So what about you?

A few months after Robert’s death I collapsed to the floor when I suddenly realised I could not picture him in my head. It was not the first time I had collapsed because of my grief, but this time it felt extra challenging. No matter how hard I tried I simply could not see him. For a few hours I was in despair. How could I continue with life if I couldn’t picture him. Then it occurred to me to think of someone who is still very much alive and whom I also love loads. So I thought of my mother, and I couldn’t see her either. How bizarre I thought, and just presumed it was yet another side effect of grief. That helped me, and I hoped that as I learnt to live with grief that the ability to see them both would return along with my ability to read, to use my camera and to socialise at events. Some of those abilities and skills have fully or partially returned but not all of them.

Visualisation is one that has not returned and actually it never will. But that’s okay because there is a ‘medical’ reason.

It was a year or so after I collapsed that I happened to be scrolling Instagram reels and the Sugarcoated Sisters appeared. In this particular reel they were with their dad and they were, in their usual brilliant musical way, sharing a health message. This time it was about a condition he had only recently discovered he had, despite having had it from birth. And as I watched and listened I realised I had it too!

It was such a shock to me to realise this is a thing. That my inability to visualise in my mind Robert or anyone else, to see an animal, a chair or even the room I am sitting in as I type this, is a condition called aphantasia. Around 3.9% of the global population cannot mentally visualise things, although our inability does vary. Some can see blurred items, others an outline and some a vague image but many of us cannot visualise anything at all.

It generally doesn’t affect our day to day living. I don’t have face blindness, I can imagine, and images in my dreams are vague. My memory is good, in fact I am brilliant at the tray game. However there are occasions when it is really hard such as when you want to see in your mind a loved one who has died or is living a long way away. It also explains why I have experienced mild anxiety in a pilates class when I have been asked to visualize something!

So what about you? If you close your eyes and think of the red apple in my header, can you see it or perhaps a variation of it? What about if you think of your favourite animal and/or a loved one, can you see them in your mind? If you can’t or are uncertain about what you can do take the test to find out more.