is it possible to go senile in your 30s?

[brianmanahan]

I also have aphantasia which means that I don't have a "mind's eye". If I close my eyes, I don't see an image of a person or place, I only have a vague sense of it. It's hard to explain.

weird, i may have experienced something like that... but just with women's faces. it is strange, but if i don't see a woman's face for a couple weeks then i can't visualize what they look like. including my mom. it kind of freaks me out sometimes. but guy's faces i can visualize just fine, which seems bizarre.

A lot of problems can be drug induced. For example there is the anti-seizure med topomax which in the mental health community is often called dopomax because it turns you into a f***ing vegetable. Well, for a lot of people. I never had a problem with it. And there are a lot of other drugs that can have the same or similar effects.

argh topomax sucked. not as much as zonegran or lamictal, but close.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You spend a lot of time working, so it probably doesn't give you much time to think about other things. I'm in my mid 20s and even I have similar issues, really struggling to remember cousins and aunts and things. Would you say you're someone that really cares about social interactions and such, or is it not a big deal? For me I don't care much, to the extent that I've actually had conversations with people in person, thinking they were someone else.

 

[who?]

If you get your aerobic fitness level up and sleep 8 hours out of every 24 you'll probably be fine.

 

[flexy]

If I ask you to make a simple drawing a sheep jumping over a fence, could you do it?

If yes, you must have SOME sort of "image" of the sheep jumping in your head, how else would you be able to do it?

 

[Charmonium]

If I ask you to make a simple drawing a sheep jumping over a fence, could you do it?

If yes, you must have SOME sort of "image" of the sheep jumping in your head, how else would you be able to do it?

Not sure if you care who answers this so I'll take it. Most articles on aphantasia will talk about this. The answer is that no one really understands how that works.

For example one of the standard tests they tried to categorize people was to ask them to count the windows in their home. They figured if they could this they could picture their home in their minds. But it turned out that even people with aphantasia can do this, they just don't really understand how.

I can "picture" my house and count the windows but I don't actually see them. I guess the best analogy I can give is if you asked a blind person to do the same thing. They could feel along all of the walls and answer your question but there's no doubt that they're still blind.

So my "picture" is more of a 6th sense of where the windows are. I can tell you where they are. I can even tell you certain details about the windows - what kind of frame they have, how many panes, etc. But I can do that not because I have a vision of what the windows look like but because I just know.

 

[Leyawiin]

You had a brain fart. Big deal. Don't over analyze it.

 

[WHAMPOM]

yesterday i was talking to my mom on the phone and checking facebook when some friend request came in

i didn't recognize the name or the picture, so i read the name to her and said "that's weird, i have no idea who that is"

my mom was silent for a while and finally said "umm, grandma's sister?"

it kept staring at her picture and name and nothing was coming to me, but after about 10 seconds BOOM i remember everything about my great aunt - and the fact that i've seen and talked to her probably 100 times before

ever since this happened, it has made me concerned.

is it possible to go senile and lose all your memory by the time you are 40? because i think that might be a real possibility if this stuff keeps happening :\

Lots of people look at old photos and go "WHO IS THAT!" that's why there is usually a who, what, where and why written on the back. You just had something out of context that did not spark a memory.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm terrible at remembering certain things. Numbers (just in general - phone numbers, product model numbers etc), and people/names. I sometimes recognize someone, but not sure from where. For people I do know, I may not remember their name. This is especially true with people I don't see very often including more distant family. Thing is, how often do you really hear someone's name, so if you forgot from the time you met that person and they told you your name, there won't be too many instances to be reminded of that again, and then you feel too embarrassed to ask.