Fixations and not picturing faces?

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For as long as I can remember, I've had obsessions in the form of being fixated on a particular individual. It is always one fixation after the other, with maybe some relief in between. Sometimes they are so intense that they're painful, and it's frustrating because I just cannot get the person out of my head. It's happened with people I know personally, famous people and fictional characters. My strongest ones are usually with people I know.

They're not true 'obsessions' in the sense that I don't go seeking information about the person (if I know them in real life). The thought of looking them up online seems wrong and the thought makes me feel very uncomfortable. However, whatever information I do happen to find out about them really sticks with me. They just get stuck in my head for whatever reason, but I don't do anything with it (i.e. I don't engage in stalker-ish behaviour!). I do get feelings of attachment and jealousy as well, sometimes. Looking at a photo of the person is very difficult for me too, as their image tends to 'burn' my eyes and stay there, making me feel ill at ease.

What perplexes me most though is this phenomenon I experience with my 'fixations'. I am currently experiencing one now, and what I'm finding is that no matter how hard I try (or don't try), I cannot picture the person's face in my mind. I can recognise them when I see them, and I can continue to imagine their face clearly if I had seen them earlier on that day. But on days where I haven't seen them, my brain can't conjure up an image. I know all of their features (e.g. eye colour, hair style, body shape, mannerisms), but what I liken it to is what someone with true prosopagnosia must experience. But with me, it's in my mind's eye, and only with a particular person.

It's very frustrating. I constantly have a person on my mind whose face I can't even picture. When I do see them, which isn't very often, I get a feeling of relief because I can 'see' them again.

I've noticed in other threads some talk about prosopagnosia and autism and was thinking that this might somehow be related, even though I usually have no trouble with recognition (which is what defines prosopagnosia), and I may or may not be on the spectrum.

Any thoughts, or has anyone experienced anything similar?

Thank you for reading.

I haven't been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum (yet), but I too have experienced this exact thing, almost word for word. I don't have these fixations as often as you do (once every few years), but like you describe, they're always on my thoughts and it can be painful. I also don't do anything with these thoughts, and like you it can be famous people, fictional characters or people from real life, strongest being those from real life. I struggle to remember their face, but only in my mind, once I see them I know it's them.

The only thing I don't have is the burning feeling when looking at a photo of them. It's more of a relief for me.

I think it's normal to experience this, but I'm no expert so we'll see what others say.

Fraljmir, thanks for reading and responding to my long-winded post! I'm glad someone else goes through this same thing.

I've never known anyone (personally) to get extremely attached to people the way I do, let alone the whole face thing. Then again, I've never really spoken about it much. So I basically have no idea how 'normal' it might be.

I do get relief when I see a photo, but at the same time, I know the image will hang in my head for ages. I think it's also an eye contact thing too -- looking at photos of people gazing directly at the camera has the same effect on me as if I were looking at them in real life.