Redefine Success

The first in a new series in calling “What's wrong with you, are you mental?” a question asked of me by a terrible manager in a job I used to have in a well regarded educational establishment.   This is me actually writing down stuff, partially as an apology to people who ive not been able to explain things to and partially as therapy.

Let’s start with the relatively light hearted ones shall we, I have anauralia and anaphantasia.

Anaphantasia means I have no visual imagination, like none. Just an Eigengrau landscape.

It's a neurological variation that affects how people think, dream, remember, and learn. It has high correlation to other neurodivergent disorder (more on which later in this series) 

There is a simple test for this,https://aphantasia-test.com/ Some people can conjure images, pictures  and shapes into their head and some people can even manipulate them, not me just the empty void.

The one plus to this is that I don’t get mental images of upsetting things.  I still get the sad feelings from memories but they are lessened a bit as I cannot see the images in my mind which is a blessing sometimes… 

The down side is I cannot recall the faces of loved ones at all. I can describe them but not picture them.  It's quite upsetting sometimes to love and miss people and not be able to conjure up their faces.   

It also means that I cannot visually learn stuff which makes taking certain tests for job interviews a nightmare as well as explaining why certain forms of education are tricky for me.  Visual based arts are really difficult as I cannot picture a finished image in my head. It's why I got into photography so I could try and document stuff to help my brain.  

I also have anauralia,  in essence a sound-free imagination, and the equivalent of anaphantasia.

When some people get a song stuck in their head  they apparently have a radio playing in their head, I don't. I only have my internal voice humming or singing a melody line. 

I also cannot conjure pitches in my head which makes singing and music exams a nightmare as I cannot match the sound I vocalise to an internal marker.

So in conclusion am not mental, just have a brian wired a bit different as far as imagination goes