But still there was this fear I couldn’t shake, I had determination, ambition, motivation, frustration but ultimately a strange fear that followed me through. Through all the changes, all the decisions, all the experiences, a dulling, numbing fear that controlled everything. A fear of dying that stops you living.
Were we meant to understand mortality? Is that what drives us to be more? Or is it why we live in denial of it, scared to face what is coming to us all, to live not despite it, but because of it. Because we are given the chance to know that it will end, to make of it what we can while we can.
Time is a strange thing, chasing us all yet stretching on forever before us, and oddly as I get older, there is less fear. It is what it is, I cannot change the defined parameters of time or death, so am at the mercy of them whether I like it or not. Instead of being haunted or followed by them, I have decided they can accompany me on this journey of strangeness, which is now a little less lonely.
This isn’t a review because it’s not about the film as a film but more a point of interest within it – but can say from a review standpoint having watched it all the way through – it didn’t quite deliver. Face to face I can talk about films for hours but online I try to keep it brief.
This is your average rom com with popular leading actors with Cameron Diaz playing one of the leads in her bright smiley way (she is pleasant to watch). But the reason I bring up this film in a non review context and her character in particular is that there were two specific moments that perfectly showed what I think Hyperphantasia is or at least it gave a good visual representation of it. Which was actually quite handy as my husband has Aphantasia so for him, he can’t ‘imagine’ what’s it’s like. This was a good way for him to actually ‘see’ what I had been trying to tell him about my sometimes seemingly neurotic brain. He managed to sit through a small portion of the film having less of a tolerance for watching pap than I do, but he hot the point.
The two examples that stick with me after the fact are –
She is trying to sleep, and the next day starts running through her head, almost causing a panic attack because it was so frantic and busy. I know this process well. And the second is when she is explaining to the potential love interest why it wouldn’t work out and runs through the entire scenario she has already worked out in her mind. These two things in particular were and are exactly what I do (although this movie wasn’t about Hyperphantsia, I spotted what I now see as the signs of it). Until I knew how my husband thought i.e. no pictures, no imagining tomorrow, and sure as hell no run through of any conversation he had had previously, or was going to have in the future. I had believed everyone had this frantic level of thinking, planning and general non stop thoughts. I thought everyone thought through what they were going to do later than day, or the next day. I think I believed they just managed it better than me and didn’t get bogged down by it. But now I know better…
They can never really quite factor in all the variables. Despite the determined consistencies, there will always be the ‘rogue element’ that persists in disrupting the perceived outcome.
Be the rogue element, not a determined consistency.
I have been seeing the word stress used more and more on social media. And rightly so, people are watching their lives and futures being destroyed, not by an illness, but by people. In the beginning back in March, I knew this would be a tough road. Not everyone has experienced high levels of stress, and most certainly won’t have experience in dealing with what is going on now. Nothing like this has ever happened, so how are we meant to have coping mechanisms already in place to help? And while under so much stress, how do you develop them?
I can only use personal experience to try and help myself through this and wonder how everyone else is actually coping. As weird as it sounds, I feel as though my early life was now training, it seemed so confusing at the time and has taken me years to come to terms with it all. But the feelings have been brought back by recent events of lockdown and what has followed.
I’ll explain as best I can. My mother was, picking my words carefully here, controlling, manipulative and selfish. She told many lies for her own gain and controlled everyone in the immediate family through what seemed like clever tactics at the time. Keeping everyone just separate enough so that we wouldn’t discuss it all and find out the truth. We moved house every couple of years and just before I was 10, she married a squaddie and we were shipped of to Germany. To put it all into context for you of what she was really like – I didn’t know she had got married for a third time. I found the wedding photos on her bedroom dresser one day and I asked what they were and who was in the picture with her. The response was “Oh, I got married last week and we are moving to Germany in 3 weeks”.
That is how my life started to be derailed and the type of person I was dealing with to bring me up. I did not know at that point that she had also walked out on us all for a few years when I was very young, my selective amnesia was in play as I understand it now. I look back and realise I had to develop coping mechanisms early for certain things. Germany was ok, I made friends and stuff and got on in school. But I feel like a part of me was left behind, almost as if everything thereafter was an out of body experience. I was present and taking part, but part of me wasn’t. I do wonder now if being hyperphantasic may have added to this strangeness in mind. And the fact that no-one else knew. They didn’t know how much I would be thinking of things, imagining them, projecting future thoughts. It made me feel very separated an awful lot, not lonely, because to be fair, I can replay so much in mind you can make people up if you want to. Not imaginary friends, but imaginary scenarios with people. This is how I prepared myself for life, because nothing else was preparing me. After a year and a half in Germany we were posted back to the UK. Two years here, then posted to Cyprus. Then back to the UK ending up in County Durham, all by the age of 14. Very different from the down south UK I was used to.
My mother also had health issues, which were also used to get what she wanted. At the time it just seemed like someone who was unlucky, was making the best of what they had. Even I thought that, she had me fooled for years too. My older siblings knew more of the truth than I did, so I was easier to ‘work’ on than they were. I was quite trusting of my family and gullible. She tried to convince me I had health ailments as I became a teenager and seemed to want to have a companion with it all (you know what they say, misery loves company!). I could feel the apron strings getting tighter and tighter. But after all the moving and weird family shit that had happened, and ending up in an completely unfamiliar place, I became unstuck mentally. Had a bit of a breakdown they said, clinically depressed and with behavioural issues.
For the first six months, I did not leave the house after developing agoraphobia on top of it all. Then I was bribed, or rather my mother came up with a compromise, she said if she got a dog, would I go out? Of course I said. (We had given up our three family dogs to go into the army life and I was gutted at the time). Took a little while, but we did get a couple of dogs, and I did make the effort to go out. I also set myself small tasks each week of going to the library so I had something to focus on. I loved to read and needed books to keep me occupied. Pocket money wasn’t enough for my reading appetite back then. I still had my anxiety pretty much everyday for years, I just got used to it and decided to go with the saying – Feel the fear and do it anyway. I couldn’t go to school so I had a state supplied home tutor for 3 hours per week as I couldn’t cope with the mainstream curriculum anymore. Before I was due to do exams I turned 16 and my tutor informed me that my compulsory education was now over and I could officially leave if I wanted to and not do exams (which to be honest were freaking me out). I was delighted and instantly dropped out, but was also devastated and believed I had ruined my whole life already. I believed the lie that if you don’t get a formal education you can’t do well in life, and that lie came from my grandparents – who funnily enough both went to university. But at the time I felt I had set myself up for failure from just 16 years old. So I started trying to get jobs and despite having depression, anxiety, full blown psoriasis from stress and migraines – I still put myself out there and tried to take part in life. I had no friends to socialise with even if i had wanted to and couldn’t just walk into shops or places without having a quiet panic attack.
After four years of trying to get myself back on track to just be able to be vaguely normal, a tragedy struck two weeks before my 18th birthday. My mother, who’s behaviour had recently become quite erratic and strange, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. So whatever I thought my life was going to be like, changed from that point. Any plans I might have had or decisions I thought I was wrestling with, were all gone. Instantly replaced by a new set of issues and a new future that was not of my choice or my making. I left home five weeks after my birthday, moved to a county where I had no family but one old family friend and tried to make a life for myself. It was stressful, there is no other word for it. That’s the short version of those events, there was a lot more to it and within it, and maybe one I will be able to write it all.
Having the rug pulled out from under you and the goalposts changed at every hurdle is stressful. Never knowing where you are or what is going to happen next, is stressful. And your health being used as a weapon of control, is stressful. All these things have been recently triggered again in my mind by the events happening around the country. They seem oddly familiar, the tricks of someone/something that is not being honest, has an ulterior motive and is entirely self-serving. And despite what they say, don’t have your best interests at heart. I can only hope that other people are finding ways to cope and are developing the mental strategies needed to understand what is happening and the long term effects that it will undoubtedly have, on us all.
I used to collect dead things. I had a small clear cassette box and kept things in there. Its not as bad as it sounds, there was a butterfly that had unfortunately not made it out of the house. Part of a snake skin, a dead bug, and strangely a piece a broken glass – but only because it was quite artistic I remember. That collection has now long since gone, but if I pass something these days, I stop for a moment. To look and think.
This picture was taken in Spain, while out on a walk. This was in a wall, in a gap in the bricks. Of course I had to take it out and photograph it, I have never seen a rat skeleton before and found it fascinating. I left it in a small grassy area with some flowers hiding it, having only taken a few photos.
I could see my husband wasn’t entirely comfortable with me doing this type of photo shoot with holiday makers walking around. But it always feels a bit special to be able to see what has once been, but in the next stage. I guess this is why I like archaeology so much, especially when they find graves. Because without adding any fantasy or make believe to who, how or why – you are looking at someone who once lived. That bit of evidence is undeniable.
I love this photo I took of a yellow Kalanchoe. Because strangely it reminds me of an old fairytale I read as a child. The tale of Mother Holle, of the Brothers Grimm (story below). The moral of this tale being that hard work and a good attitude will be rewarded. Doesn’t always work out like that, but I tried to think it might be the case when I was young.
But the gold look of the flowers made me think…
Yellow Kalanchoe
(c) K Wicks
Here is the fairytale if you are unfamiliar with it.
Mother Holle by the Brothers Grimm
“There was once a widow who had two daughters—one of whom was pretty and industrious, while the other was ugly and idle. But she was much fonder of the ugly and idle one, because she was her own daughter; and the other, who was a step-daughter, was obliged to do all the work, and be the Cinderella of the house. Every day the poor girl had to sit by a well, in the highway, and spin and spin till her fingers bled.
Now it happened that one day the shuttle was marked with her blood, so she dipped it in the well, to wash the mark off; but it dropped out of her hand and fell to the bottom. She began to weep, and ran to her step-mother and told of the mishap. But she scolded her sharply, and was so merciless as to say, “Since you have let the shuttle fall in, you must fetch it out again.”
So the girl went back to the well, and did not know what to do; and in the sorrow of her heart she jumped into the well to get the shuttle. She lost her senses; and when she awoke and came to herself again, she was in a lovely meadow where the sun was shining and many thousands of flowers were growing. Along this meadow she went, and at last came to a baker’s oven full of bread, and the bread cried out, “Oh, take me out! take me out! or I shall burn; I have been baked a long time!” So she went up to it, and took out all the loaves one after another with the bread-shovel. After that she went on till she came to a tree covered with apples, which called out to her, “Oh, shake me! shake me! we apples are all ripe!” So she shook the tree till the apples fell like rain, and went on shaking till they were all down, and when she had gathered them into a heap, she went on her way.
At last she came to a little house, out of which an old woman peeped; but she had such large teeth that the girl was frightened, and was about to run away.
But the old woman called out to her, “What are you afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do all the work in the house properly, you shall be the better for it. Only you must take care to make my bed well, and to shake it thoroughly till the feathers fly—for then there is snow on the earth. I am Mother Holle.”
As the old woman spoke so kindly to her, the girl took courage and agreed to enter her service. She attended to everything to the satisfaction of her mistress, and always shook her bed so vigorously that the feathers flew about like snow-flakes. So she had a pleasant life with her; never an angry word; and boiled or roast meat every day.
She stayed some time with Mother Holle, and then she became sad. At first she did not know what was the matter with her, but found at length that it was homesickness; although she was many times better off here than at home, still she had a longing to be there. At last she said to the old woman, “I have a longing for home; and however well off I am down here, I cannot stay any longer; I must go up again to my own people.” Mother Holle said, “I am pleased that you long for your home again, and as you have served me so truly, I myself will take you up again.” Thereupon she took her by the hand, and led her to a large door. The door was opened, and just as the maiden was standing beneath the doorway, a heavy shower of golden rain fell, and all the gold remained sticking to her, so that she was completely covered with it.
“You shall have that because you are so industrious,” said Mother Holle; and at the same time she gave her back the shuttle which she had let fall into the well. Thereupon the door closed, and the maiden found herself up above upon the earth, not far from her mother’s house.
And as she went into the yard the cock cried: “Cock-a-doodle-doo! Your golden girl’s come back to you!”
So she went in to her mother, and as she arrived thus covered with gold, she was well received, both by her and her sister.
The girl told all that had happened to her; and as soon as the mother heard how she had come by so much wealth, she was very anxious to obtain the same good luck for the ugly and lazy daughter. She had to seat herself by the well and spin; and in order that her shuttle might be stained with blood, she stuck her hand into a thorn-bush and pricked her finger. Then she threw her shuttle into the well, and jumped in after it.
She came, like the other, to the beautiful meadow and walked along the very same path. When she got to the oven the bread again cried, “Oh, take me out! take me out! or I shall burn; I have been baked a long time!” But the lazy thing answered, “As if I had any wish to make myself dirty!” and on she went. Soon she came to the apple-tree, which cried, “Oh, shake me! shake me! we apples are all ripe!” But she answered, “I like that! one of you might fall on my head,” and so went on.
When she came to Mother Holle’s house she was not afraid, for she had already heard of her big teeth, and she hired herself to her immediately.
The first day she forced herself to work diligently, and obeyed Mother Holle when she told her to do anything, for she was thinking of all the gold that she would give her. But on the second day she began to be lazy, and on the third day still more so, and then she would not get up in the morning at all. Neither did she make Mother Holle’s bed as she ought, and did not shake it so as to make the feathers fly up. Mother Holle was soon tired of this, and gave her notice to leave. The lazy girl was willing enough to go, and thought that now the golden rain would come. Mother Holle led her, too, to the great door; but while she was standing beneath it, instead of the gold a big kettleful of pitch was emptied over her. “That is the reward of your service,” said Mother Holle, and shut the door.
So the lazy girl went home; but she was quite covered with pitch, and the cock by the well-side, as soon as he saw her, cried: “Cock-a-doodle-doo! Your pitchy girl’s come back to you.” But the pitch stuck fast to her, and could not be got off as long as she lived.”
My grandpa has constantly given me guidance and advice throughout my life, mainly for work and finances, about work ethic and responsibility. Here are a couple of the gems that have stuck with me.
“When I used to work for a pharmaceuticals sales company as a manager, we had this one chap who wasn’t hitting any of his targets. He was on basic pay but so far no commissions had come in. A few months went by and each time a review occurred he would be very verbal about how it was hard and he was trying. So, the next day someone from the department followed him. To the park. Where he took off his shoes and socks, sat down and pulled a book and some sandwiches from his bag. He then proceeded to stay in the park all day. And the next day, and for the rest of the week, unaware that he was being monitored. The next week he was let go, and told why”.
I couldn’t believe someone would be so blatant, my grandpa just laughed (he has a very wise knowing laugh), and said I would encounter much worse than that along the way.
Another story he had was of a person knocking on doors ‘looking for work’ sharpening knives. Needless to say, maybe my grandpa didn’t want someone in the house with access to all the knives – but offered the person other work. He had some gardening work available, just digging, but work nonetheless. The man said no thanks. It obviously left a sour taste with grandpa for him to remember and retell the story as an example of a poor work ethic. If you need money, work is work.
He is from a different time and attitude but most of his lessons have helped. Even just to help me understand the climate and age he grew up in and came from, where the future did seem brighter, careers longer and opportunities were more plentiful.
“Hyperphantasia is the ability for an individual to create highly graphic images in his or her mind’s eye”
I didn’t know I was hyperphantasic until near the end of my thirties, and am still happy to not be as this is a self-diagnosis, but it seems the most fitting description so far of what goes on in my mind.
I thought everyone was afflicted like me. That they had constant images in mind, memories coming back out of nowhere, replays of movies watched, or a rerun of conversations had. And similarly running through future events and conversations that were yet to happen, creating anxieties of possible outcomes of things that would come.
It wasn’t until I explained these thoughts to my husband that we started to notice a difference in thought process way beyond being a man and a woman. And after we discovered he is aphantasic, it made me realise that I might not be thinking like everyone else. In fact, it made me think no one is thinking the same at all.
It explained a lot of things I had been looking for an answer to. I spent a lot of time in my own company as a child, despite having siblings, I have always been quite able to entertain myself having many hobbies and keeping my brain as occupied as I can. I was constantly thinking, scheming, planning and analysing. This hasn’t changed. Phobias it seems though were very set too, being able to hyper visualise has made my fears never go away. Now I know why, I’m not so hard on myself, believing it’s not actually my fault. But for years I couldn’t work out why certain images wouldn’t go away, why did things stay with me for so long? Movies, articles, experiences, books, any input could come back at any time out of the blue. I have learned to control them mostly now, but it’s been hard work.
The one that stuck and commandeered my childhood was Jaws. I know I am very much not alone with that one, but it made me wonder if this is part of the reason and differences between us that makes some people have phobias and others not. Some people like horror and are scared by it, others not. And potentially, allow some people to identify better with others, or be more susceptible to fear. I suspect this may be why some people are prime subjects for being hypnotized, if someone can picture what you are saying, does that help?
But my nemesis was Jaws. Watched around 8 or 9 years old I think, it stayed with me. It imprinted in my brain and resurfaced often. My grandparents had a swimming pool and used to take us on holiday, to where there would always be a pool. I couldn’t escape it, but it was so bad that for the first year after watching, I refused to have a bath and would only use the crappy push on shower head. My brain took it further you see, it created a mini jaws that could come up the plughole, and then turn into a big shark. It took me about a year to get a grip on that. I just had to suck it up and deal with it. Then it became a weird family joke that I was terrified of sharks, and I just accepted it as that. A weird thing that didn’t bother most people. I must be the odd one out.
I still have it. When living in Spain for a couple of years, I had a pool with the rented property as it was part of the dream. But within two days of trying to enjoy a swim, it came back. I couldn’t help visualizing a shark, in the water, at the bottom in the dark where I couldn’t quite see. I was in my late thirties by this point. I felt like an idiot. But it was the same with swimming pools back then, I would focus on the filter, thinking it could come through there. And would quicken my pace, swimming wasn’t fun anymore after becoming an extended anxiety attack each time. Although, on the plus side, I did win a bronze medal for backstroke in the cadet championships because I was thinking of sharks. But for having a healthy relationship with water it did nothing.
By now understanding that my brain can latch onto anything it likes and I can’t control what stays and what goes, I am being more careful about what I read and watch. Hyperphantasia has led me to understand a bit more about why I am different from others, and has made me realise that each person is more unique that I had given them credit for.
(c) K Wicks
For more on hyperphantasia and aphantasia from a personal perspective then you can read more in my book, Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere.
I used to think we on this island had initiative and common sense until a number of years ago a very simple event highlighted to me this was not the case. Until this time I was of the belief we would pull together and help each other, sort things out and get on.
But to my surprise it wasn’t like that at all and I felt like I had either been deceived about the British people and where I was from, or something had been lost.
The very simple event was snow. At the time I lived down a sloping road off a hill, meaning when it got very icy and snowed a fair bit, it would be impossible to use unless it was gritted or removed by hand. As a side road it didn’t qualify for gritting, this I understood. The road was completely covered and no cars could make it in or out without extreme danger of sliding and crashing.
So, in my naivety I presumed ‘people’ would get shovels out and remove the snow to make the road usable again. But no, something else happened. A lot of complaining, about how the council should be clearing the road, how it was the governments fault we didn’t have gritters or someone else to do the job for us. And for days the road was effectively blocked. Until my household actually needed to go out, so rather than moaning about how we couldn’t get out, we got shovels and got ourselves out. And what was really a slap in the face, was as soon as we did it, others did it. And within half an hour the road was clear enough to use… so just waiting for someone else to take the lead, it was disappointing.
The moral of that for me was don’t sit around moaning that someone else hasn’t done something or thinking a problem will fix itself. And it became starkly obvious people will just sit around and wait to be told what to do, or will just wait for someone else to do it for them. There is a time to be patient and there is a time for action, you just need to know the difference and when each is appropriate.
MKW Publishing 