Anyone with Face blindness? Looking for tips

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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 😊

I also worry about appearing racist as someone’s ethnicity is a distinguishing feature and I find it very difficult to tell people apart when they have similar features and accent.

Joking aside I didn’t realise people could be face blind to the extent they can’t match a picture to a face or dont recongnize their own children. I have mild face (and name) blindness - meet a new person at work, on the school run - anywhere - and I will generally forget face and name as soon as they are out of sight. I tend to write names down now as soon as possible, but you don’t always get the chance.

A modern twist on this is teams meetings. You can have months of seeing and instantly recognising a persons face on a teams call at work then when you actually see them in person for the first time don’t recognize them as they are shorter or taller or in some way different to how your brain has stored your mental image of them.

I am face blind, have SDAM and Aphantasia. Terrible at directions, not good with my left and right and absolute constant monologue going on 🤣

I couldn’t match the picture to the face. I could if the people looked very different I think. But if they were similar build, hair, clothes… then i wouldn’t be able to. If it was just the face with all other cues removed, i wouldn’t be able to distinguish between familiar faces i don’t think. It blows my mind that other people could!

My husband (not face blind) has the opposite problem with Sliding Doors - despite the bandage and then the complete change of hairstyle, he still can't tell which reality is which. I've watched it a few times with him and have to give a running commentary. He always gets confused by films with alternate realities, time travel and that kind of thing.

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I'm not sure that face blindness is particularly linked to other perception issues. Even on this thread there is a wide range of strengths and weaknesses. I'm fine with left and right, I am good at map reading and finding my way, I can remember how to get somewhere reasonably complicated after making the journey only once. I can't draw well, perspective and fine motor skills are a bit of an issue, but I can write legibly with both hands. My pattern recognition excellent, which is a bit distracting sometimes, but very useful other times. I have an excellent mind's eye and can rotate things or put pieces together in my mind, I quilt and find it easier to 'trial' colours and fabrics in my head rather than using software or a colouring sheet. I prefer charts for crocheting over written instructions, when I only have written instructions I have to convert it to a visual image in my head before I start. I have really excellent colour perception, I suspect that I have tetrachromacy (four colour cones). I can match a colour almost exactly without having the original colour to hand, very useful for buying cushions. I don't have ASD, but I did do the test in one of the books I was reading when DS was diagnosed and scored in the area where the bell curves of diagnosed and undiagnosed people overlap. I can't remember music well, I need to hear a song loads of times before I remember the tune well enough to sing along. My inner monologue is constant, and not really so much of a monologue a lot of the time with different opinions, often when I think about something I go through all the possible different points of view and let them argue it out.

@EnglishBluebell Do you think we are making it all up? That we just enjoy being a bit special? That is incredibly offensive.

People like you are the reason I am not fully open about my diagnosis, because I am pretty sure my colleagues also would think “not sure I fully believe this is an actual thing”. How would you feel if people said this about ASD?

Mine is from head trauma. It is most definitely “an actual thing”. The part of the brain that recognises faces doesn’t work for me any more. It’s measurable. It’s visible on a scan. And it is fucking hard to deal with on a day to day basis. Is that enough if “a thing” for you?

@englishbluebell well the NHS think it's a 'thing', even if you don't. It has a name too...

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/face-blindness/#:~:text=Prosopagnosia%2C%20also%20called%20face%20blindness,to%20help%20you%20recognise%20people.

As well as face blind, I'm also 'car blind'.
I annoy my dh immensely with this. If ever there's a need to identify a car on my part, I never know. I can identify a few like a mini, Porsche or Ferrari as they're pretty unique but not generally.

I'm car blind too. I have to memorise the number plate of my car, or I won't find it in a car park.

I don't have aphantasia, on the contrary, I am very very good at visualising things.

When I was younger and could function without my glasses, I would take them off whenever I wasn't in a lecture or somewhere I really needed them, and I would tell people I hadn't recognised them because I wasn't wearing my glasses.

Dh used to get very upset at me when we were at uni, as I regularly blanked people in the street. I didn't know at the time I had face blindness, when we figured it out he was very relieved!

Car blind - oh my god me too! I also memorise the number plates! I never commented that to my facial blindness before - thank you!

Pretty faceblind, and not autistic. I am now entirely open about it, especially when meeting people for the first time, and I ask them to introduce themselves basically every time they come up to me. I am impressed by the strategies that people have developed to cope - I just deal with the embarassment on a regular basis.
Probably one of the most embarassing was introducing myself to someone in a meeting, when I had spent three days working with them the previous week... Oh, and not recognising a VERY close colleague who I work with daily, in the actual office we work in, because she was wearing a hat. Think that convinced her that I wasn't making it up!

I think there's probably different reasons for face blindness. Someone who can't recognise their children is very different from my slight face blindness.

I have quite a few ADHD and ASD traits, though doubt I would get a diagnosis. I do have an endless, distracting running commentary in my head though so it takes a really concerted effort to look at a face, or car, or route I am taking, to remember it. I often can't remember whether I just put water in the cat's bowl two minutes ago etc as I'm on auto pilot and brain flitting around.

I'm pretty face blind, I once failed to recognise my husband (after we'd been married for a few years) when I saw him out of context. I just tend to tell people early on and apologise in advance for if (when) I inevitably accidentally ignore them.

I remember when I was a teen watching a documentary with my dad, can’t remember what it was now, but some sort of crime documentary where the person giving the interview didn’t want to be named.
So they had footage of him sitting with his face in darkness, but you could still clearly see the outlines of his body, him moving etc.
I was bewildered, I remember asking my dad why they were showing him on television if he didn’t want anyone to know who he was.
And my dad saying that people wouldn’t recognise him because his face was in darkness, and me just not being able to get my head round that at all. I remember saying lots of times “but why couldn’t they recognise his body and clothes?” and “but when he moves they’ll know who it is” (because that was how I always recognised people), and my dad getting irritated with me.

I just hope I never witness a crime and need to answer any questions from the police. I'd be the most useless person ever.
Can you describe the perpetrator? Er no
Could you recognise the perpetrator in a line up? Er no
What car did they get away in? Er no idea but it was black.

I'm terrible with both faces and names, and it's really embarrassing - especially at work, where I'm one of the people most new starters get introduced to during their induction. They then all recognise me and think, not unreasonably, that I will recognise them. I will not. I'm constantly replying to cheery 'hello's when I walk round the building from people I would swear under oath I've never seen before in my life.

I once stopped someone who I thought was a stranger trying to tailgate me through a card access door, and said I'd report her to Security. "But...it's me??" she said helplessly, obviously genuinely baffled, as I slammed the door in her face. Still no idea who that was

Car blind! Is this a thing?!! I phoned a mechanic recently and he asked what car I have. I didn’t know.

I have quite a few ADHD and ASD traits, though doubt I would get a diagnosis. I do have an endless, distracting running commentary in my head though so it takes a really concerted effort to look at a face, or car, or route I am taking, to remember it. I often can't remember whether I just put water in the cat's bowl two minutes ago etc as I'm on auto pilot and brain flitting around.

I think this may be my problem too I can draw well and accurately from still life as I'm making myself concentrate. But usually all threads I'm holding together in my head stop me from taking enough notice. I have lots of ADHD traits, the textbook really.

I have adhd and this sounds a lot like me!

I didn’t think I’d get a diagnosis either but it was actually a very clear diagnosis at my assessment, I scored quite highly

I bought several copies of the same clothes for my son when he went to nursery as a baby - on the couple of occasions he damaged both his original set and the identical spare set I had sent and ended up in a random onesie I remember having to very awkwardly try to subtly smell the two or three most likely babies on pickup to find him - I could pick him out instantly by scent but wasn't 100% certain I'd be able to do it purely by sight.

I completely understand why you would feel this way. I have face blindness and I also feel this way! There is a part of me that thinks I could recognise faces if I just tried hard enough. But I know I'm trying hard so it doesn't make sense.

My children are an interesting case. I photograph them a lot and I know what they look like from each different angle - there are so many different angles and expressions and they change as they grow so it is a constant source of amazement. It's hard to explain but it's not like being unable to recognise them as such, more being astounded that all these pictures which look completely different to me are actually the same person. I accept that they have to be and find them endlessly interesting to look at because they're like a kaleidoscope that I love very much. But I do find it mind blowing that all these different representations are of the same person, and mind-blowing that I'm unable to merge these into one image in my head the way other people can. To me they are too different. Oddly enough I'm a really good portrait photographer.

Six months into a new job, I had to ask my friend if that person was X with her hair tied up since I'd never seen her like that before. She confirmed that it was. But other questions like that have brought a look of disbelief and "Of course not!" so I can't get complacent.

The one thing I can do is recognise actors when they're playing a different role before anyone else can. I think this is because there are certain things about themselves that people can't change and aren't related to the way they look - the tone of voice, the way their jaw works when they forth certain words - and once I have learned these things, I will recognise the person based on these characteristics regardless of what is changed or aged about their appearance.

I understood late facial blindness was a marker for bipolar and this scared me for a while.

I’m badly face blind. Which as a lecturer is an issue, I have students that I’ve taught for 3 years and I can’t recognise them/name them. However if they tell me/someone mentions their name I know everything about them, any issues they’ve had, how they’re doing in the course, etc. so it’s not a lack of interest in them.

when Dd was at primary school I’d get her confused with a couple of other girls who had similar colour and length hair and glasses. I tend to pick up on an unusual thing about that person to try and pick them out. One social activity I do people turn up in cars and I memorise car number plates. I can put a name to the car number plate!