Reply To: Synaesthesia

[Blue Yugo]

Synaesthesia is experienced differently by people, like some might say that pineapple tastes like squares.  Although I don’t have that type, I can at least appreciate and understand how it might be perceived in the minds of someone for whom that applies.  The numbers are fun…I often like or dislike my phone numbers and car license plates (etc.) based on what color scheme the numbers appear to me as.  My current phone number has an autumn motif with some blue mixed in, but a prior phone number was more like a box of crayons with many colors.  I say 2013 is a green year because of the 3, but 2012 was a brown year because the 2’s are brown.  Someone might tell me their phone number and I often remark like, “Ooh, that’s a colorful phone number.”  Then, unfortunately, I’m stuck either explaining or having my new potential contact think twice about having just given me their number.

I can remember numbers from long ago because of patterns of color etched in my memory, but I can’t remember the name of a person I was just introduced to because I generally don’t pay attention to stuff like that.  I don’t absorb names.  But after a while, I may at least recall the color of the first letter, yet it will still take me months to remember the full name.

Science probably has a hard time looking at Synaesthesia because – like ADD / ADHD – it’s different for everyone.  It’s also much rarer than ADD and almost never causes impairment or ‘disorder’ and is therefore dismissed as a curio rather than something the drug companies can make money off of.  Rightfully, I find Synaesthesia a gift.  ADD is sometimes called a gift, too, under the right circumstances.  I think it’s great that in ADD’s case, sometimes people report that it gives them a creative edge.  As someone who’s just recently tested predominantly inattentive ADD, I can’t say I find much from it to be a gift, although I am prone to being super-productive and efficient at times for tasks that don’t really matter or were less priority than the things I SHOULD have done…but any time I can cross something off the to-do list is a win I guess.

ADD’ers are the experts on ADD…  Synaesthetes are the experts on Synaesthesia.  I do wonder if there’s any sort of parallel between the two in that perhaps Synaesthetes more often or less often have ADD.  No one here probably has the answer.  I mainly wonder because Synaesthesia is also a result of “abnormal” brain wiring and functioning.  You’re born with it…that much they know.  It presents itself by very early childhood and never goes away.

I’m just learning about the depths to which ADD affects me in my daily life as well as all those doors of my past that the key of ADD has unlocked and explained why my former years transpired the way they had.  Synaesthesia, alas, is just there, like eye color.  It holds no keys, but I wouldn’t trade having it for anything.  As a side note, simply knowing that you meet the criteria for ADD is one thing…but then it’s a journey finding all the places it’s been in the past and how it’s active today…something that you have to go out and observe and discover.  So in many ways, ADD is a much grander adventure and I’m more likely to find people with it than those outside of my family with Synaesthesia.  ADD does not run in my family, and it appears to be a result of having survived Reye’s Syndrome.  I guess that’s why it was overlooked especially during my academically-challenged youth.  I also can’t relate to others in my family since none of them close to me seem to have a hint of ADD.  At least I can relate to a sister and a few cousins with Synaesthesia.

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