Prosopagnosia or Face Blindness

[Cece87]

Hi,

At the sudden age of 36 I seem to have developed Prosopagnosia. I am suddenly struggling to recognise people that I know very very well. It’s driving me a little bit insane. I have a brain scan booked but anyone else have this suddenly happen to them and it not be something sinister?!
Thanks!

@Cece87

Sorry to wake up your thread.

I've had face blindness all my life. It was once assumed to be acquired (as a result of late correction of severe short sightedness) but as I've gotten older, I am more convinced it is developmental. Firstly, because my son seems to have it too and developmental prosopagnosia is very heritable and secondly because it seems to be getting worse rather than better.

My theories as to why it is worse are:
being short of bandwidth -with parenting, working, school runs, all the kids friends (and their parents), various in and out of work committees etc, I'm just running short of capacity for faces and the tactics I've used to get around it/
peri menopause -my cognitive capacity for everything is declining

I'm sorry that this has happened to you suddenly. It's enough of a pain in the arse when you've had a lifetime to develop tricks for getting around.

Have you had any answers yet as to why this has happened to you?

Thank you for your reply and no need to apologise at all!

It’s very interesting reading others experiences with it!

So I had a mri and nothing notable could be seen, I then saw a neurologist who couldn’t give me any answers. I kind of just got used to how it felt to not recognise people anymore.

It does though, seem to be improving and faces appear to look more like I once knew them to look.

I do wonder whether it was something postpartum affecting me, but it seems I’ll never know and will it come back or get worse is something I often wonder too!

What is the difference to you between how faces look since and before? I can't really get my head around what they look like to other people who find them recognisable, I'd love to hear from someone who has experienced both and can compare...

Good question, and maybe a little hard to explain, but for me I knew people’s faces very well, I often joked I could work for the fbi because I’d be able to recognise a face even if they had changed their appearance in another way!
Whilst I was going through my face blindness episode many people’s faces just looked different, some even unrecognisable. I could remember how they were supposed to look to me but I just couldn’t see it.
Now, mostly people look how I am familiar with them looking.
I do admit it made me realise that people look different to different people, and I find that really interesting!

Thank you!

Equally I find it really hard to explain how I can see a nose, eyes, eyebrows, hair etc, note that someone has a face and that the face is different to others...yet still nothing recognisable is triggered. The point at which I recognise people is usually when they speak, either because of their voice/accent or something they say that gives away context. Then the whole puzzle comes together.

i also don't visualise faces in my head when I think of people. I assume other people do...

It’s very interesting!

I too was having to recognise people by their voices, or hair or what they were wearing, I realised how so many people wear the same clothes daily 😂
I also couldn’t visualise people’s faces very well, but I wondered whether it’s because their faces looked different and so it was like new info my brain just couldn’t recall.
It really was an experience to meet with a friend and have her suddenly look so different, I’m certainly grateful that it’s not affecting me at the moment, but as I said who knows if it will come back!