I wonder if my aphantasia is due to childhood trauma. I lived in constant fear and rejection from my mother.
I suffered from serious depression for 40 years and am a suicide survivor.
I have very limited memory of the past, as if I wasn’t there. I don’t feel connected to people unless I am in their presence.
I am aphantasic and do feel that my “blind eye “ is something that never developed because of living in fear and having to shut down to protect myself.
Welcome to the network, Alison. Thanks for sharing these thoughts and experiences, I’m happy you survived and are here to tell your story.
There is still more research to be done before we can speak definitively on the matter, but there have been a handful of self-reports from individuals sharing they acquired aphantasia in response to a traumatic experience or as a defense mechanism to PTSD. I’ve also seen a few people reporting they lost it gradually and suspected it was a result of taking anti-depressants. And then there are the better studied cases of aphantasia acquired after forming a brain lesion from a stroke, like patient MX.
But of now, the data suggests an overwhelming majority of the community is made up of congential (since birth) aphantasics, but there are still many undiagnosed aphantasics (at 3-5% occurrence there are an estimated 300 million aphantasics). One thing I believe it’s safe to presume that their are various types of aphantasia, likely stemming from various underlying mechanisms.
As more studies come out, I will try to share links to studies relevant to trauma here for you!
From your third statement, it sounds as if you also suffer from a severely deficient autobiographical memory. That seems to be very common among those of us with aphantasia.
I have the same question and would be very interested in any research or to volunteer for any studies.
