Some people really are thinking differently to you.
Never have we been more aware of this.
But did you ever stop to ask yourself why?
It turns out it’s not just you’re not on the same page, you aren’t event in the same book…
(c) K Wicks
You know when you hear the phrase ‘not on the same page’? Implying that you are both not quite thinking along the same lines. When we realised there was a massive difference in thought going on, I realised we weren’t even in the same book.
We discovered that my husband is Aphantasic, meaning he doesn’t see any mental imagery in mind. I on the other hand, it turns out, am Hyperphantasic, someone who visualises most of the time. It may seem like a small difference to some people, and maybe it is to others, but for us it was huge. And went some way to explain why he just couldn’t understand my viewpoint on many things – despite various method of breaking it down or through logical explanations. Once we knew, I don’t expect him to understand certain things now. Because I can imagine what it is like to not have the ability – or affliction, to see images in mind, have internal narration (inner monologue) and recurring memories. In fact, once I did imagine what it was like to not have them, I understood him better and things made more sense. But the flipside of that, is that he can’t do the same. He does not imagine. So his understanding of me is limited, the best way I felt I could explain it was to write it down. Put in into sections of what areas of life I felt this made a difference.
From that came my book, Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere, describing what it is like to have Hyperphantasia and how I feel this has affected many areas of my life and experiences. And describing as best I can, the viewpoint on those subjects from someone with Aphantasia.
Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere.
(c) K Wicks
Another excerpt from my book – Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere. It’s about having Hyperphantasia (myself) and Aphantasia (my husband), about living with both and the differences we have noticed between the two.
Chapter – Labels
There are many labels given to things and people. They don’t need to cause people to be excluded, singled out or make them seem different in a bad way. Unfortunately though they are often in the minority, so they are left out or excluded. Maybe it’s easier for society to treat people like that rather than accept and help to understand. Although it makes me wonder how we ever made it this far with that kind of attitude.
Example: At school I had a friend who was severely dyslexic, his writing was like a scribble, and the teachers treated him as though he was thick. What I saw was a clever boy with an aptitude for computers when they were just coming into schools. Not very good at writing and who got bored in class quickly leading to what they called ‘acting up’. It bothered me they didn’t care or have the time and resources to deal with differences, whatever they were. I noticed lots of bright people, but they didn’t fit the curriculum so they were singled out and treated differently, not in a positive way usually. They couldn’t be what the system wanted.
This seemed to lead to developing behaviours and characteristics I felt may not have been there otherwise. As goes the saying, if you tell a child they are stupid long enough, they might just start believing it. People are very easily to influence and manipulate given the right tools and environment, school being a perfect place for this.
This belief of mine was compounded further by reading a certain book. I did not stumble across this book by accident. It was handed to me by my Grandmother from her personal bookshelf. She could see what I was interested in and was a clinical psychologist by trade herself. I took the book and kept it on my bookshelf for years, many years. It was only unfortunately after my grandmother passed away at the age of 90 a few years ago, that I actually opened the book. And for me it was a game changer.
All of my theories about how society controls, manipulates and conspires against us were confirmed. We were all pretty much an experiment of some sort. For decades now processes and systems had been put in place and executed for a systematic overhaul of who we are and how we are meant to be. This book – The People Shapers by Vance Packard was a revelation to me that someone else had so concisely worded and researched exactly what I had thought. But he knew the people doing it and reading the details of what I had thought, made me feel sick. Because it was so much worse. As if the eugenicists had infiltrated every level of society and decided everyone was defective in some way. Not that we were just different. I could see this was both harmful and damaging to society, not helpful at all. What I didn’t understand initially though is that this all creates industry and profit. However much I would like to think the powers that be want to help people, they only want to for profit.
This book was first published in 1977 which made me aware that I was living in the repercussions of those times. Pretty much all of these projects he had written about either had already been rolled out or were in the following decades.
I had recognised some of these issues at quite a young age before I got to this book. Had already began to engage in learning about the Theory of Mind before I knew what it was. Through various circumstances I saw more than maybe most by twenty and was taught how to fit in, that you had to comply and be what society wants. Keep your head down, do what they say and try and get on. It took me years of trying and working hard to get it, but I knew what I was looking for. I had a plan.
Around me I saw most people did not understand what was being done to them, did not have a plan and instead seemed quite lost. Either in themselves or within society which demands and dictates at a pace that most people really aren’t quipped for, let alone comfortable with.
I complied more than most, but I was steered by my grandparents who managed to override or interrupt my parents having more influence over me. They taught me to fit in and how to comply, what I needed to do to have some kind of easy life, because if you didn’t, it wouldn’t be made easy for you. I am extremely grateful now for this overview they had, obviously being of a time when all of these societal changes were being implemented and at the helm of some of them.
Another interest I developed along the way, which I felt was necessary to my understanding, was social history. Possibly not interesting to others, my research included the history of taxes, benefits, mental health, criminal laws and medicine. Trying to understand how we go to this point, what rules and laws we had along the way that led to now and the world we have created around us. Knowing how and why we got to this point meant everything to me, without those I felt blind.
I have suffered the usual labels along the way too, and again having some of these ‘given’ to me, led me to want to understand them even more. To understand the impact these mental processes can have on a person, and how just the word or label can destroy someone. Alongside these ‘labels and categories’ though comes industry, pharmaceuticals and money. Lots of money. So I can see why it might be easier to keep looking at the cure rather than the cause.
Through various issues at home and in life – I have had the following labels – clinical depression, a mental breakdown, PTSD, stress headaches, potential anorexia, normal depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, dissociation disorder, separation anxiety and a behavioural disorder.
All this around the ages of fourteen to sixteen. I was having a tough life I don’t deny it, and I seek no sympathy for it, it was what it was. I cannot help looking back though and really questioning their motive for overloading an already troubled mind with all of that. I felt bitter towards the authorities at the time that they would do that to someone, a child no less. I had some counselling and they tried to put me on antidepressants. That didn’t work out and I didn’t take them, I did however find the need for them years later with a number of repeat episodes periodically throughout my twenties. Like I said, life can be hard. I now realise this doesn’t automatically mean you are mentally ill. This could mean you are having a normal reaction to something that isn’t right and needs addressing, not supressing.
It was because these things had labels and were well established that I was able to look into them. To try and work them out using the only test subject I could ever really get the truth from. Myself. Given that we humans are predisposed to self-denial, even then the truth can be skewed but the best you can get sometimes.
Over the years my bitterness turned to anger, because I knew they were doing it to others. I was not going to accept these conditions or disorders as who I was, I decided I wanted to work out how they came about. I did not have to look far. It was quite obvious where the problems were, at home. Text book stuff really. There were eating disorders, mental illness, drug addiction and parental absences during my childhood, of which I didn’t pay much attention, or so I thought.
But all of these factors, people and environments in my life have played their part to shape me, to determine how I ended up like this.
A few years into my 30’s a curve ball appeared when I met my husband. We met, we fell in love and we married within 8 months. Simple. It wasn’t for about a year or so after that I noticed there were differences I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I had always prided myself on being able to work out how someone thinks, if I spend enough time with them and watch their methods, it can be done. But I wasn’t able to work out my own husband. It started to frustrate me. He would make what appeared to be flippant comments, sarcasm with no thought for my feelings, he couldn’t understand why I talked about my past so much.
I just put these things down to a difference of personality and lifestyle previously. It was never done with any malice or intended offence, and because he is extremely loving as a person towards me, caring and bright as well as mostly logical. It confused me why he was like that. There seemed no basis for it and he seemed confused when I wanted to know why. He just simply said he didn’t understand why I felt the need to talk about my past all the time. He found it weird I could remember the year I did something, or thought something. That I seemed to have an attachment to things and activities. (Movies, books, hobbies, interests), things from past that in his opinion I should have let go of.
That where I found it odd. I had been surrounded by people my whole life who weren’t like him, who appreciated their past and memories, even if sometimes they weren’t the best. Still I couldn’t put my finger on it, why did he think my way of thinking was so strange? I found it maddening, I kept trying to work out what it was. Why did he see things so very differently from me, and more to the point, why did he feel the need to tell me all the time? I couldn’t get him to understand why it was actually quite hurtful to tell someone their past is irrelevant and has no meaning. Which made me think there really was something else going on. It wasn’t personal, he genuinely felt like that about everyone.
It took nearly another year to find the culprit and only happened because I was not willing to let it all go. I also write horror fiction and it was this that bought it all to a head. He didn’t see the point of fiction, didn’t understand why people needed constant escapism and didn’t think it really had a relevant place in society. Red flag raised and cue internal rage. Reading books and watching films have saved me from myself many a time and made my childhood more bearable. To think someone didn’t believe there was a place for this saddened me very much and I felt it needed correcting. How could he have married a fiction writer if he thought it was pointless? It was crazy to me.
Instead of jumping straight in and having an argument about it, I though it through. Thought about things he had told me about his past and childhood – only because I asked him specific questions. Some of which were a surprise or couldn’t be answered as he hadn’t stored the information. One comment had stuck with me when talking about playing as children and he had said
“I couldn’t do what they did, they seemed to ‘Go Cartoon’, and I couldn’t”.
I realised this probably meant he didn’t do make believe and just wasn’t interested. As an adult I get it, but to say you were that way as a child made me realise there must be more to it.
It took hours of questions and talking to try and get my head round what it was that was so fundamentally different, no-one I had ever met had this view – and I have come across some very different opinions and view on things in my time and travels. It only took one sentence in the end to break all this open, when I finally worked out what I needed to say.
“You do realise that when people like me read a book, we see pictures in our head don’t you?”
“No”.
And there it was. The bombshell, the game changer – in fact, the life changer. But it was now something I could work with and instantly took to the oracle (google), to find out what this was. I found it pretty quickly and was excited to know this was a thing, he wasn’t weird, I wasn’t weird, we were just different. The excitement was short lived for me and was non-existent for him. This was a label he didn’t want and one that would both take us quite some time to get our head around.
(c) K Wicks
It’s been a strange road learning about Hyperphantasia. How imagination, memory and thought processes can all work together – or against each other. What always used to just be called an overactive or hyper imagination, really isn’t. It is sometimes a struggle to focus on external stimuli and take it all in, as there is so much going on internally. But this does not equate to ‘not being in reality’ as seen from an Aphantasic point of view. It took me a while to explain to my Aphantasic husband that everyone has their own version of reality anyway. He finds that a weird concept. He said you are either in reality or not. I disagreed and continue to try and explain this very strange thing. From a combination of interpretation, personal ideals, identity and environment we have to build our own realities around us within the parameters of what I guess is defined as a shared reality. And when this comes into disagreement or conflict with other peoples realities, it can be a confusing thing and doesn’t always work out.
He really doesn’t understand what it is like to have a constant murmur and a factory processing everything all the time in my head. Any more than I understand what it is like to see and hear nothing in mind, and when there is nothing happening, there really is nothing happening. I learn to manage the barrage of images and memories. Understand all the triggers and tendencies that I have to ‘keep’ things in mind. I guess almost like a hoarder of thoughts, but not by choice. Within that I realised though, that to a point I do have a choice, because I can choose (mostly) what goes in. Every article, book, film, conversation, theory, experience, idea and thought is jumbling around in mind, waiting to pounce anytime, anywhere for whatever reason. A lifetime of input increasing all the time and since the internet happened, ever growing. It has definitely changed my view on what I watch, read or give my time to.
But it is still a learning process, wondering how and why you are the way you are. Is it natural, was it environment? The old nature vs nurture argument which has been of interest to me for some time…
(c) K Wicks
Here is my book about discovering we had Hyperphantasia and Aphantasia and how I feel it affects certain aspects of life.
“You see pictures in your head? That sounds like witchcraft to me”…
The moment we discovered a difference in thought processes that kind of changed everything.
(c) K Wicks
Fiction is pointless. What do you think when you hear those words? Do you agree? Have you ever given thought to why fiction is a thing? I am a writer and horror fiction is my chosen genre (or rather I think it chose me). So I was disturbed to hear these words, from someone close to me at the time. Not when we first met, he just said he wasn’t into reading fiction and we left it at that. But a couple of years later, I was curious and wanted to know, why didn’t he like reading fiction?
The answer threw me completely. Fiction is pointless. I have to confess, I believe I took the defensive route immediately. As someone who has enjoyed many hours of escapism growing up immersing myself in books and movies and writing my own stories. I thought it was essential and it had never dawned on me that other people may not share that. I think I unpicked that jumper thread because I knew my husband would never read my books or be interested in any of my fiction, I wanted further explanation. I didn’t quite realise the can of worms it was going to open.
I tried so hard to explain it, what joy fiction could bring letting your imagination run riot as they say. He shook his head at me. Then I worked out something vaguely in the back of my mind. When talking about stuff previously I had asked him about playing as a child and imagining things and he said the phrase which was starting to make more sense ‘I could never go full cartoon’ like everyone else. I didn’t quite understand it, but couldn’t think of a way to get him to describe it better at the time, but now it came back to me. I had it, and said ‘when I read books, I actually see what I am reading in my head, there are pictures of what’s going on. Like a movie’.
And that was it. What seemed like such a small thing as one person liking fiction and the other not, uncovered something very profoundly different and something that would affect nearly every aspect of our lives thereafter. We discovered he has Aphantasia, a lack of visual imagery in mind. He didn’t see pictures in his head, and to be honest, was pretty horrified that I did. And it turned out apparently 98% of people do in some way or another as well. The adjustment to this has been long and sometimes not easy. It’s made me analyse my own thought process all over again too, because as it turns out, I have Hyperphantasia, which is considered an over active and vivid imagination. Now I know other people aren’t like me either, they don’t have constant dialogue, pictures, songs, films, memories and ideas all jostling for position at once in mind. It’s been a strange old road, and this year has just made it all the stranger…
(c) MKW Publishing
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…
(c) K Wicks
“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.
Excerpt from my recently published book – Meeting in the middle of Nowhere, looking at the differences between someone with Aphantasia – my husband, and on the other side Hyperphantasia – Me.
‘Without the ability to plan out future scenarios, forethought and consequence are hampered in my view. Being able to plan one’s life seems like it would be much harder, could come across as quite haphazard to someone like me and ‘on the hop’ as it were.
My mother was this way, ‘a bit flighty’ we used to say. And if she hadn’t passed away, I would have a ton of questions for her about my theories on how she ended up the way she did. So I was strangely prepared for this type of living although I don’t enjoy it. Before my husband and I met, I had been living in the same town for about sixteen years, and only two different houses in the space of thirteen years. From being moved around all the time and having no roots in my childhood, all I wanted to do was settle down when I grew up. So I did.
He had also moved around a lot, but hadn’t ever wanted to settle. He didn’t feel the need to do the same thing every day, didn’t want to see the same people and talk about the same old crap. He doesn’t do small talk and general chit chat just to pass the time, even with me. I would say he is an adventurer. He wants to experience life and be there, because without that, life really is boring. He can’t imagine being somewhere, he can’t ‘switch off’ and go into fantasy land, and he can’t sit there and mentally time travel to pass the time or rethink things. So he takes enjoyment from things as they happen.
I have a lot of hobbies, I needed lots of mental stimulation growing up and found reading, writing, drawing, movies, embroidery, cooking, cleaning and anything that I could find to occupy my brain. I feel like I accidentally experienced life because I just happened to be there and through other people and opportunities. All of it took mental planning and visualising, all my pastimes, all my career choices and ambitions. If I don’t think about them in advance, I don’t get geared up to do them. My motivation sometimes needs motivating.
He doesn’t have any mental pictures to inspire him and with this, boredom took on a whole new meaning to me. I understood why he seemed agitated and bored a lot, because he genuinely is. There is no forethought happening to plan tasks or time filling activities. And it’s a vicious circle, bored because you aren’t doing anything, but literally can’t think of anything to do. Travel seems to be the thing for him, getting there is part of the adventure and then being somewhere, doing something. It’s live and happening. So we have had to find a way to work with both. So that I don’t feel completely unsettled by never knowing what’s coming next. I need time to mentally prepare for things, and so he doesn’t feel like his life is Groundhog Day. It’s easy to say ‘find something to do’ but this doesn’t strike me as an easy task for him. Hell, it’s sometimes not an easy task for me and I have a million and one things going through my head to do.
Another classic saying springs to mind for this chapter ‘Look before you leap’. This for me has always been associated with thinking ahead and for awareness of consequence.
But within an awareness of consequence must be a fear of it too surely? If there is no fear of the consequence because it is not happening, then why would you hold yourself back? I don’t think you would for some people, but you wouldn’t really know why. On the other hand, having an awareness of the repercussion and fear of it does not automatically mean it can be averted either. I have found a classic example of forethought and consequence causing two quite avoidable injuries I sustained in childhood.
Example: I was about seven or eight years old and I had a push bike. A Raleigh BMX to be precise, red and white. I loved it and would blat to the shops or down to my friend’s house, no problems. On this one particular day, I was biking to what we called ‘the 10 0’clock shop’ – probably no mystery as to why. Running parallel to the very straight main road, was a side road with a row of houses, but was steeply dipped coming up at the shop. So I decided to take the dipped road, with the intention of peddling as fast as I could down, so that it wasn’t such a hard slog up if you got some momentum behind you. Sounded like a solid plan, and it was.
Until for what would appear to be no reason at all (I now suspect Hyperphantasia) I started to wonder if what I had been told was true. Does your front wheel buckle if you let go of your handlebars while going really fast? Now, you may think this thought might have just been dismissed and I continued on my speedy way. No such luck. I wanted to know. Had to know if my imaginings of it all going horrible wrong were correct. So, I let go. And true to the information I had been given and had imagined, my front wheel buckled. I flew over the front of the bike and fell face first onto the concrete.
I really hadn’t given enough thought to what would happen next in a physical sense. What did happen was a lot of pain, a fair amount of blood, some smashed in front teeth with one completely missing. And luckily a random lady coming out of one of the houses to help patch me up. I felt stupid, I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t really sure what it was that had made me do it, I had put logic to one side and just went for it. It scared me a bit when I started to understand what I was capable to doing to myself. We are very breakable, and I guess as children it can be a hard time learning that however your brain works.
Example: Around the same time in my life, we had three dogs. One of them in particular had an issue with things coming through the letterbox. Anything that came through was, for want of a better word, savaged. So, again, in my ridiculous childhood thought process, wondered. Could it be possible, that if I put my hand through the letterbox, it will get treated with the same contempt? The answer is yes, but only temporarily. In the dogs defense, as soon as he realised it was my hand, he let go. Unfortunately his tooth had punctured one of my fingers, there was screaming and lots of blood. A few stitches in my index finger and I was fine, but started to see a pattern forming. I didn’t trust what I was told or even my own thoughts and felt the need to prove these things, even at great cost to myself. It was here I think I first started to understand about instinct and how you are just going to have work out some things for yourself. Where others may be giving you really sound advice, take heed. That does not mean take the advice, but keep it in mind.’
(c) K Wicks
Another excerpt from my now published Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere…
Before we knew of Aphanstasia we decided to move to Spain. It was a leap of faith, we hadn’t been married long and tried to think of the best way to use our resources to have a good life. We discussed everything and we moved. It was hard and there was a lot to organise and sort out, but because he functioned great in the moment, it seemed a breeze really.
Only a small hiccup of a drunk taxi driver at the last hurdle trying to get to the airport to leave. But another one saved the day and we got there. The drama that unfolded when we were there though couldn’t have been anticipated and was caused mainly by a long list of shoddy agents and bad neighbours. We didn’t really have a chance to settle down and find our feet to plan anything. Instead going from one idea to another and having to change it every other week because of what we had found out, or how we had been treated. It was extremely frustrating. And it was in these frustrating times that we stumbled across this major difference in our thought process. He wasn’t planning ahead at all, he had no concept of our future in Spain and never had. That kind of explained why he always seemed to have objections to things, he speaks his mind at the time, there’s no saving it for later. It can make him seem quite outspoken, but it really isn’t on purpose I now know.
I have to be honest though, when I realised I was on my own with planning our future, it sealed the deal for me. I was already struggling and had thought I wanted to come home, I just didn’t want to ruin it for him. But deep down I must have known we weren’t going to be staying in Spain. I was grossly under prepared going there anyway (I can’t even speak the language), and knew this was the right thing to do.
I couldn’t do it for us both not on home soil. I had spent over thirty years working out how to function in this society, it sounds awful to say, but I actually felt too old to go through it all again. I needed the support of familiarity – not people, or friends as they are thin on the ground, but where I recognised. I realised that was my reference point, my safety zone. I felt like a duck out of water and wanted to correct it as soon as possible. I don’t often live with my mistakes once I have acknowledged them.
(c) K Wicks (Photography taken in Spain)
MKW Publishing 