hiding synaesthesia

The most recent conversation on the synaesthesia mailing list has been to do with hiding synaesthesia. A lot of people have reported how they have felt like they had to hide their synaesthesia from everyone including sometimes their families, for fear of ridicule, bullying or reactions from others like ‘you’re lying’.

I didn’t know that my coloured words were different, let alone had a name, until I was 19, so before that I didn’t really talk about it (thinking it was normal) so never felt like I had to hide it.

Until this conversation came up this week I thought that for the last few years I had been open about my synaesthesia. I was lucky enough to find a couple of people like me at university so it was fun to compare colours, so spoke about it occasionally then.

Now I tell people I know and trust, just because sometimes I have to explain why I get their name wrong or why I get certain words and things mixed up, but generally I keep it to myself. I suppose people assume that synaesthetes are just attention-seeking which is why I don’t mention it much.

It’s quite frustrating having to keep quiet though. If something is the ‘wrong’ colour, like for example if a graphic on a webpage doesn’t match the colour I see for the word on it, it bothers me constantly like a mosquito that just won’t fuck off. Or if a person’s name doesn’t match the colour I feel for them that can be really irritating too. And then I have to keep all this stupid annoyance to myself and it’s really distracting!

It’s a shame that some people really have to hide it because I think it’s really interesting, but I understand why. No-one wants to be laughed at (apart from comedians). I guess it’s such a difficult thing to explain that it’s easier to stay quiet.

synesthesia Q&A (part 1)

I recently tried an online test called The Synaesthesia Battery and thought it might be of interest to anyone wanting to know more about synaesthesia.

Bear in mind that there are lots of different types of synaesthesia, and within each type are many variations, so it’s very probable that a lot of what I say won’t be experienced by other grapheme-colour synaesthetes, and likewise there will be similarities too – I guess that’s the point of the questionnaire. These are my answers.

When did your synesthesia begin?

Always had it

Can you think of any experiences that could have shaped your synesthetic associations, like childhood colored letter blocks?

Yes it’s possible that alphabet and number charts were the cause of some associations but I can’t remember anything specific. There are some names where I think the colour stems back to the first person I knew of that name (e.g. benjamin is orange, and the first benjamin I knew had bright ginger hair, and John is grey and the first John I knew wore a grey shirt at school when everyone else wore white)

Do you experience synesthesia all the time, or only under certain conditions?

All the time

Is your synesthesia present when you close your eyes?

Yes

Does your synesthesia interfere with other activities?

No

Does your synesthesia ever distract you?

I get distracted by everything anyway, but my synaesthesia does not distract me in a way that I can’t control

Do you feel that paying attention to your synesthetic perception requires effort?

A little. If I am being asked about my synaesthesia I find it difficult to answer the questions because I feel bombarded and get mixed up, but in a normal relaxed environment I have no trouble paying attention to it

Can you ignore your synesthesia?

It’s always there, but only very noticeable when I stop on a word or think about something

Does your synesthesia help you to remember things (by association)?

Numbers up to about 20 are easier to remember, but I think the synaesthesia either does nothing for my memory or just confuses me. Sometimes if I am trying to remember a word I can only remember its colour and not the actual word which is completely useless

Are there any properties of your synesthetic perceptions that make it easy to tell that they are internal (in your head) rather than external (in the outside world)? For instance, is the synesthetic yellow color you may see with a certain number different in any way from a real yellow color?

The colours, although vivid, are in a way transparent at the same time. So if I go into Photoshop and pick the colour for Wednesday, it will never be exact because my Wednesday will be a transparent orange rather than the block of orange I have picked in Photoshop.