Anyone with Face blindness? Looking for tips

[SafeMouse]

I've always had face blindness and it's always caused problems socially with people thinking I'm rude. But I swear it's getting worse with age. I saw someone who I've seen weekly for 12 weeks outside of their usual setting this week and didn't recognise them at all until I twigged her accent. It's causing problems in work when I can spend all evening with them at a networking event then not recognise them again.

Other than making physical notes on someone's appearance- which in itself I can see getting me into trouble- any help or suggestions? Thanks 😊

Yes.

i really appreciate when shows main characters have different hair colours

i found bombshell a car crash to watch because all the women basically looked the same…

its awful isn’t it. Networking meetings are dreadful, business do’s….I rely on my husband a lot.

I'm in the club!

I lived in fear of taking the wrong child home from nursery. I would walk in the room and they just all looked the same! Absolutely terrifying!

I also annoy the hell out of my husband as I struggle to follow films and constantly ask who the characters are and get mixed up.

I'm rather perturbed that it gets worse with age. It feels pretty bad already.

In person work meeting exercises where they say "Emma, can you team up with Paul and Julie" and you have to make a pretence of fiddling with your laptop for a bit while hoping they come over to you ...

I listened to a podcast recently which had a really helpful bit on remembering names. This one https://www.melrobbins.com/podcasts/episode-187

Yes, it's a huge issue for me particularly for my work, but I'm now quite good at 'faking' it, or depending on the situation I just let people know. I still can't recognise my kids in photos
My dad also had it, I remember someone stopping him in the street once, and chatted away to him, talking about some event they had both recently been too, straight after I asked dad who it was and he replied 'no idea'!
The real issue is introducing people to each other, it's an absolute bugger and I'm sure people must think I'm being really rude.
Both my kids have been taught never to ask 'who are you talking to mum?' (Or something in a similar vein) but I can't train my bloody husband to just keep quiet, even though he knows I have prosopagnosia .

I'll have a listen later thanks for posting the link, I might be leaping ahead as I haven't listened yet, but if I don't recognise a face, I'm not sure how I'll attach the name?

Oh God the films yes, especially when some casting directors seem to go for identical very similar looking goodies and badies I get completely lost!

I have it and it started in my thirties. I need tips too. I do tell people I have a problem recognising faces so at least they know. School gates an absolute nightmare

Is it a sign of something?

Love island was a nightmare.

Thankfully I can recognise voices really well, and often the way people walk.

I also use the “forgot my glasses” trick.

I dread when arrangements are made to meet up somewhere, particularly when travelling with colleagues and we arrange to meet in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I could literally end up either sitting down with a group of strangers thinking they were my colleagues, or sitting at the empty table next to them all with them wondering why I didn’t want to speak to them. My usual trick therefore is to get there VERY early so they join me rather than me having to join them.

I have also perfected the art of the friendly but ambiguous smile. (I could be smiling because I’m just having a nice day, or because you are my husband and I’m delighted to see you).

I would love it if real life worked like Teams and everyone came with a label. Hopefully VR glasses and facial recognition will make that a reality.

It upsets me that it’s not really a recognised medical condition. Although I have mentioned it at work, I’m pretty sure they thought I was either attention seeking or making it up.

I had great problems with one series of The Apprentice because there were so many blonde women with big eyebrows and lips. I avoid films with too many men in uniform as it is too confusing.

I’m faceblind (but not ASD in response to a past poster).
I also teach secondary, so learning names is a REAL challenge. Hair colour, style, specs, seating plan, mannerisms all help.

Thanks for the discussion. I think my older DS aged 14 has face blindness. He can really only recognise me and DH and his brother and mixes our neighbour up with his grandfather (who lives in New Zealand and has not been here since 2019). He ran up to our neighbour shouting 'Granddad!!!!!' thinking he was making a surprise visit for his birthday. I am not sure how to even broach the subject of it right now. So i am keen to learn more.

DS has ASD.

I’m autistic

Bless him.
I never had a problem with family until I moved away from home. Then I'd have to double check even mum/Dad. Although saying that there was an incident when I was a wee toddler and followed the wrong lady out of the shop thinking it was my mum.
It's a tricky one to explain and I'm not ASD in response to the previous poster. In other respects, especially the written word, I'd say my memory is above average. I just can't do it with faces.

Me! Every man with brown hair is the same man to me! I had to save a diagram to look at when I watched Game of Thrones.

I spent years thinking Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller were the same person. Kim Kardashian and Nicole Sherzinger were the same person too.

My mum was even worse. She made a new friend at the gym and a new friend who moved in across the road in the street she lived in - turned out it was the same person! She just assumed they had the same name until the neighbour asked if she was going up the gym and something clicked.

Ah, placemarking as this is a real bugbear of mine. My funniest mishap was when landing in a small airport just after covid restrictions were lifted, so airports were still quite empty, and there were only about 15 people in the waiting area when i came through. My father was collecting me. He's an old man with a cane. I was so excited when I got through to the lounge, I saw him but had to go through this long snaky bit to get to him. The whole way I'm pointing to him, shouting "Hi!" And "yeah, its me!" and this poor man is staring back at me, but with a kind of smile so I still think it's my Dad. Until i get to the end of the walkway, and there's my Dad. I tell him what happened and we're laughing pretty hard, and that poor guy, he must have thought I was being mean, but my hope is he saw the resemblance. I never recognise my family in airports. Its so tiring collecting someone because I'm starting at everyone trying to find my cherished loved ones.

I used to keep notes of descriptions people, but trends make that hard. There was a time when so many men had a beard, so many women had sleek hair. I work in a team of about 50 but to my mind there's only about 10 people because their appearances are all so similar.

I don't tell anyone. I do apologise though. And I probably look aloof alot.

I have this problem too - although not to the extent some of you have as I can recognise my family and well established contacts.

It's a nightmare as I work in a school. I've been in my current class for a year and there are still a couple of pairs of kids I mix up.

My kids know to expect the response 'i have no idea' when I bump into someone when we're out, end up having a long chat and they want to know who it was.

I do have aphantasia, which almost certainly contributes to it. And also ASD.

Hmmm it depends. There are two forms, one which is congenital and likely inherited (if one parent had it, it's likely offspring will inherit the condition) it can also happen following a neurological incident. Most people aren't aware they have it because it's not really discussed, so you're likely to assume everyone is the same!
It doesn't gradually get 'worse' (as far as I know, but I'm not an expert, and maybe peri menopause can aggravate it?), but I imagine it's like anything neurological, in that if you are tired or stressed, the strategies your brain normally uses to compensate aren't working quite so efficiently, giving you the illusion it's getting worse. Eg if you're brain is better at picking out accents, which then helps boost the facial recognition connection, and then you find you're stressed / knackered or thinking about 20billion other things, your brain's capacity to pick up that accent and put it with a face, can be lessened.
It's similar with conditions of ND which often become exacerbated with fatigue or stress.

I have this. Professionally impacts me too. People are offended I don’t remember them. I don’t even recognise my neighbour if I was to bump into them at the supermarket.

I've face blindness as well - I've even walked past my husband in town as I wasn't expecting him to be there (been married 30 years!)

It's embarrassing as folk will stop me in the supermarket with a cheery hi how are you and I have no idea who they are - I've learnt to use leading questions in the hope they mention a name or give me some clue as to who they are!

I live in quite a small town and used to work in the local Tesco's as well as being a scout leader for many years so my face (and accent) is well known but I can have a conversation with people and be none the wiser as to who they were when they've left!

If I meet someone in the right context it's fine , it's just when they aren't where I would expect them to be it's a problem!

And yes I struggle to pick my dc out in group photographs as well!

If any one is interested there is a fascinating book called 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' written by Oliver Sacks an eminent Neurologist. His books are very accessible and well worth a read, the brain is quite extraordinary!