Hello fellow face-blind friend
Note: This page is mainly for people who know what face-blindness is. If you do not know, I suggest you first take a look at my brief explanation using stones. Or you can start from the main overview of the site .
My name is Cecilia Burman and I have had severe troubles remembering/recognizing people for as long as I can
remember. I am now 32 years old and live in Sweden with my husband Hans. We are both born and bred here in
Sweden and our native language is Swedish. I hope you will excuse any spelling or grammatical errors here and
in my mail. :-)
Sometime around 1992 I found the medical term for face-blindness, prosopagnosia. With that in hand I set out to find some information about it. At this time the World Wide Web did not exist, and I was not connected to Internet anyway. At the local hospital library I found copies of a few medical articles. They were all about people who were so badly afflicted by face-blindness and other things that they could not function in the society. The articles also said there is no cure for face-blindness. (This is still true.)
I shelved my search for information on my condition, accepting the facts: That no one believed me, or would not talk to me if they did. That it could not be cured. That I would have little in common with those I could find. (No offence intended. I will gladly be your friend, but you would not have served as a good example when explaining to others. I tried, and it did not work.)
At Easter 2000 I found Bills book Face Blind! on the WWW. Before that the only other person to know about my face-blindness was my husband, and it took years before he could understand and accept it. Two days after I found Face Blind! I showed it to his parents, and within hours I felt they actually understood my problem, as much as you can understand something like face-blindness without experiencing it yourself.
Before when I have tried to explain my problem with recognizing people to others, I have either got the
answer "Oh yes, me to", or if I hint at the severity of the problem, I get chock (or ridicule). As Bill
pointed out to me: "It's human nature to not believe something until other people confirm it. Until that
happens, you might as well be seeing little green men in flying saucers, for all that others will believe you."
I have known for most of my life what my own situation was like, but only when I found others in that same
situation could I explain it to people who did not know.
I have tried to explain it to other people than my immediate family, e.g. workmates. It is hard, because
they are either not interested, or will not take the time to understand the impact it really has on everyday
life. The difference is that now I can at least try, before it was impossible.
I put a photo of me at the top of this page. It is from 1994, but it was the best I could find. A photo isn't much help to me when it comes to recognizing someone, unless it is the same photo every time that someone contacts me. In that case I would recognize the photo, not the person on the photo. ;-\ Any help is welcome though, even if it is small.
When I try to recognize someone, this is what I look for:
| Age and Gender | I see these features as well as most people do |
| General body-shape, hair and face | I do see the face. I just have to use other brain centra to process the image. For me to recognize a face is the same process that non face-blind people would use to recognize a stone or an elbow. |
| Perceived attitude/relation with me | Perhaps I judge this from the way someone greets me. |
| Time and place where we meet | I look for work mates at work etc. |
| Sound of voice | Hearing the voice of the person usually helps, just like most people can sometimes recognize the voice of their friend over the phone. |
| Subject | What the person chose to talk about |
I have problem recognizing people I have seen only a few times or a short time of course. When I feel I need
to remember someone, I "rehearse" that persons features and name over and over again. This process
is only half conscious, or less. If I don't rehearse I usually do not remember the looks of the person at all.
This is the case for example when I listen to an interesting lecture. Afterwards I usually remember almost
all the person said, including any personal things, but I have absolutely no idea what the person looked like
besides age and gender and possibly general body shape.
The problem with information that one need to rehearse is that one tends to forget it
unless it is used. I think this is why I often have big problems to recognize even people that I know well if
I see them again after a few months or years.
The two groups of people I feel really comfortable with are:
People I know really well, after we have exchanged greetings, thereby confirming identity.
Complete strangers in a place where no acquaintances will turn up, e.g. when travelling. My travel mates will
of course usually be in the first category.
To my knowledge I have no neurological conditions other than face-blindness. The thing I have is a loneliness. Probably I have scared away many potential friends at one time or another by not recognizing them, or by not daring to share my innermost feelings.
I joined the mailing list "The Face Blind Folks" around Easter 2000. Until that time I had been almost completely alone with my problem. Now when I can get in touch with others it is as if a great weight is being lifted. :-)
If you want to contact me, please write to cb@prosopagnosia.com.
Regards, Cecilia Burman
Index:
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Face-Blindness ( Prosopagnosia ) and
stones
Prosopagnosia ( Face-Blindness )
What are face-blind people like?
I and my prosopagnosia
What I remember of faces that I see
Interactive section with contributions from visitors at this site
Links to other internet sources about Prosopagnosia
Site updated 2002-05-26.
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