[Photo: Some of my Indie & Signed book collection] I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never really thought much about why until a recent interview I did with S. P. Oldham. She asked tough and interesting questions which took me on a stroll down my book memory lane. […]
This was written nearly two years ago, and most of this has found its way into my book covering this in further detail – Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere.
“It’s been nearly a year now since I learned of this and have been trying to understand Aphantasia, i now know it is in varying degrees across the board for the people who have it, partial for some, full for others. I try as best i can to understand what it is to not have visualisation, to not imagine at all and to not picture anything in ones head, its a concept i had not considered but now makes perfect sense.
For full Aphantasiacs, the difference from partial seems to be startling too ( i can only comment on full as that’s been my experience). There is no escape from the stark reality before you, what you see is all there is – without dreams and mental pictures to carry you away, what you see really is all there is. I have the ability to replay movies in my head, run through what i saw mentally, recall faces, remember looking at lists, posters, people, i can see it all in my mind. But trying to explain that to someone who doesn’t, well, i have been told it sounds like the most alien thing in the world.
“You can play movies in your head?!” Yes. I can retrieve almost anything i have seen in my life, whether i remember it correctly is another matter, but i have something there. I can picture all of my family, past and present, i can imagine i’m looking in the fridge when i am trying to remember what i need to buy (when i forget my shopping list). I use it for so much, and also i realise, for escapism. Even just standing in line or waiting is assisted by my mind wandering, occupying itself with either something i want to do later, of something i might have watched the night before.
So, looking backwards and forwards is natural for me, spending possibly very little time in the present. Reviewing what was, and speculating on what might be. But not for one who doesn’t imagine – there is nothing to ‘look’ back on, and the future doesn’t exist. So living in the now takes on a whole new meaning, and seems that it can lead to immense impatience and frustration with the world and people. Mostly the people who seem to be ‘in a different world’. It’s because they actually are – which was quite a terrifying revelation to one who doesn’t ‘drift away’ in mind – while driving, cooking, walking, and everything else we do, most of us probably are mentally somewhere else. “So no-one is really in reality or sees the world as it is?” And that was the terrifying bit, the reality of that question.
I’m still learning on this and will keep at it”.
(c) K L Wicks
Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere
In a world
We thought we knew
They changed the goal
And what was true
How could I know
What they would do
They changed the world
In which I grew
(c) K Wicks
Rhyme and Reason
It’s one of the most exciting feelings ever. To have an idea that’s turns into a story and to feel like like it’s going to go somewhere. It’s at this stage I conveniently forget the agonizing process that will follow. The months and years of writing and editing ahead, the crisis of faith in ability, the ups and downs of the characters, mourning the ones who didn’t make it and the relief of when it all comes together. But actually, I realise that it’s all of it that makes it so exciting. The idea is just the beginning…
(c) K Wicks
So back in 2015-2016, we decided to start taking in some of the history we talked about and were interested in. The Romans are a little recent for our taste, although there is no small measure of that if it’s your thing. But for us we liked a few thousand years further back. It began. But now find ourselves wanting to go back and revisit. We’ve been abroad since then for a bit and seen some other sites. It raises more questions. So, the next round of neolithic adventures of visiting the ancient sites of Britain starts. After finding out how many sites there really are, it may take a while…
We started local. I hadn’t realised I had settled so closely to so many ancient sites. Even walking my dogs for years just by this gem and not even knowing it was there. Also known as Hetty Peglers Tump (after the landowner Hester Pegler in the 17th Century), Uley Long Barrow has long mystified us as to it’s purpose along with all the others (and there will be more). Burial mounds, tomb and ceremonial are all words that have been attributed to these structures, but having visited a number of them now, the effort doesn’t seem consistent with it’s purpose.
Most of these are collapsed and have been looted and excavated over the years, with many being reconstructed to how we see them today. As below, we were treated to some great weather and it’s initial view is impressive. The pictures never quite capture the magic at these places or really how pretty the surrounding are. I hope this one goes a small way to convey that.
It’s tucked at the back of a field literally just off the B4066 between Stroud and Uley, if you ever happen to be passing that way.
Inside what they call the chambered tomb lies some very large stones. The most impressive ceiling stones seem to overshadow the ‘smaller’ huge ones to the sides. These create separated rooms and not the stuff of graveyards in my opinion.
They may have no conclusive answers at this point, many people have many theories about these sites, but we struggle to know what happened in the dark ages less than two thousand years ago, so to think we have the answers for over 5,500 years ago is quite a stretch. But you never know…
(c) K Wicks
I say to you
Indeed good Sir
Of my plan
Do you concur
Oh really not
And something quite
How dare you Sir,
I’ll take that slight
It is agreed
I’ll not say when
We’ll settle this
Like gentlemen
(c) K Wicks
This is a chapter excerpt from my recent published work – Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere.
PTSD
I wasn’t sure where this fit so it has its own small chapter. I also wanted to include it because before we knew of Aphantasia, my husband was actually rather dismissive of this condition. He said he didn’t understand why people were so traumatised to have this in the first place and why it goes on for so long. He can be extremely perceptive, so not getting it confused me and maybe because I had been diagnosed with this very thing, made me start to piece things together. Trauma and PTSD are different for everyone, but I believe memory and mental time travel made this last longer than necessary for me.
I had a breakdown and suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – just in case you haven’t come across this term before) from the age of fourteen, then spent the next three to four years at home with just my mother. Very limited home schooling and little or no socialising outside of the house. Then just before I turned eighteen, my mother suffered a massive brain aneurysm. I’m not going to lie, it was the most shocking event of my life. Whatever trauma I thought I had experienced up until that point, was completely overshadowed. It was on my watch too, I was home late from an appointment mid-morning and found her, having to call the ambulance and deal with the initial fallout. We had dogs so I called my step-father and the ambulance left with her, leaving me alone in the house with the dogs for company.
But what I do find interesting is despite the awfulness of what was happening, a part of my brain kept functioning but in a very detached state. Reason and logic were working on a different level. It happened on a Monday, and although my older brother lived away, I knew it was his day off. So I didn’t call him. My reasoning being, I’m about to change his life forever, nothing will be the same after this. And although I desperately wanted company and to share this tragedy, I wanted him to have one more normal day. And he did, I told him the next day. So there is a part of me that does and can keep functioning when the other part of me has shut down. All I can call them are split experiences, I have access to both and took part in both, but which one I focus on can determine how I cope with them.
It has taken me years to get over that event. To make matters more complicated she survived, but not in a good state. She ended up stuck way up north where we were residing at the time, so very cut off from anyone. I was the only child left living at home and made the choice to not look after her. I left and chose me and my upcoming life instead. You may judge me as harsh for leaving, but if you knew the full background you would possibly understand. I was followed by years of guilt for leaving, having to find out what had happened in my life so I didn’t have to have it following me anymore.
It was five years later she passed away and although I was relieved, I was not left with a sense of peace for some time after. My guilt at not being there to save her, and for not looking after her kept followed me. Every minute of that experience is etched in my mind, and for years it replayed whenever it felt like it. But the whole five years it went on for too, and after the funeral. It’s for things like this that I do not appreciate having such clear memories with full imagery. The only thing I could do over the years was to dissociate the emotions that I had attached to them, gradually minimising the impact and effect it would have on me. My life is still up and down as I am, I’m just dealing with it slightly better these days.
After knowing people like me see images and memories in our heads, my husband did understand why PTSD was such a thing for so many people. Even giving me a bit of insight into how people without imagery may still be affected. He says that maybe by not being able to adequately remember or visualise a traumatic event end up leading to a lack of closure. You aren’t able to work through it and put it behind you. I know it’s different for everyone though so it’s always going to be hard to say for sure.
(c) K Wicks
Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere
Some people can
It could be said
Drain your soul
While they spread
Their negative thoughts
They can’t contain
With no-one left
They can’t refrain
From trying hard
So bitter to stay
But you can choose
To walk away
(c) K Wicks
Rhyme and Reason
I’m not sure if I had known it would have made a difference, but after I had almost completed my first publishing project I was made aware of other family members who were successful in the field of writing. I had wanted to write since I was six years old, and did, short stories and projects that made me feel satisfied and content. I did not always have support with these stories, often told my reading and writing of horror were a waste of time, I should be reading educational material or at least the classics. They did not entertain me at the time, so I chose horror, or sometimes I think horror chose me.
But my passion for writing continued and after a number of years immersed only in work, the need to write took over. The book was pretty much writing itself in my head so I thought I best put pen to paper (or open a new word file on the computer as is the way these days). Only when it was in the finishing stages of editing did I dare tell my closest family, my grandparents. They are well read people and I was so nervous about what they would think, but I gave them my manuscript and waited.
I hadn’t really comprehended how much their approval meant to me until they gave it. It was the green light I had been waiting for without even realizing it, to have the most critical people I knew pass me as acceptable or at least as having potential. It made my day. But then followed the reveal, did I know, he said, that multiple family members were published including my great uncle, for doing a play script which is still used today of Treasure Island, and my great aunt and her husband, both authors and he having been a journalist and correspondent for a very well heard of paper for years. Even my uncle had published a book.
For a moment I wasn’t sure what this meant, am I now expected to be a successful author like other members of the family, or was it just encouragement to show me it can be done. Either way, I then had to work out exactly who’s expectation was I really trying to live up to, theirs, or mine?…
(c) MKW Publishing
When a thought
Escapes your mind
It slips away
And yet you find
It lingers still
And does remind
There was a thought
That you should find
Think harder…
(c) K Wicks
Rhyme and Reason
MKW Publishing 