#mental condition

i'm still so jealous of people who can actually picture the story when reading. It really is just words on a page for me and some vibes. I didn't understand why writers go on for paragraphs and paragraphs talking about the descriptions and small details of stuff because to me it was useless--just tell me the general idea.

I find it crazy people can picture their parents and their pets and siblings and friends. I can't. I know what they all look like but I can't see them when I think about them. I know my mom has brown hair slightly darker than mine. I know she wears glasses and has dark brown eyes just like me. I know she's 5'10". I know she has a weird looking tooth. I just don't actually see her. It's even harder when thinking about myself. I don't look at a mirror often. I know I have brown hair and eyes just like my mom. I'm average height. My teeth are slightly yellow from not brushing them as a little kid. My hair is wavy. I have circle-framed glasses. I'm skinny. I just find it so weird when I think about myself because it's not just myself--for everyone I just associate people with vibes and facts. I know I'm right-handed. I know I have horrible acne on my back. But I don't actually picture any of that when I think of myself. I just know it's me.

I sometimes get confused if I actually have aphantasia or not, but everytime I think I'm actually picturing something--I'm not. It's my spatial awareness kicking in. I have a map of every place I've ever been in my head. It's just completely black and I can't actually see it. I just know things. I know exactly how to direct someone to my grandparents house with multiple different routes BECAUSE I've paid attention my whole life. I hear people with hyperphantasia can rotate things in their head easily. I can do that, too. But only with spaces--like locations and rooms and stuff--like the spinning on google earth. But I don't actually see it. Like, the neurons or whatever is supposed to be firing in my brain when I'm thinking of something is still firing, it just doesn't end up reaching my "mind's eye". It's so weird and hard to describe. Like I can still touch and feel things in my head but I don't see them. I only have aphantasia--not total. So I guess all my other senses make up for the lack of imagery. OH MY GOD. English class especially in middle school when teachers wanted you to annotate literally everything I could never do the "imagery" section right. Wouldn't everything technically be imagery? Because to me I get nothing from everything. I was always so confused. "Something that provokes strong visuals". like what are we talking about? This might be why I have a harder time comprehending poems and stuff.

Like I know what everything I've ever seen looks like because I've seen it before BUT I DON'T ACTUALLY SEE ANYTHING.

"But how do your memories work" I don't know, like you but without visuals. I just know what's happened to me. I don't need to visualize my third grade classroom to know I was in third grade.

Book to movie adaptions don't bug me that much unless they get event details really, really wrong. I hated the Maze Runner movies for that.

I can't think of a place I've never seen or been in before. So, whenever I'm reading I just combine so many places I've seen on TV or in movies or from real like to get a sense of where someone is and because of my spatial memory, I'm able to get around not picture the characters.

Does this make any sense to anybody

"Screwing may be the only way that I can truly be free from my fucked up reality. So I dream and stroke it harder. Cause it's so fun to see my face staring back at me."

I call my gp, asking to be seen, they pass on my request to a different clinic which puts me on the waiting list. So far, easy.

I wait a year. I receive a letter telling me I'm still on the waiting list.

I wait another year.

I try to find out where I am on the waiting list. The clinic never picks up the phone. The website does not list an email address. I give up for a week or so.

I do internet research, eventually finding the people above the clinic - the hospital's mental department. I send them an email. They send me an email back saying they've alerted the ADHD group (skipping the clinic) and I should be phoned within a month. Great!

I wait a month. And a bit more.

I receive a letter telling me I've been taken off the ADHD group phone list, and will have to re-apply to be put on the two year waiting list

Confused, I phone the ADHD group. They tell me they sent me a previous letter informing me they'd tried to contact me once and been unsuccessful so I had to phone them. Because I never got this letter, I did not know to phone them, so they took me off the list. I tell them there's been a miscommunication, they say they'll call me back.

I wait around two weeks. They don't call back.

I call them again. They say they'll call back and actually do this time. They say to email the hospital mental department and ask to be re-referred.

I ask to be re-referred and this is kind of urgent as whether I go back to uni depends on this diagnosis. They say I can't be seen because I'm on the mainland.

I say I'm NOT on the mainland, that's my uni address.

They say sorry, you are registered with a GP on the mainland. You will have to be seen by a different clinic. Please re-register for ADHD diagnosis.

That's where we are right now.