Face Blindness and a Flood of Love

 

I am face blind (prosopagnosia). This is not a matter of
I-forget-peoples’-names. This is a matter of I-don’t-recognize-my-husband-or-my-children. And, as incredible as this sounds, I don’t recognize myself. At a large function, I thought I saw someone I knew, turns out it was myself—in a mirror.

 After a recent family funeral, I shared photos with relatives who weren’t able to attend. My daughter said, “Tell Jacob his beard looks great!” I thought, “Jacob has a beard?” So, I looked up a picture. And there was my son Jacob standing next to me, with a full beard. It did look nice.

 Anyone reading this probably thinks, “How sad.” But there’s an upside.

 A stranger stood in a driveway I needed to drive into. I waited for him to move, and when he did, I recognized him. Jacob. In that moment, an incredible love flowed through me—this “stranger” is treasured in my heart and soul.

 I don’t think “normal” people experience the same flood of emotion. And I’d never give up this experience—a reminder of how cherished my loved ones are.

 NB: I do have ways of recognizing people. I recognized Jacob by the way he moved. I also recognize people by the sound of their voices. But if someone is silent and standing still, they are a stranger to me.

You Are A Stranger

On Monday, my husband did what no person married to a faceblind person should ever do. He changed the way he looked. He shaved off almost his entire beard and mustache. (He didn’t completely shave them—he would’ve given me fair warning about that. He’s done that before, and I’d almost completely freaked because I thought he was a stranger who’d broken into my house. Thankfully, I’m very good at voice/body recognition and I don’t own a handgun.)

However, Cal did shave his beard and mustache enough that there was only a vague shadow of them. Then, he had the gall to find me and say, “I don’t I look ten years younger?”

I said, “Honestly? You want my honest thoughts?”

Cal: “Well, yeah.”

Me: “You don’t look any younger, you look strange. The proportions of your face look completely weird to me. As if your nose grew longer and curled over. Your upper lip elongated. And your cheeks swelled.”

Cal: “Oh.”

Me: “Sorry.”

Cal: “I’ll go ask the kids.”

Who Are You?

As I've posted before, I have prosopagnosia. (I'm face blind--I don't recognize people's faces.) Most of the time I cope just fine. Most of the time.

1. The other day, I was listing the types of cars people we know drive. My kids were shocked that I knew. I was shocked that they didn't. They asked me why I knew. Uh, so when we get to church, I know who's there. It's much easier to figure out who I'm talking to when I know the possibilities.

2. Last week, a little boy I've been teaching Sunday school to for two years opened a door and walked to me. I had no idea who he was until he started talking.

3. I saw a man and wasn't sure who he was. By his height and hair color, I had him narrowed down to two people. The problem was there was something in the way and I could only see him from the chest up. And the way I tell the two men apart is by their weight. (Though usually I can tell them apart by their wives who look very different from each other.)

4.  This morning, I went outside to confront a stranger on my backyard porch. It was my son. So, uh, no confrontation needed.

Face Blindness, Part Five

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that I have prosopagnosia, i.e. face blindness. (For more on face blindness, click here, here, and here.) In spite of FB, I’ve always believed I got along pretty well in the world. Until the other day.

My family and I were on the way home from a meeting and I mentioned someone (we’ll call him Bob). My family said, “Uh, Bob wasn’t there.” I said, “Of course, he was. I was leading a meeting and I saw Bob’s face for over fifteen minutes.” Calvin assured me that Bob couldn’t have been where I was because Cal was teaching a class and Bob was in his class.

I argued. But only briefly because everyone else agreed with Cal and since I’m face blind my person recognitions skills are limited. Even now, if I had to swear who was present I would still say Bob was there. But clearly he wasn’t.

In the end, my family figured out that Bob’s brother was actually the person who was there. And I must have confused Bob and his brother. This would be fine if Bob and his brother were similar, but they aren’t. Their coloring, height, timbre of their voice, etc., are all different. In other words, all the qualities that I use to recognize a person are different. And I still couldn’t tell them apart.

When I realized that, my hands went cold and my stomach queasy. It was as if the world moved sideways, and I didn’t. Because the inevitable question is how many times has this happened before, and I didn’t ever know it. Scary thought.

Imagine how hard it would be to recognize people if everyone wore a mask--the same mask.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.