I agree with you as an adult with aphantasia, but I think it's a relatively common experience as an undiagnosed kid in grade school etc.

Hmm, agreeing that the pathologization of aphantasia is distasteful but then immediately positing that people who might feel shame and inadequacy about having it must be "simply attention-seekers" seems counterproductive. Not treating aphantasia as a disease and also acknowledging that people may suffer mental illness triggered by it are not mutually exclusive.

For me, learning that normal people go about their days constantly hallucinating had the opposite effect. I think it could partly explain some problems in society, e.g. people's susceptibility to advertising.