I posit, without evidence, that the people who feel "confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy" about something like aphantasia are simply attention-seekers. If it wasn't for lack of mental imagery, it would be for something else.
The fact that the author doesn't mention the details of the memory or events of the day also suggests shame and concerns of being judged for them.
The good news is they are writing about their struggles which suggests their willingness to work with these fears.
I think the answer probably isn't about pretending you're not better or worse, but accepting that being better or worse at something doesn't change your inherent self worth. Accepting that your not in control of many of your conditions and conditioning can free the mind from a sense of guilt and the fear around judgement of yourself and others. Hopefully this helps the author and those who struggle with notions of identity and self worth.
No, it's not a defensive/counterattacking reflex. The thought of people hallucinating all the time is terrifying to me, because hallucination is a sign of something being very wrong, like schizophrenia. After getting past the language barrier and finding out these were "mental hallucinations" rather than "visual hallucinations", it's slightly less scary, but still unsettling for me to think about. Finding out that visualization was actually a thing meant that idioms that I thought were metaphors or superstition were suddenly something the majority of the population takes literally. People who have "invisible friends" talking to them all day long scares me though.
Also you might find it interesting to read Jaynes' Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It's evidently controversial and not a viewpoint to uncritically adopt wholesale, but it does get you thinking about mental visualization/audiolization vs. hallucinations etc... and contains some intriguing historical anecdotes.
I thought the same, but after reading this I'm beginning to wonder whether or not there is actually a difference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260122074033.ht...
It seems like the "voice in the head" is distinguished from real voices by a mechanism similar to how tickling yourself doesn't cause the same sensation as another doing the tickling. People with inner voices and visualizations might actually be hallucinating all the time, they're just aware of it and not being misled by their senses like a schizophrenic would be.
In hindsight this explained a lot of things. One example would be that I always was bad at blindfold chess even though I was a decent chess player. Before, I never understood how people can do this.
Still I am absolutely fine. I can recognize all these things. I can describe them. I just can "imagine" them.
After the first shock you understand that everything has pros and cons. E.g. I never have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes and turn the world around me off. My wife can see images very vividly and always has trouble going to sleep.
In the end we just need to accept that the brain is very complex and each of us has developed / adapted the best way, allowed by our biology.
Experiences like that are how I understand the question of 'shame' relating to aphantasia and the importance of 'diagnosis'/understanding how your mind actually works. 'Diagnosis' just helps you understand how to adapt and prevents you from slamming your head against approaches that won't work no matter how hard you try.
Similarly on sleep, I can sleep anywhere anytime with little effort and always tell my wife, who often has insomnia, "just close your eyes until you sleep" to her frustration.
What's really remarkable is how similar the life experiences are of most who have aphantasia...