If someone you love has just told you about this.

The short version

Aphantasia means they cannot voluntarily form mental images — pictures, and sometimes sounds, smells, textures, whole imagined scenes. Most people’s minds do this automatically. Theirs does not. It is not a disorder. It has always been this way.

SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) means they cannot mentally re-experience past events. They remember the facts of their life — where they grew up, who their family is, what they did yesterday — but cannot step back into those moments. The knowledge is there. The re-living is not.

The two often overlap. If the person you care about has described both to you, they are describing something real, increasingly well-studied, and increasingly named.

What this is not

• It is not that they do not love you. The fact that they cannot picture your face, or cannot replay the holiday you just shared, says nothing about how much you matter. It says something about the machinery — which part of the machinery does what.
• It is not forgetfulness. Most people with SDAM have perfectly good memory in most senses. The specific thing that is thin is the mental replay, not the remembering-that-something-happened.
• It is not a recent change. This is how their mind has always worked. The new thing is only the word for it.
• It is not fixable. Nothing has been shown to reliably produce imagery or episodic recall in someone who lacks it. The apps that claim otherwise are not supported by evidence. Please do not send them one, however well-meant.

Things that genuinely help

Take photos. Write captions.

The photograph is not the memory, but it is often the handle by which the person with aphantasia or SDAM can pick memory up. A captioned photo — “you fell asleep against me on the train home, we were both knackered, it was a good day” — is often worth more than a whole album without one.

Tell the story back

Shared memories live in re-telling. Your version of yesterday, spoken aloud, is how yesterday becomes part of their stored sense of who you both are. This is unromantic to describe and quite romantic to do.

Assume love, not coldness

When they say something like “I cannot miss people the way you miss them”, they are not telling you they do not care. They are trying to say something true about how their mind works. It is a vulnerable thing to say. It is worth holding carefully.

Things that tend to hurt (even when meant kindly)

• “Have you tried really trying to picture it?” They have. For years. It does not work, and being asked to perform it feels a bit like being asked to jump higher than your legs allow.
• “I read there are exercises for this.” There are not, not in any evidence-backed sense. Well-meant, but it lands as you should be fixing yourself.
• “Don’t you remember?” Reframing as “let me tell you about it” is almost always better. The first sentence pricks at the thing they cannot do. The second offers them something they can use.
• Comparing to someone else’s vivid memory. Not useful, whatever your intent. Their mind is not theirs.

For partners specifically

Relationships that include someone with aphantasia or SDAM often work beautifully when the remembering gets shared out. You may find yourself the “keeper of the story” more than you expected — the one who remembers anniversaries, holds the in-jokes, tells the origin story at dinner parties. This is not unfair if you do not want it to be; many couples find it becomes a fond division of labour. It is worth naming that it is happening, so neither of you drifts into resentment about it.

For parents of an older child who has just discovered this

If your teenager or adult child has recently told you they have aphantasia or SDAM, the single most useful thing you can do is believe them. The second most useful thing is not to blame yourself. This is not the result of anything that did or did not happen in childhood; the research strongly suggests a lifelong neurological pattern. The third most useful thing is to ask them what they would find helpful — then do that, rather than what you imagine they might need.

Supporting them (and yourself)

It can take a while to land for either of you. You may find yourself grieving a version of them you thought you had — the one who would remember. It is worth saying out loud that the version you have is just as real, and loves you back just as much, only held differently. If that takes a conversation, or several, have them.

A UK-focused forum is in preparation and will include a category for family and partners. It opens later in 2026; until then, the newsletter is the easiest way to be told when it is live, and the contact address is the right place for questions you would rather ask now.