From 5 years old, I was dead set on being a writer. I have always been interested in language and was rewarded with a great sense of satisfaction when the nuances of words resonated in my head. It didn’t matter to me that I have aphantasia because I didn’t know it existed. (It’s like a play in my head where the actors are playing behind a closed curtain - and I’m the wrong side of it.) All I knew is that each word was unique even in the face of its synonyms, and I felt those differences coursing through my very own neurones. I still do!
I was the child who, instead of going out to play, curled up in the corner and took herself to a world of her own invention through the means of the written word. I saw sheets of paper more than I saw the sun and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Who cares if I’d have to be the starving artist for a while? Who cares that I’d likely have been hit by more rejections than acceptances?
And then secondary school started. English became more about regurgitating someone else’s analyses in essays than being creative. People used to look at me as if to say, “A writer? What a waste of a brain.” My mind became aware of its blindness and I became severely depressed - and I stopped writing altogether. I am scared to admit that my mind fights to find words sometimes. I am even more afraid to admit that I have nothing about which to write at all anymore.
My five-year-old self would be so disappointed... she sacrificed her imagination - the greatest part of herself - to the hands of an education system that moulds us into depressed conformists.