My Take

Yep I'm neurodivergent, quadruple fold. I'm dyslexic, I have SDAM, Aphantasia and most likely ADHD. I'm not broken, I'm different; I like to think of myself as evolved. This is my life. I live in the moment (hours, days, up to about 3 months). There is no past for me (personally, people, events), it fades so quickly and the future is a blank, black space, my mind is blind, a vast nothingness. It's impossible for you to understand how I live in this world, how I experience it. Just like I can't phantom how you do. I have vague micro glimpses (non visual, a thought perhaps measured in nanoseconds) of a past event but they're fuzzy, Ill defined, just glimpses of facts, and nothing personal. I can't see myself or anybody else except how they are today in this moment. I don't know myself as a child, adolescent, young adult or 3 months ago. My family, they are the same, they only exist as they are today, no memories as they were in the past. I figured out that the few memories I do have are actually pictures I've seen from the past or vague snapshots of a moment in time, with no context, no texture, no meaning. If I don't have regular reminders of times, places or people they disappear, they no longer exist... they never existed. It can take as little as 3 months for people and personal events to completely disappear. That's the SDAM. I might get a rare glimpse of a name or event, but it's just a disembodied fleeting though with no context, no color, no texture, no memory, to be forgotten almost immediately.

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Antonio Hernandez•recently

Hello, good afternoon. On August 10th of this year, I found out I have aphantasia. Over time, I had noticed that I couldn't conjure up images when reading a book, but I didn't think much of it. I've always done carpentry and woodworking, but I couldn't imagine what I wanted because I had a conceptual idea and had to draw what I wanted to make, but I found this normal. When I traveled, I took many photos of the places I visited, but also of the hotel room, the bathroom, and all the places I passed by, to look at them later when I returned home and show them to my wife. It was never a problem at work, and I have an excellent memory and I cross-reference information and intelligence in the work I do. However, it was always in conceptual terms, and when conjuring up images, that wasn't possible. However, I always had photographs, so it wasn't a problem. However, just over three months ago, my wife, with whom we lived for 46 years, passed away. It has been horrible because, in addition to her painful loss, I also feel the tremendous pain of not having her image in my mind: I remember when we met, our marriage, her births, vacations, and thousands of moments in our lives. But not having her image when I close my eyes, nor images of my children, granddaughter, parents, and childhood friends, makes me hate this condition… Fortunately, thanks to God or perhaps by design, throughout my life, and especially during my 46 years of marriage, I have been able to treasure thousands of photographs and videos of our life together, which I review every day because, without them, it would be as if she and my entire life had never existed. Forgive me for this sad perception of aphantasia, but that's how I feel right now.

David Carter•recently

As taxing as it is, especially on relationships, I find it is also very freeing. I don't stress about the future. I am not constrained by a grand plan. And I am incapable of being hurt by others because I forget the feeling of being hurt. I have no enemies. It's a strange kind of prison--one with a ledge leading to a bottomless pit. I often wonder if it's worth taking that leap of faith but I just keep soldiering on hoping life will get better and it's just my brain that cannot see it yet.

gregory coghlan•recently

I think of it as living in the eternal now - with few or no memories of the past, it is hard to project, accurately, into the future. Mostly, I am unable to compare past experiences with current events - but there is one odor stimulus that actually triggers a memory. When I walk by a smoker who is just lighting up, that initial smell of the cigarette beginning to catch will bring up a memory of me and my brother hiding in the hopper of a combine smoking cigarettes. I was younger than 6 (at age 6 dad moved us from Roundup to Livingston MT). We stole cigarettes from the freezer where dad kept his cigs; when we were finally caught, dad actually quit smoking to keep us from them.