I'm 58 and only realised I was aphantasia a week ago while on holiday with my wife. We were talking about a big secret my brother told me over 30 years ago and I said I could not tell my wife at the time. she mentioned it on our holiday in conversation and I had no recollection of it at all. (we had talked before about how I could only remember parts of my life and instead had a kind of a bullet point memory of my life and did not have good memory of events on occasions). she said its ok I know you said you would keep it secret, but I really didn't remember the secret my brother told me. We started diving into how I could forget something so important. She said she could vivid remember the whole event. we talked for ages and when she described she could see images and video and sounds I was like "what the hell" your kidding me. I told her when I close my eyes I see nothing but darkness and silence. she was shocked. I did/do feel about a bit cheated to be honest. But have had a good life so far and hasn't affected me (how could it) as I was aware I was different . I did struggle in school and was probably the most lightly person to fail in life. But I think that pushed me and I did well in life and I veered toward a career in production, IT and Fintech etc, so all good jobs. I did find out in my 40's that I suffer from Dyslexia , so put my school and other issues down to that. Now realising I also have aphantasia and SDAM they probably made it harder for me as well with study and work stuff. Its a shock finding out others can see images and video and sound and taste in their head, but hey I cant really be mad about loosing something I never had I guess. Next thing is to check out if anyone else in the family has it and maybe ask my brother what the hell was that big secret lol.

I'm 58 and only realised I was aphantasia a week ago while on holiday with my wife. We were talking about a big secret my brother told me over 30 years ago and I said I could not tell my wife at the time. she mentioned it on our holiday in conversation and I had no recollection of it at all. (we had talked before about how I could only remember parts of my life and instead had a kind of a bullet point memory of my life and did not have good memory of events on occasions). she said its ok I know you said you would keep it secret, but I really didn't remember the secret my brother told me. We started diving into how I could forget something so important. She said she could vivid remember the whole event. we talked for ages and when she described she could see images and video and sounds I was like "what the hell" your kidding me. I told her when I close my eyes I see nothing but darkness and silence. she was shocked. I did/do feel about a bit cheated to be honest. But have had a good life so far and hasn't affected me (how could it) as I was aware I was different . I did struggle in school and was probably the most lightly person to fail in life. But I think that pushed me and I did well in life and I veered toward a career in production, IT and Fintech etc, so all good jobs. I did find out in my 40's that I suffer from Dyslexia , so put my school and other issues down to that. Now realising I also have aphantasia and SDAM they probably made it harder for me as well with study and work stuff. Its a shock finding out others can see images and video and sound and taste in their head, but hey I cant really be mad about loosing something I never had I guess. Next thing is to check out if anyone else in the family has it and maybe ask my brother what the hell was that big secret lol.