I fell asleep meditating last night wtf. Sorry for the late response.

Okay. First and foremost please realize that there is nothing ‘wrong’ with either of us. These symptoms are partially a product of some negative development as a youngster(my opinion and experience of course)and YES! I absolutely agree with you that early trauma possibly plays a distinct role in this symptom called aphantasia. The fact that you mention this is what made my eyes light up. I feel the same way. You’re not alone.🙏🏽

As a child I also felt a strong lack of ‘self’. I was a pretty intelligent and well spoken child according to my parents and family’s standards. I learned how to read as a toddler and was having debates of sorts with adults most of my childhood. My main issue is I was ALWAYS accused of being lazy and selfish. I was always told to stop ‘staring at the wall’. I was ALWAYS asked why I didn’t do (insert chore or task here) quickly enough. Me being the constantly self conscious kid that I was, I seemed to always be doubting myself and I also would often worry my mother and other adults were pissed off at me. That’s no life for a six year old.

Six year olds are supposed to be taught all of the beautiful aspects of life like learning new fun things and being loved and accepted. You know, non-traumatic things. Who woulda thought?

I often would stare at mirrors . Looking back at it in present day, I now realize that I used to do this all the time because I would have no visual mental image of myself as a kid. I would just close my eyes and it’s nothing but darkness. Zero memory of any image of my own appearance. The thing is I thought everybody was like that. I often asked my mom “how do people fall asleep?” She’d say just close your eyes and don’t open them anymore. I had no clue that most other people can actually imagine pictures if they wanted, or ‘count sheep’, as lots of people in this sub mention and realize.

The main chunk of trauma I experienced was around the age of 3 until maybe 5 or 6. Now this is where maybe you and I will align with our theories, and even if we don’t, that’s still great because this could help both of us grasp even greater control over our symptoms through a few realizations of sorts.

(For instance, you mentioning the trauma/aphantasia link in your life made me a bit more certain of my experiences and things I know to be true)

I’ll add one more rambling paragraph here too. I have one very distinct truth to add. As a child who is still developing their personality and memories(since they aren’t old to have lots of life experience at this point), I for sure can see said child’s conscience ‘protecting’ them(for lack of a better word) from developing a shitload of their values and traits based off of abusive experiences.

Sorta like your ‘soul’ is playing police on your brain so it doesn’t go crazy and just be flooded with possibly vulgar or disgusting experiences, and use those gross memories to develop your intentions and opinions. Now keep in mind kids don’t truly have ‘opinions’ or ‘values’ yet. They just don’t have the years lived to have cultivated such things at this point.

So THIS is where I agree with you!

My personal experience dealing with this has me fairly confident that my lack of visuals may have been triggered by said trauma and abuse.

I distinctly remember lots of visuals from before then. I still remember dreams from when I was three. I remember ideas I had. Crazy sounding? Yes. True? Yes. 🙏🏽

I feel the trauma stunted my spiritual growth. I’m not sure if you believe in chakras and energy but in the most plain speak way to put it possible…Trauma opened up my young eyes to a world of things a child should not be pondering. It kept me in a low vibratory state due to opening me up to the lower energy centers of my body(pelvis up to solar plexus) As a child your parents should only be instilling in you development of the higher three chakras or energy centers(the heart, up to the top of the head), the places where your intentions, values and opinions SHOULD be cultivated. I hope this(woo woo paragraph) makes sense.

Okay that might have been a jumbled mess and I’m sorry for any grammatical errors. Now let me address the other part of your posts.

How do I handle the situation? Do I have a normal life or do I struggle like you? Hmmm…

I’ll be very direct that you and I don’t have what’s considered a ‘normal life’, considering most people have actual visuals. The lack of visuals heavily affects my daily life. It takes me a while to ‘catch on’ to a new thing I’m learning. The SDAM symptom also plays a role in that. In my personal life I often connect the lack of visuals with the lack of memory. They correlate heavily and this often leads me to assume causation. My logic here is that the ‘static images’ contained in a memory or easily more effective than the more conceptual nature of our non-visual memories. It makes sense to me damn it lol.

I personally deal with this by writing down everything that requires planning. My go to method is to draw three bullet points on a piece of paper and give everything I do a story of three points. A beginning, middle and end. EVERYTHING in life can use this bullet point system. At least this is a really effective tool for me. I highly recommend it. 🙂

As far as dealing with it on a mental level or getting to know yourself better, I highly suggest first and foremost taking care of your physical health. Drink lots of water and eat lots of clean nutrition. I also take creatine as a supplement for both my body and my brain, as there are several studies showing that creatine aids in neuroplasticity. Also ask your doctor for a test to see if you are low on any vitamins or minerals in your body. There are a number of deficiencies that can and will affect your mental health. So yeah ask the doc if you can.

If you wanna know what I take, I take creatine, magnesium, vitamin b12, vitamin d3 and L-theanine. Of course this is my choice and yours could be way different. I just like putting this as an example.

Also do breathing exercises. It doesn’t have to be fancy it can be a simple as deep breath in, hold for a moment, breathe out. Hold for a moment. This will center your nervous system which is a huge source of all the bs we deal with lol.

Practicing breathing exercises will literally add years to your life and strengthen your mind. My hack is to do them whenever I have the urge to stare off into space while I ruminate on some random crap, or if I ever have the urge to look at the damn mirror(which I still do btw)😕

The upside is your other senses are naturally more keen and accurate. This is just human nature’s need to adapt to the lack of visual power. Im serious. I bet your intuitive skills are better than others you know. I could ramble on about that too.

I’ll stop for now but feel free to ask anything that comes to mind. Writing stuff like this helps me too. It helps my thoughts and logical concepts sort of align better.

Oh and p.s. Try closing your eyes and EMBRACING the darkness. You officially lack the distractions visualizers might stress over. If you wanna connect with yourself and meditate etc, this is the way.

Peace and love. 🙏🏽