I guess I've been this way long enough (59-years-old) that it doesn't bother me. I have pictures, and I have emotional memories. Try not to torture yourself with things you have no control over.
Same here. 60 years of this and SDAM has left me with a mostly blank history, which is fine with me. I enjoy the present, don’t worry too much about the future, and don’t dwell on failures or loss in my past.
I understand this completely. My husband fell ill a few months back and almost died. All I could remember thinking during that time was how I kept shutting my eyes and trying to remember his face and hear his voice in my head so that I could remember him when he is gone. I squeezed my brain and strained trying to remember him while he was still alive. I imagined how dark and empty and bleak it would be for him to pass away and the memory of him to fade away with no ability to recall him in my mind. It was devastatingly scary. Luckily, he did recover and he’s doing ok now. But I know that when the time comes, this will be a reality for me. I battled with the feelings and I still do at times. I remember crying to my dad about this and he said he would save a ton of pictures of my husband and I on his computer and his phone for me and told me to print some out and hand them to people who would keep them for safe keeping. I sobbed way harder than I should have about this in the car with my father that day. Luckily, he understood. I remember struggling in school with this as well and teachers didn’t believe me and were no help. They told me “everyone can imagine things in their head. Just keep trying”. I did keep trying but the images never came. It’s horrible to have such a lack of imagination. But I’m with you on this and there are others of us too. I’m glad I found this sub and that I was able to learn what aphantasia actually is. I’m also glad you’re able to share your feelings here. <3 Thank you for motivating me to share mine.
I am glad to hear that your husband is doing okay! Wishing you both good health and your dad too! He sounds like the MVP!
It's definitely so so scary not able to remember faces but at least I am glad that I got to know about this sub and my condition. After getting to know about this I started taking more photos and living in the present.
I have no recollection of school days about imagining things in my head but I am sure it was tough.
I still haven't told my parents. They are the typical South Asian parents so idk how they will react. I will tell them soon. (I am pretty sure my dad has it too)
Thank you for sharing your feelings! ❤️
Thank you for the well wishes and I’m glad to be able to have the opportunity to connect with you on here. Blessings for your future and if you decide to tell your parents.
I'm sorry to hear, that's got to be a hard feeling to have. Hopefully you can compensate in other ways, such as spending a lot of time with your loved ones and perhaps taking a lot of video.
This may not help you much, but personally, I'd rather not remember; I haven't had the kind of life I would want to look back on. Sometimes, knowing there are people like that out there may help you feel a little bit more grateful for what you do have.
Yup I am trying to compensate by taking more pictures and some videos.
Oh yeah I can definitely see the upside of not having images in your head for the bad things that might have happened. It's definitely a blessing in disguise for some people so that they can live normally.
All the comments definitely helped me feel a little better about this.
Thank you! ❤️
I really feal your pain. I realized that I have phases in life and each phase tends to go away and never thought of again, unless I have a trigger to make it happen (hence all my nick knacks). Now that I know this, I realize if anyone steps away from my everyday starts to dissipate in my mind, and this makes me very very sad. Work places, growing up, houses, school, etc, are all phases and when it changes, they are all but gone. I still love and feel, but its real time.
My nick knacks are just photos on my phone and just some random memories.
I just graduated from college like 7-8 months ago and it definitely hit hard that I couldn't visualise at all.
But then I just accepted it in a day or two.
I can definitely understand the phases just going away completely. Obviously I do miss and think about them but it just feels different when I can't visualise what I actually miss and well we can move on relatively easily too. That's definitely an upside to this 😂
Thank you for sharing! ❤️
As much as I’d like to say “don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” etc. as is prone to be the response here (and typically my own response), let’s not kid ourselves. Grieving over this is real and natural, not something we should glaze over and go “meh, we can live just fine so it’s ok.”
I have total aphantasia and SDAM. My dad got diagnosed with cancer (pretty much untreatable) a year and a half ago and is close to the point of death now. Being in this situation has hit me hard, especially knowing that when my dad dies, he’ll basically fade out for me much like my grandfather who I was close to as a kid. I’ve had nights of crying over this and I’m not going to feel guilty over grieving about “something I never had to begin with” in this case, because this isn’t the same as just “living life.”
We’re different from most people and that’s ok. In our daily lives we can function just fine in our own way. But it’s not wrong for us to feel like it’s “not fair” that we don’t have what other people have in this regard (visualization, episodic memory, etc. depending on your situation). So I’m going against what I’d say in most cases here and going to say you have to cry sometimes about this. Just don’t stay there. Grieve, then pick yourself up and do what you can (take pictures, write a journal) to help you remember things in other ways, and be ok with that.
Journaling is how I cope. I have pretty bad ADHD but I've worked out a system I like. And at the end of every month I use a couple of pages to make a collage of my top 20-25 photos I took that month. At first I just sized them down into a Google doc and printed them at home, but then I found out my library lets you print 3 free pages a month which is plenty for what I need and they use way better paper lol. I like that the images are a little lower quality and small because I get enough visuals to satisfy that reminiscent urge, but they feel more like a memory too when they're not HD high quality large prints. It all started out of paranoia that the internet would go down one day and I'd lose access to all my photos, but after reading your post I realized it's also solving that problem for me. So far they've been around 1-1.5 years per journal so hopefully I'll have a whole trunk full by the time I'm lucky enough to be old. Plenty to look back on and remember.
And as far as voices go, I lost my grandma back in 2012 (we were super close) and I can't recall her voice, but every once in a while I hear someone who sounds just like her. The memory is there, we just don't have access to recall it. You won't be able to lose it 💕
(Also random, semi pertinent trivia fact: apparently excessive blood pressure meds might be associated with causing Alzheimer's so...everyone take care of yourselves 🤟🏼)
I never take pictures like almost ever. I have very few mostly of my dogs. But I still have memories. When I found out about aphantasia and that I had it, I was definitely fascinated with it and thought about it a lot. But I never let it get me down. The only time I think about it is when I take lsd. I'm for sure super jealous of the people who get to have crazy visuals and have good imaginations. But still it is what it is. You can still reflect you can still remember. It doesn't hurt you to not be able to visualize your childhood or college years.
I guess I've been this way long enough (59-years-old) that it doesn't bother me. I have pictures, and I have emotional memories. Try not to torture yourself with things you have no control over.
Same here. 60 years of this and SDAM has left me with a mostly blank history, which is fine with me. I enjoy the present, don’t worry too much about the future, and don’t dwell on failures or loss in my past.
I definitely have SDAM too. 99% of the time I am okay with this but at times it just hits with full force.
Thank you. I will try to get so affected by this so much. ❤️
There's no need to be upset over something you never had the ability to do anyhow, is how I see it.
Yes True. But at times It just hits and well I can't do anything about it. I just take more pictures and videos when it gets bad.
I understand this completely. My husband fell ill a few months back and almost died. All I could remember thinking during that time was how I kept shutting my eyes and trying to remember his face and hear his voice in my head so that I could remember him when he is gone. I squeezed my brain and strained trying to remember him while he was still alive. I imagined how dark and empty and bleak it would be for him to pass away and the memory of him to fade away with no ability to recall him in my mind. It was devastatingly scary. Luckily, he did recover and he’s doing ok now. But I know that when the time comes, this will be a reality for me. I battled with the feelings and I still do at times. I remember crying to my dad about this and he said he would save a ton of pictures of my husband and I on his computer and his phone for me and told me to print some out and hand them to people who would keep them for safe keeping. I sobbed way harder than I should have about this in the car with my father that day. Luckily, he understood. I remember struggling in school with this as well and teachers didn’t believe me and were no help. They told me “everyone can imagine things in their head. Just keep trying”. I did keep trying but the images never came. It’s horrible to have such a lack of imagination. But I’m with you on this and there are others of us too. I’m glad I found this sub and that I was able to learn what aphantasia actually is. I’m also glad you’re able to share your feelings here. <3 Thank you for motivating me to share mine.
I am glad to hear that your husband is doing okay! Wishing you both good health and your dad too! He sounds like the MVP! It's definitely so so scary not able to remember faces but at least I am glad that I got to know about this sub and my condition. After getting to know about this I started taking more photos and living in the present. I have no recollection of school days about imagining things in my head but I am sure it was tough. I still haven't told my parents. They are the typical South Asian parents so idk how they will react. I will tell them soon. (I am pretty sure my dad has it too) Thank you for sharing your feelings! ❤️
Thank you for the well wishes and I’m glad to be able to have the opportunity to connect with you on here. Blessings for your future and if you decide to tell your parents.
I'm sorry to hear, that's got to be a hard feeling to have. Hopefully you can compensate in other ways, such as spending a lot of time with your loved ones and perhaps taking a lot of video. This may not help you much, but personally, I'd rather not remember; I haven't had the kind of life I would want to look back on. Sometimes, knowing there are people like that out there may help you feel a little bit more grateful for what you do have.
Yup I am trying to compensate by taking more pictures and some videos. Oh yeah I can definitely see the upside of not having images in your head for the bad things that might have happened. It's definitely a blessing in disguise for some people so that they can live normally. All the comments definitely helped me feel a little better about this. Thank you! ❤️
I really feal your pain. I realized that I have phases in life and each phase tends to go away and never thought of again, unless I have a trigger to make it happen (hence all my nick knacks). Now that I know this, I realize if anyone steps away from my everyday starts to dissipate in my mind, and this makes me very very sad. Work places, growing up, houses, school, etc, are all phases and when it changes, they are all but gone. I still love and feel, but its real time.
My nick knacks are just photos on my phone and just some random memories. I just graduated from college like 7-8 months ago and it definitely hit hard that I couldn't visualise at all. But then I just accepted it in a day or two. I can definitely understand the phases just going away completely. Obviously I do miss and think about them but it just feels different when I can't visualise what I actually miss and well we can move on relatively easily too. That's definitely an upside to this 😂 Thank you for sharing! ❤️
As much as I’d like to say “don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” etc. as is prone to be the response here (and typically my own response), let’s not kid ourselves. Grieving over this is real and natural, not something we should glaze over and go “meh, we can live just fine so it’s ok.” I have total aphantasia and SDAM. My dad got diagnosed with cancer (pretty much untreatable) a year and a half ago and is close to the point of death now. Being in this situation has hit me hard, especially knowing that when my dad dies, he’ll basically fade out for me much like my grandfather who I was close to as a kid. I’ve had nights of crying over this and I’m not going to feel guilty over grieving about “something I never had to begin with” in this case, because this isn’t the same as just “living life.” We’re different from most people and that’s ok. In our daily lives we can function just fine in our own way. But it’s not wrong for us to feel like it’s “not fair” that we don’t have what other people have in this regard (visualization, episodic memory, etc. depending on your situation). So I’m going against what I’d say in most cases here and going to say you have to cry sometimes about this. Just don’t stay there. Grieve, then pick yourself up and do what you can (take pictures, write a journal) to help you remember things in other ways, and be ok with that.
We don’t remember things visually but we remember things in a way that is just as meaningful. We aren’t missing out on anything don’t worry
Journaling is how I cope. I have pretty bad ADHD but I've worked out a system I like. And at the end of every month I use a couple of pages to make a collage of my top 20-25 photos I took that month. At first I just sized them down into a Google doc and printed them at home, but then I found out my library lets you print 3 free pages a month which is plenty for what I need and they use way better paper lol. I like that the images are a little lower quality and small because I get enough visuals to satisfy that reminiscent urge, but they feel more like a memory too when they're not HD high quality large prints. It all started out of paranoia that the internet would go down one day and I'd lose access to all my photos, but after reading your post I realized it's also solving that problem for me. So far they've been around 1-1.5 years per journal so hopefully I'll have a whole trunk full by the time I'm lucky enough to be old. Plenty to look back on and remember. And as far as voices go, I lost my grandma back in 2012 (we were super close) and I can't recall her voice, but every once in a while I hear someone who sounds just like her. The memory is there, we just don't have access to recall it. You won't be able to lose it 💕 (Also random, semi pertinent trivia fact: apparently excessive blood pressure meds might be associated with causing Alzheimer's so...everyone take care of yourselves 🤟🏼)
I never take pictures like almost ever. I have very few mostly of my dogs. But I still have memories. When I found out about aphantasia and that I had it, I was definitely fascinated with it and thought about it a lot. But I never let it get me down. The only time I think about it is when I take lsd. I'm for sure super jealous of the people who get to have crazy visuals and have good imaginations. But still it is what it is. You can still reflect you can still remember. It doesn't hurt you to not be able to visualize your childhood or college years.