different is dangerous....well said. those who are different are always discriminated against

An important subject matter for sure. Disabled and neurodivergent people like us are often not regarded as sexual beings. I myself am working on a graphic novel about a Nevada sex worker and an autistic client in his 40's who is dying and has never had sex. It's less about sex than it is about human connection and human touch, and the lack of it in the lives of many people who are disabled.

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

I might make a second video focusing more on the subject of Autism and sex, I did intend for this one to be more about aphantasia. It is important to talk about though!

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

That sounds lovely😊

As a recently self diagnosed aphantasic and recipient of SDAM, I hadn't yet considered some of these aspects of our lack of visualization capability, and the (more disconcerting for me) capabilities of non-neuro-divergent people

Total visual aphantasia here, and confirmed: I cannot fantasize visually. I’ve tried. I can experience the other senses in my brain though.

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

❤️

A difficult subject communicated with delicacy. Thank you! Also, I had no idea that people could imagine a sense of touch. I knew I had no mind's eye. I didn't know that some people have internalised experiences of other senses. Every day is a school day!

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

It's so wild, isn't it?! Lol.

What do you mean, other people are able to just know how things will feel like without touching them? So, I guess I'm not just visually mind blind. It's incredible how much we have in commen when it comes to our neurodivergentnes (that's proably not a word).

have you ever seen the movie Amelie? (its in french) looking back at it with an autistic lens, they describe this girl with almost every tell except the word 'autistic'. and it goes to on about how she grows up, has a crush on this guy, how she navigates those feelings, etc. very cute. BUT theres this one scene where shes trying to imagine just how many people could be having sex at that very moment. and its like i catch myself having similar thoughts (not the sex part) but like-.. how much dust is on the earth? and how big a ball would it be if i could somehow gather it together... etc .. lol

I enjoyed this video...very tastefully done. While I don't have aphantasia, I am probably autistic, so I find this topic interesting. I really wish it wasn't such a taboo topic, because there are things that I wish I knew a long time ago.

@i.am.mindblind

28 күн бұрын

I think I'd like to make a second video soon more on Autism & sex, this one I mostly wanted to focus on aphantasia but I also think it's so important to talk about. I'm glad you enjoyed it. 😊

I have very few detailed autobiographical memories. I always attributed that to the fact that I’ve experienced high anxiety most of my life. I never realized other autistic people have this too. Learned something new to explore! Thanks for sharing your experiences with us ❤

Teeshirt should say 'from the 1980s' as I don't think there is anyone left alive from the 1900s. However, your explanation of aphantasia was fascinating and helpful for me to begin to understand. Thank you.

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

The 1900's just means anything from 1900-1999. I'm glad my explanation on a aphantasia was helpful I have more videos on the subject if you're interested.

I am also slowly picking apart what was my mask and what is actually me and it's amazing what comes up when I'm least expecting it. Thank you for talking about this!

You are really good. 😊

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

Thank you! 😊❤️

Minute 11, had to stop before I forget: That's interesting. I've never ever heard of a thing like "aphantasia" before I came to Your channel as a fellow late diagnosed AuDHD-woman. And as I am very much interested in psychological and neurological things I was fascinated and also watched a lot of the videos You made about that topic (again thanks for educating me so well, Amanda😊). But not for a second I thought about how it could effect sex😮. Never ever. So that is interesting to me, because I enjoyed so much in our autistic YT-comunity first time feeling so much like others, like "boring >normal So is that's the point I am totally different again😅? I am curious how this will go on. And I can say I am.a very sex-positive woman with very little taboo talking about sex-related topics. Maybe not in a comment-section at YT, but in real life and in safe spaces, sure. Edit: okay, Amanda, thats not my fault "don't imagine me naked". That's the "don't think of a pink elephant"-thing (not having aphantasia) Sorry, not beeing sorry. You look beautiful in the look and pose of Boticellis "Venus" standing in that shell (that is my spontaneos picture), nothing bad or to feel ashamed, You are beautiful. And I mean this totally free of any sexual meaning. Last: like the T-shirt and pants, really fits well on You. And I liked Your hair a lot today. Is it different? I had such wonderful thick curls, just much darker as a child, but as I have so much hair it is so heavy that it is very straight now, or just has a bit "waves". So I am always a bit jealous of powerful curly hair like Yours. But jelous in a meaning I'd like to have too, doesn't bother me You have😊 Nice video, but still don't get why people first think of sex if they hear of the concept of aphantasia and I still don't. I like (good consensual)sex, as I like other nice sensual stims like tasting good food, watching art I like, touching interesting textures, smelling rain after a thunderstorm, whatever. It is just "something", not so important for me.

I feel incredibly awkward about the topic of sex, not because I was raised like that (although my parents are catholic so there's some influence at least) but because I can't exactly compare my fantasies and memory of experiences with other people's, so it makes understanding difficult for the both sides I don't have much visuals in my brain, but I can somewhat imagine the shapes of objects and their positions to each other, although it's very unstable and doesn't last more than a few seconds; reading spicy scenes just feels like a blank in my brain, bc I'm focusing on seeing letters in front of me, I can't imagine how people also manage to visualize stuff in the process As for fantasies, I've managed my ways around it, my imagination is overactive despite extreme struggles with visualizing, so I constantly make up scenarios and situations with characters (for some reason, I can NOT imagine myself/real people, but it's relatively easy to think of fictional characters in practically any scenario), it's just not visual, not even sure how to describe it bc I don't know what words to use for that kind of perception (it's like knowing objects/people are there, with very vague shapes and knowledge of their features as facts, but not actually seeing anything properly like you'd see in an image) /Sorry if my English is bad, although I can't properly describe this in my native language, either

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

German autistic non-aphantesia here, often have this same "language-problem" to explain things in english, but I think You explained it very well. I just don't know if I got it, because I AM visualizing things easily, so of cause I will never exactly get how You feel.

Thanks, Nicole! That was really interesting. I can't say I was curious about it, because I never thought about it before. I have the ability to imagine people naked, but if I did, I'd be embarrassed the next time I had to talk to them! lol I'm glad I can remember, because, at my age, I'm not likely to have sex again. I have a really strong sex drive, but I also don't want to have sex unless I have a strong emotional connection to the partner. Not a very good conundrum! Cheers!

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

Same here, 48 AuDHD cis-female. I like sex, but not "on every cost". I am happy to live with myself, so also to have sex with myself. I am pretty okay with that. At least it is good sex😅

When I learned in the process of autism diagnosis that I don't pick up a lot of visual facial cues about other peoples' emotions, it was a big surprise to me. I knew that those cues exist but assumed I was doing it just like everybody else. On the test, I scored higher than most autistic people, but substantially lower than most "normies." The test I did just showed photos of eyes. The psychologist who diagnosed me said in life I probably look at people's whole faces and pick up clues from their mouth expressions as well as their eyes. (So it's not all or nothing.) I was reminded of a friend who said she didn't know most people could see individual leaves on trees until she got contact lenses. My ex-husband is red/green colorblind. He told me it was a long time before he realized that oranges are orange. We just walk through life not knowing what other people see! Isn't that a hoot when you think about it?

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

Yes! Nice explanations/examples.

@Catlily5

20 күн бұрын

We have no idea what others experience until we learn differently.

This is such a well-done video! And your comment about realising you're autistic is like "waking up from the matrix" yes!! I really thought that as well, as soon as I realised/"saw" what was my mask, it was like I just couldn't stop it falling away or acting upon (what I then learnt were) stims/not controlling my facial expressions as much as I had up to the point [to some detriment of my relationships admittedly] and it was oddly scary? Like I'd awakened some weird sleeper-agent in myself lol But yes, wholeheartly agree that disabled =/= sexless/asexual. A lot of the media/general narrative about "disabled" people [inc neurodivergent/those less "disabled" and more "don't fit in with society" POV] really really loves to feed into the infantilisation/ "they must not even know what sex IS let alone do it!!!!" really has affected me sometimes when I find myself writing and thinking "this is where a sex scene would go!" (or to the effect of) and then my mind just goes blank lol very much like what you described, even though I'm deff not aphantasic(?) This was a great video thank you so much for making it :)

@i.am.mindblind

25 күн бұрын

I'm so happy you liked this video! I definitely want to expand on the topic of sex + Autism/Disability too.

Thanks for your incite, I love your shirt...

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

It's so funny! 😂❤️

@randomaccessmemories8912

29 күн бұрын

Insight

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

Hey, there's no need to correct someone's grammar unless you misunderstood their message. This page is a safe space for many people with cognitive differences and unsolicited correcting of grammar is extremely ableist.

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

​@@i.am.mindblind😊

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

​@@i.am.mindblind ...and the "autocorrection" in combination with foreign language or just beeing tired, not wearing glasses typing on the phone can also cause a lot of mistakes. I often read comments later and then see a lot of "mistakes" myself, but hey 🤷🏽‍♀️

Affect

you can remember how to talk very well, so... in what form does your brain store language? When you want to say "hey , i see a red fire engine" for instance does it just happen ... without internal pictures or other prompts then? you're very capable with language and even writing. Our brains are such a trip. I just think of information/experiences being stored in visual or sound or some sort of association with the senses. But i guess storing a sound (like a word learned as a child) and accessing it as a sound or picture is not essential to retaining and accessing a word (symbol).

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

I just think in thoughts. When I hear red fire truck I can think about a big truck with a ladder, but there is no visual component.

@strictnonconformist7369

29 күн бұрын

My aphantasia isn't quite as complete, but close. I can see some arbitrary thing like a red fire engine when I'm asleep and dreaming. I can see one in real life. Visualize it while awake, otherwise? Nope. If someone mentions it, I conceptualize it. I don't visualize it. I can describe their various properties fairly well, sure. If I had to draw one from memory, or even direct someone to draw one from my memory as I described it, that'd be severely problematic. Probably for the same reason, I have a degree of face-blindness as well. Navigation is also often problematic in that I can't visualize what a landmark should look like ahead of time, and while I might recognize a landmark from past memory, it doesn't take much for it to become effectively a new landmark for me if there are even fairly minor changes. I'm AuDHD with a few other things thrown in. It wasn't until last year at 52 I realized aphantasia was a thing, and something most people I know (including family) don't have, and I thought it was normal. I can *sort of* hear sound in my head: it's more of a very low quality quiet thing, thoughts, nothing you'd ever hear in reality. Well, except for a few seconds in a dream a few years ago, where I heard it sound like real life external audio. But, my mind has the trait of internal echolalia and similar, and my mind will also generate music as a background task, as long as I'm not talking, whether from something I've heard, something I've created before, or... something that may not consciously be created, but is created fresh, or if I take explicit control to avoid getting stuck in a fairly tight loop (about 20 seconds) something I compose as I go along. I've also been doing long division and multiplication in my head since I was 10. I had a reason to do it, started doing it, it didn't occur to me at the time that that was weird. My first readable material in a dream was when I was 13, and I had a dream I was using a handheld calculator. I've created entire books in my dreams, all readable. But, while conscious, I can't even hold the simplest visual of a circle in my mind's eye, which explains why I was so puzzled as a kid when people mentioned about counting sheep to fall asleep, or visions of sugar plums danced in their heads for Christmas.

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

I have a video about aphantasia and dreaming apparently dreaming accuses a different part of the brain so while I don't drink very often when I do I can sometimes see images I'll wake up and be aware that I was visualizing as soon as I wake up the image snaps out of focus though. I also have prosopagnosia face blindness, but I don't think mine is as severe as some people.

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

​@@strictnonconformist7369 I am very sure I do visualize like "most people", I just can see a wider range of colours (there is a simple test where are just colors in a line and in different tones (?) fading into each other and one shall count how many different colours she*he*they can see. I thought I am worse then others, because I often saw another colour and was told I am wrong. Turned out, no, I just see a lot more, so most can't see what I see. I can't use it for anything, but it's a funny thing. But what I share is that inner composing or changing of music, adapting and hear on repeat. And I enjoy that a lot, also "loud" or inner echolalia😊.

This is silly, but I am still not used to your room being flipped. The couch used to be on the left. Now it is in the right. I know it has been a few videos but I am having difficulty with the change!

@i.am.mindblind

19 күн бұрын

I think I must have flipped my camera and didn't notice! This also points to aphantasia because I just don't carry a visual in my mind of how it's "supposed" to look.

@Catlily5

19 күн бұрын

@@i.am.mindblind That makes sense!

🩷

@zidanidane

25 күн бұрын

i think you loook realy nice in this tshirt!

You can cut out the neck of your T-shirt if you want 🤷🏻‍♀️

@i.am.mindblind

19 күн бұрын

I've tried that before, but it never looks good to me! I end up tossing the shirt.

@Catlily5

19 күн бұрын

@@i.am.mindblind Yeah, it is hard to get it just right!

Have you considered that your aphantasia and deficient autobiographical memory are an accidental artifact of your masking program that has been running since you were very young? Perhaps, someday, you will break through that remaining part of your mask program, and your aphantasia and deficient autobiographical memory will crack open. I would enjoy being there, in some fashion, if that were ever to occur. I have some simple experiments, in mind, that might make some cracks in the auditory part of your aphantasia, if you ever decide to test my hypothesis.

@i.am.mindblind

29 күн бұрын

There's many people with aphantasia/sdam that aren't autistic. I don't believe my memories or visuals are being stored. I don't think they are being recorded. I may be wrong. I personally think it'd be incredibly overwhelming to have all my memories rush back since I'm not equipped to having them. It's like a blind person who had surgery and could see for the first time but their brain didn't know how to inturpret all the visual stimulation all of a sudden. I mean, who knows what will happen because yes, I am making self discoveries and my mask was extremely powerful, but my gut instinct says it's a seperate brain function.

@jpopelish

29 күн бұрын

@@i.am.mindblind My gut instinct says that imagining a sensory experience for an imagined or predicted situation and consciously experiencing those imagined or predicted sensations are separate brain functions. I suspect that it is impossible to drive a car or sing a song, without anticipating the sensory signals that will be produced by those experiences. Being conscious of the production of those anticipations as stand-ins for the actual experience, is a separate brain function from using those anticipations to move through the world. As an amateur hypnotist, I am somewhat aware of how simple it can be to block conscious awareness of internal brain processes.

@gothboschincarnate3931

29 күн бұрын

that makes no sense at...you cant mask memory....

@jpopelish

28 күн бұрын

@@gothboschincarnate3931 You say that with such certainty. But certainty is not an argument. How can you know what I can or cannot do, in my mind?

@marthamurphy7940

28 күн бұрын

@@gothboschincarnate3931 I think many people mask memories, especially unpleasant ones. It's one of the root assumptions of several forms of psychological treatment.

There used to be "gay pride", but now, it's just "Pride"; the "gay" has been erased.

@i.am.mindblind

28 күн бұрын

I think it's a matter of Pride has gotten so big (which is a good thing!) that it's been shortened, not erased. Plus Pride encompasses more identities than just Gay so I don't see the problem.

Pretty sure that sexual activity without autism is possible. This leads to the conclusion that sexual activity is not an effect of autism.

@i.am.mindblind

28 күн бұрын

I don't know what you are saying.

@katzenbekloppt2412

28 күн бұрын

me neither🤷🏽‍♀️

@Catlily5

20 күн бұрын

Yes, this is common knowledge.