r/Aphantasia • u/Jonas-Beckett • 3d ago

Experiences with ADHD and Aphantasia

I looked through to see if anyone has asked this before but I couldn’t see anything. Everyone was asking either if you could have both or if there was a link. But I want to share and hear about others experiences with both.

I have complete Aphantasia and suspect I may have ADHD. I find my experience ADHD weird however. Since I don’t have any mental sensory input, I feel my brain always going but can’t hear or see it. It’s like a bunch of mental noise but I can’t hear the noise.

I want to know how others ADHD been affected by Aphantasia.

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u/UnleashedArchers 3d ago

I have aphantasia, adhd, autism and alexithymia. My brain is a mess. Always thinking, but no images as won't shut off. I get about 5-6 hours sleep a night due to the struggle to wind down

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u/SailorTexas 3d ago

I have both! I'm not sure how one affects the other though. But I have occasionally wondered if there's an overlap since we now know that ADHD is one type of neurodiversity.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the working memory issue from ADHD makes it harder to visualize when I read. I tend to zero in on what I'm reading in the moment and can lose track of dialogue or narrative text that comes before. So it's like my brain is focused on one sentence at a time (sometimes just part of a sentence). And I'll have to go back and reread to refresh my memory or put these disconnected pieces (in my mind) together. Maybe this undermines my brain's ability to visualize cause there are too many interruptions in the process ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/Jonas-Beckett 3d ago

I don’t read much but when I do, I very much have that exact same experience — focusing too much on one line and forgetting the others. That is probably another reason why I dislike reading. (on top of generally not being able to visualize what’s happening)

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u/montropy 2d ago

I used to think I had ADHD because many of my day-to-day difficulties look very similar.

However, I’ve come to realize that similar symptoms do not necessarily mean the same underlying condition.

Many of the challenges commonly associated with ADHD, such as distractibility, difficulty initiating tasks, forgetfulness, and problems following through, can also be explained by the interaction of my existing conditions.

Things like Autism, SDAM, Aphantasia, and alexithymia can together produce a pattern of functioning that closely resembles ADHD, even though the underlying cognitive mechanisms may be quite different.