processing - actually I'm not sure if I'm actually processing it slower or if it just feels that way. If it is, it's not enough for people to remark on it. Maybe it's just my sense of time acting out. The most vivid example was when I'd just exited the store, and someone asked me to hold up the door for her - it was like "walk walk TIME could you hold the door for me?" Like instead of catching a ball it bounced against a wall, then I caught it. Not sure if this makes any sense, but it felt weird.

Ugh. High school. I was allowed to exist on their periphery (crumbs thrown to the leper?), and hear them talk amongst themselves of all the exploits I was never invited to.



Hehe. Yeah, have several of those of my own: "Oh, she was interested. Really interested. Too bad that was in the '90's." (d'oh)



I'm not sure how it would definitively proven to be, but evidence seems to be suggesting that it is.

Oh yeah, I get it a lot. Usually I interpret what people have said in the wrong way and days or weeks later I finally understand it.

This thing NTs have about immediacy - does it cover up a weakness?

I tried for immediacy all my adult life. I'd stall for time all the time, and I'd get really annoyed at people who would point out that I was stalling. I am not sure why NTs did it, but I did it so I'd appear "normal." Honestly, I am really done with the idea that anything needs an immediate answer. If I can provide one, great. If not, they can wait.

I know that doesn't relate to your question, but it made me feel better.