To be so embarrassed and feel tired of being the way I am?

[VioletBam]

I've always had difficulties recognising people and have also always had problems with getting lost.

I can't recognise people that I know. Recently I discovered this condition was "an actual thing" called prosopagnosia. Most people call it Face Blindness.

I am not VERY bad with it...I know my own family for instance. But if I see for example...one of my children's teachers outside the confines of their classroom, then I won't know them from Adam.

All my life I have had situations where people would just start talking to me...and I'd have no idea who they were.

Sometimes they'd say things like "Don't you know me?" or "It's X! From Y!" and get annoyed.

Well it's just happened again. I'm in Australia and it's day here. I was walking down a street which is long and eventually leads to my own. There had been a procession in the village...and DD and I were returning.

A woman was walking behind us...she smiled and caught up with DD and I and said "Do you take the short cut or go the long way?"

And I looked blankly at her and said "I usually go the long way or I get lost...but how do you know where I'm going?"

Then DD said "Mum! It's Emily's Mum!"

Emily is DD's friend...she lives on our street...three doors up. I have this woman's number...she has been round to my house to collect her DD. I've met her husband. I've met this woman about 30 times since we moved in a year ago.

I decided to be open and said "I have face blindness" and she just laughed and carried on chatting.

Does she now think I'm a weirdo or rude?

It's happened SO often. I also get lost all the time. And can't recognise our car or the cars of other people I should do.

I'm sick of it!

Me too, lots of very awkward moments when I haven't recognised neighbours. I'm exactly the opposite about houses, if I went into someone's home for a few minutes I can remember every small detail afterwards, like a photograph in my mind.

I have a mild form of this too. If I see someone out of the usual context it can take me ages to recognise them. When I start a new job I cope by checking everyone's name on their (hopefully displayed) work passes before I address them. I joke to my close friends that they're lucky I know who they are!

Me too, although more mildly than some on this thread including OP (and I don't really do the getting lost thing). I didn't realise it was as high as 1/50. I vaguely remember reading the Oliver Sacks thing (or perhaps a précis of it) a few years ago and realising it was A Thing and not either totally universally or just me not trying hard enough.

It makes work in particular very very difficult.

I have the opposite problem and you might think that's a good thing but it's not. I never forget a face and lm the one smiling away and person hasn't a clue who l am. I went to a self help type of group where everything was confidential and no one there knew me. I knew everyone in the room as l had seen them somewhere on one occasion eg working in a boutique miles away. It was so awkward as l had to pretend not to know. You have no idea how much of a strain it is as l remember every detail they have said in previous sightings even if l just overheard them in a doctors waiting room. It would freak people if l let on so have to be very careful. My dd is the same and we only discovered this recently as l have kept it hidden and so had she.
I would definitely say say it as often as you can and get your family involved to say the name loudly and clearly as person approaches.

June Oliver Sacks was like me but his Father was like you. He recognised thousands of people...Oliver Sacks said it's like some people are at one end of the scale whilst others are...well...at the other!

You are hyper able and I am...whatever the opposite of that is! We should get together.

You can whisper "It's him...that man you saw once on a bus last year!"

This happens to me too, although I seem to have a photographic memory when it comes to places and directions. I can never remember people out of context. It's lead to many embarrassing or awkward conversations with people I should know yet struggle to remember where from. And has exacerbated my social anxiety. Funnily enough i need to associate each person with something in order to make my mind remember them, like H's friend who I called "thingy" for many years until he picked me up and attempted to throw me into a pond at a party. I never forgot his name since!

OP, please start telling people! When you are introduced, if it's more than just a passing intro and you get chatting, simply mention it as something they should be aware of. And something they can help you with in future.

It's nothing to be ashamed of - do you feel a need to hide it? People will be offended if you don't recognise them, I would be, it would make me feel unimportant and not worth remembering. But if I knew there was a reason for it, that's totally different!

(NB not everyone may be familiar with the term Face Blindness - from the sound of it the woman in your OP didn't recognise the term. And maybe thought you were saying something along the lines of "oh I'm going deaf" which I've noticed people say if they don't hear someone, for example, even though their hearing is fine.

It is not surprising that people struggle with this - what a finely tuned instrument the brain is, how difficult it is to tell people apart when we meet so many of them. It's a wonder anyone can tell them all apart!

I have this too.

I really struggle to follow films because characters usually look similar to me so it's hard to follow the plot as I don't know who's who.

In my last job I needed a floor plan with everyone's name written on to be able to do my job as I struggled to remember faces and names. It took a good couple of years before I remembered who was who.

If people have a distinguishing feature I'm fine. If they don't then I really struggle.

I never notice people I know when out and about; it's always other people that spot me.

I have no sense of direction either. I have to find landmarks that really stand out or I have no chance of finding my way around. People actually laugh at me for this.

I have the same problem and it has caused a lot of anxiety in social situations Haven't read the whole thread but thank you so much VioletBam for raising it,.

When we moved into our current home I spent several hours chatting to a neighbour who worked at my DD's new school, of course I didn't recognise her the following day. I actually said to her "I'm sorry, I don't know who you are" when she started to speak. She avoided me afterwards. At least I think she did, could have been someone else.

How on earth can you tell people? It's not something that's ever going to flow into conversation until after you've forgotten who they are.

I have an interesting fact / question for you all. There is no part of our brain that has evolved for reading and instead we use the part that recognises faces to recognise letters.

I read a lot and love reading. And I can't recognise faces very well.

My husband is dyslexic and doesn't like reading but is very good at faces.

So my question is, do all of you on this thread with some degree of face blindness prefer reading?

And to anyone with dyslexia - are you good at faces?

Yeah I have difficulty recognising even people I know out of context. I don't know if I have a condition. Anyway it's all about developing answers that work for any situation. And if someone seems to know you, assume they do!

I have this too, I was told it's linked to my asd?

I have dyslexia and I'm crap with faces. But I have visual dyslexia so I suspect that's why!

Sounds really tough OP. What I do with regards getting lost is I remember landmarks - the same way you remember facial features. So if there's a pylon or tall house with unusual chimney near yours that can be seen from distance then you can use that ro give you an idea of the direction you're heading.

With public transport I use the internet to plan my journey and look at maps beforemi go.

"How on earth can you tell people? It's not something that's ever going to flow into conversation until after you've forgotten who they are."

Which is exactly why you pre-empt it. If you wait until after an "incident", the feelings of rejection in the other party will remain, even vestigially.

If you explain it in advance, there is no opportunity for misunderstanding to arise in the first place.

Eg at the school gates "Hi, I'm Violet. Yes, I'm miniBam's mum. Oh, you live on Nearby Street? I'm just near there on My Street. By the way, I have prosopagnosia - you might have heard of it, face blindness? Yep, like Oliver Sacks. So if I pass you in the street and don't recognise you, don't be offended, I just can't recognise you from your face alone but if you give me a little reminder I'll know who you are no problems"

salty the mystified tone of your post makes it sound as though there is something for the OP to be ashamed of, which there absolutely isn't

I have face blindness. So has my dad, but he puts it down to never looking at people's faces. We have Asperger's. Out of context, we don't even recognise each other.

I have found that explaining it helps,I have a friend who is like junebirthday girl and it helps to include her in the explanation. I volunteer in a situation where I help a group of people but can't always remember their names but it doesn't seem to matter at the end of the day it's how you interact with people that matters.

Dh has this- pretty bad.

When we were first dating - he recognised me from being short- he might easily have gone off with anyone short who approached him!

He also did the bbc test and felt relieved/astounded.

It has definitely held him back at work- he works in a world where it's all charm/charm. That's v difficult if you're not sure you were chatting with them yesterday or never met them before. He's a good listener - he's had to be- but he feels he is rubbish at communicating because he has to hold back in those first minutes.

He's great with directions tho!

This week, Ds twice didn't recognise adults he knows quite well, so I'm wondering...

I have this too. Only found out when I was being diagnosed with Aspergers as apparently it's a common symptom.

I always tell people I have it, most people seem fine with it although I get a few people who clearly think U've just made it up.

I've tried focusing on remembering one distinctive feature with people. So for example when I meet Emily's mum I put her in my memory bank as 'Red Hair Emily's mum'. Then I can take a slightly educated guess based on the situation in which I bump into her.

I have it, too, very severely. I've walked past my husband before now, and can't tell which is my child in a photo. Oh, and completely failed to recognise Tony Blair and various other famous people in person.

I tell people at work, and my team are great about helping, "Hi, Mirror, you know X, don't you", but I do find that there are times when you can't explain. The first is at something very formal where it's not about you (a big meeting, some types of social event, a training course) and it's just not appropriate to make a big deal of yourself. The second is when people "Oh, yes, I'm like that, always forgetting names..." and clearly have no idea that what you've just told them is that you can't tell you've ever met someone, not that you can't just recall their name. Which is frustrating.

I've just moved, and I've already had two chats with people on the street who clearly know me but I have no idea who they are. Kids can't help as they're clearly not people from school / nursery. So I'm going to look like the stand-offish weirdo from the start, lovely...

School gate is also hard, some mums get it but I don't even know who I've chatted to before, so I can't stand with them, so I never really build up any friendships. Which is a pity, as I'm a friendly, chatty sort. I can only manage when they have some sort of distinguishing feature (so there's one lady with no hair, which I find incredibly helpful).

On the dyslexia / maps point, I have no sense of direction but am a decent map reader if given a compass and a 'you are here' to start with. I'm also a very quick reader, almost the opposite of dyslexic.

It's when Emily's mum decides to dye her hair that it all goes wrong!

Dh especially hates a party- I can understand why now.

Parties aren't so bad (I go with my husband, who can clue me in) but networking events are truly appalling experiences which I now just avoid.

I've heard of this condition and if I knew you and you told me you had it I would say hi it's MsKite when I saw you each time. Would that help or would you need more detail eg from number 4 or wherever?
Re the jobs what is the legislation about disabilities in Australia? Here they'd have to make reasonable adjustments (I think). It shouldn't be a big deal for people to just say their names when talking to you if they know why this is necessary.
I realised someone I know has this when she walked past me in the street and I said hello. She looked really worried and someone else I know said oh yes she always does that. It must be really difficult to live with

I have it too. It's miserable

DeadGood, I appreciate you're trying to give helpful advice, but honestly it's really just not possible to explain it to everyone you meet every day. People don't know what it is, they don't understand what you're saying, you have to take ages to explain it and even then some people will look at you like you've got three heads and others will still expect you to recognise them later! Not really possible at, eg, the start of a business meeting with 10 new faces.

I'm still trying to get my own family to understand. They do know, at least in theory, but in practice I'm forever saying things like "no, I don't know what else that actor's been in either, I REALLY don't remember faces."

I am amazed how many of you suffer with this. I have heard of it but didnt realise it is so common. I dont have it but would be perfectly OK with someone mentioning it when introduced. I guess its a pain but maybe its a good way of managing the problem. I certainly dont think you should be embarrassed about it. Its part of who you are and people certainly wouldnt hold it against you if they understand. As for getting lost, that must be very frustrating. I guess satnav is your friend.