Prosopragnosia. Yes. For me it kicks in and out and I don't know when it will be. On occasions I have evwn not known my own family if I see them where I did not expect them to be or if they changed their coat etc. Yet people who have harmed me I stare at and even though they try to disguise themselves I know them. It is odd. But I have to stare at them which I don't normally do as I tend to not be able to talk to people if I have to look at them so I avoid direct eye contact to be able to talk.
May be a link somehow in this?
Anyway. When I worked on the railways I used to remember where people were sitting, even if the train had a thousand seats! If people moved seat I would ask to see their tickets again as I would assume they had just got on the train unless I saw them move.
Most of my working years were at bicycle shops and I would know people through their bicycles which is strange as one model of bicycle we must have sold well over 100 of them and yet I would know the bike, so if one had a row of identical bicycles, I could normally pick out the exact one, but not know why I knew. But with peoples faces I would group people. I mean, I could think it was a certain person and have a conversationwith a puzzled person who genuinely would not know me! So is not just not recognizing people as there is more to it then that.
If I think I might know someone I hang back to wait to see how they react towards me so I make no mistakes as getting it wrong is embarissing! But at the same time I have not recognised people at all and walked past just saying"Hello" OR I have thought I know them but cant remember where from which I once did to my Mum, cousin, aunts etc, and my Mum has the same, so she has done it to me.
As a child it was petrifying to be separated from either of my parents hands as I genuinely would struggle to find them again in a crowded place if someone walked between us and I would lose sight of where they were. I would panic! And this is the major sign of prosopragnosia when one is young. Also to add, that the majority of people (Two thirds) who haveprosopragnosia issues also are on the spectrum.
But to sum up, with faceblindness it is something that comes and goes but one does not have a clue when it comes and goes or has any control over when it comes and goes. So I have lost friends due to it because they stop speaking to me without telling me why, and this has happened so many times when I am totally unaware if I have ignored them.
A few days ago, my Mum was at a laundrette she had never been beford, ad started chatting to a girl totally unaware until in the conversation the girl said her Dads name, who happened to beone of my Mums lifelong friends. She never knew she was chatting to his daughter!
I am.a very visual thinker as I think best in picture and film form, and so it is odd I get faceblind moments! But somehow with faces... But give me carsnor bixycles that look the same and I can pick a single one out and not know how I know but I am right!
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