You have probably never heard the word prosopagnosia before. I definitely hadn't until googling symptoms to figure out what I was experiencing and this is what came up. Prosopagnosia is a neurological condition affecting the part of the brain of facial recognition. The rest of your brain functions normally and your vision isn't impaired. I can see people's faces clearly and identify their emotions but it sometimes won't immediately click who the person is. It's on a spectrum and luckily I only have a mild form. Some people with prosopagnosia aka face blindness have a hard time recognizing their own face in pictures or the faces of people closest to them.
A common thing people struggle with is forgetting other people's names. Whereas I have trouble remembering people's faces. I don't remember this really being an issue in my life until I started college. In high school I seemed to recognize all my classmates and teachers, but maybe it's because I grew up with all of the students so it was easier. I recognize my face, my friends faces, and family, but have a harder time remembering faces of people I don't know well yet. This includes professors and classmates when I was at college, coworkers, and people at my church when I first started going. It also makes it hard for me to follow a movie sometimes if they're are a lot of characters. I might not recognize who the character is or if they've appeared in the movie before that moment. I have a few embarrassing stories related to this condition, because embarrassment can happen a lot with this condition.
Story 1: I went to a conference in Pennsylvania with a friend a few years back. He challenged me to introduce myself to three people I didn't know as mission for the day. (Can you see where this is going?) It wasn't so bad that I introduced myself to him or his family thankfully, but I ended up introducing myself to my roommate for the conference. I said Hi, I'm Alex, and she said....yeah....we're roommates. She had already known me...rightfully so...after sharing a room with me and sleeping in a bed right near my bed. I was so embarrassed.
Story 2: This happened last year when I didn't recognize a coworker. I worked at various different houses throughout the Kenosha area and when I got to one of the houses one day, I noticed a woman on my client's porch. I waited and didn't get out of my car at first, she ended up turning around and saw me in my car, and must have wondered why I had stayed in my car. I then realized that she was my coworker. There's no reason I shouldn't have been able to recognize her, since we had worked together at that same house so I should have known her face. Embarrassed I got out of my car and joined her.
Story 3: This happened a few months ago. At church one morning I was talking to one of my friends, and at the same night I ended up running into her again. She happily rushed over to me, but my face must have looked really lost, but when she started talking I realized who it was. I apologized for it taking a few seconds for me to realize it was her, and she graciously blamed it on the fact she had been wearing a mask so it was harder to recognize her. (Which could have had an effect).
These are just some stories of many. It can be very frustrating. Especially since at places like college or church I'm never sure if I've met some of the people there before, but I'm to afraid to introduce myself just in case we've been going to the same church for years and they'd reply with..."We've definitely met, Alex, many times actually." or something to that extent. I remember a professor seeing me in the hallway at college and smiling at me and saying hi, by the time I realized that she had been talking to me and it had been one of my professors she was gone and I hadn't said hi or smiled back. I felt guilty because she could have thought that I had ignored her.
The first day at my new job in the Fall was kind of a mess. All the other staff were introducing themselves left and right, and after awhile I couldn't remember who had introduced themselves to me and who hadn't. So another staff would be like "Have you met Alex yet" and I'd wait for them to answer because I genuinely didn't know. At this point I can thankfully say I can recognize all my coworkers and kids at the school (there's only 10 kids). Through repetition of following a school schedule and hearing their name said and pairing it with their face I have been able to add their faces into my long-term memory.
Facebook has been a helpful tool for me, as weird as that sounds. On Facebook I can pair someone's profile picture and name together, so when I see them in person I will most likely be able to recognize them easier. This is how this person looks, and this is their name. I'd say I can recognize most if not all of my Facebook friends if I were to see them in person. It's kind of complicated to explain.
I will use this last paragraph to apologize to anyone I may not have recognized at all or it took me a little bit to recognize, and I gave you the confused "who are you?" look after you said my name. I apologize for my brain not working correctly, just be patient with me and know that eventually I'll be able to recognize your face right away if I haven't already. I wasn't ignoring you or being rude, my brain was genuinely confused. It's a weird condition, and whenever I would explain it to people they could only relate it to how they easily forgot people's names and wouldn't struggle with the faces. After looking it up I found out why. Apparently only 2% of people struggle with this same condition. I guess I have a rare brain. Although I'm not sure if that's a good thing. :P
Interesting. I think it might have a lot to do with disassociative disease that might still be lingering in a small way.
ReplyDeleteWhich also makes my brain rare. 1% of people with a dissociative disorder.
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