[AkAngel]

Hello. I have great difficulty recognizing people that I have met before. I understand that many people find it a challenge to remember names or to put a name to a face; I am not describing that, though that certainly is beyond my capacity as things stand now.

I am 45 yo and in good health. My memory is quite good, even extraordinary in many cases, except when it comes to people. For instance, I have played as many as three games of blindfold chess simultaneously and while it's not a great example, can easily recall each of my wife's, children and grandchildrens social security numbers and drivers license numbers.

On the other side of the equation, I recently asked my wife who a woman was in the room and she told me that it was her boss, Mrs. 'Jones'. Five minutes later I asked my wife about a different woman on the other side of the room and it turned out to be the same woman. I did not recognize her 'out of place' as she were.

Too, there are people whom I have known for years, in varying degree's of closeness (though none extraordinarily close), whom I cannot recognize when they come up to me excited to see me. I play along and often figure it out, but just as often walk away after bluffing my way through a conversation without a clue who I was just speaking with. For instance, the waitress at the diner I have eaten at every morning for a year, my publisher, my mailman etc. I recognize them in their respective places - the waitress at the diner, my publisher in his office or the mailman on his route, but if I were to see them at the store or a bus stop, while they seem familiar, I can't place them.

Any idea's?

[sabby]

Hi AkAngel and welcome to Psych Central!

I can only imagine how difficult this situation is for you. I have never had this kind of a problem myself, but I have heard of it and seen a documentary a number of years ago on a woman who could not recognize even her own family.

I found this website that explains about Prosopagnosia. http://www.faceblind.org/research/

I don't know if this is what you may have or not, but it may give you a starting place to figure out what is going on. If you google Prosopagnosia, you will find a number of links about it from different sources and some ideas on how to work around it as well.

I wish you the best and hope you can find some answers and solutions to your face recognition problems.

Take good care!
_sabby_

[Perna]

One of my favorite authors has it and wrote a book about the experience:

http://www.heathersellers.com/writin...facefirst.html

She recommends the site Sabby suggests above.

[AkAngel]

Excellent! Thank you both!

[AkAngel]

An hour later I realized that my gratitude was not communicated in the simple 'thanks' of my last post and so...

I can't tell you how excited and surprised I am. I had always thought that there must be some deep seeded psychological problem for me to have such a difficulty and while deep seeded psychological problems are not, in and of themselves, insurmountable - who needs another one of those, right? Anyway, I never imagined the relieve and joy I would get from having a name to put to the situation...but I do and so once again, thank you both.

[FooZe]

Back in high school especially, I used to think I had trouble recognizing people. Around that same time I noticed I had quite an easy time remembering other information such as phone numbers. I did try playing blindfold chess once or twice; managed to complete about eight moves before giving up in disgust.

Although I don't think of myself as having a hard time remembering people's faces, I do occasionally find myself failing to recognize someone, even someone I thought I knew fairly well, when I see them outside their "normal" environment. Other times, though, I'll see someone on the street a block away and they'll look familiar, though I may not be able to figure out who they are till they get closer.

For whatever difference it makes, when I try to remember what someone looks like, if I get any mental image of them at all it's usually abstract, like a Picasso, not detailed like a DaVinci.