Nicole Heyes

Thank you SO much for this! I've been studying Auslan, hoping to become an interpreter one day. This year there has been a lot more difficulty, work-related mental strain, Neuro-Sparkly diagnosis, special needs children, and swapping work/children's care roles with my husband.... All of this made me question whether I would ever be able to interpret - I'm so proud of my understanding of English grammar, semantics, and theory of mind (at least where they're applied to this topic), that I didn't know if "fully dark" Aphantasia in conjunction with Combination-type ADHD's Working Memory struggles in tandem would make it impossible to achieve this goal. I was considering battling through to achieve my final certificate of study and withdrawing from the Interpreting Diploma. Thank you for sharing that! It was timely and appreciated.

I can conceptualise just fine. I can't experience though. I can't smell, taste, feel, hear, or see. My internal voice is different for others though. I can "hear" it singing or imitating an accent (even if I can't do it aloud). I know how angry feels, I know when I am angry. But only epically large emotional upsets will stay relevant enough to inspire that all consuming emotion (grief, rage, love) in any given moment.I can do maps and the rotational puzzles - to me it's like seeing the horse upside-down. I think of the image reflected, turned, etc. I don't often do it easily, I have to concentrate but I can do it. I used to have to turn the map around but I got better at that.