Prosopagnosia!
Prosopagnosia is one manifestation of Sensory Processing Differences wherein
your brain doesn’t process faces in the standard way. It’s also known as
face-blindness. And both G and I have it.
I didn’t realize
how severe my prosopagnosia was until I moved to Vermont. Living in this state
is harder for me, recognition-wise, for two reasons. First, the population is
almost entirely white. Living in New York City and other more diverse,
generally urban environs most of my life enabled me to identify people partly
by skin color and hair texture. Second, there was a style factor in these
cities which is, shall we say, not so much in play here: flamboyance of dress
is not as common in Vermont as I’d like it to be – and not just because I can’t
tell anyone apart. As my dear friend Fern once said when we were in graduate
school at Columbia University – an environs that felt to us downtown denizens
like a bastion of preppiness in the midst of a then-freaky New York City -- “I
feel like a drag queen here.” Come to think of it, we need more drag queens in
Vermont, too!
ANYway, in a state
where most people are white and dress casually, sportily. I find myself
frequently faced with a friendly person who knows me, and expects me to know
him or her. Which I probably do. But not by face.
Oh and another
thing: small towns. In small towns you don’t just see someone where they work
or attend a specific activity with you, where you naturally might develop
contextual identification. No…in a small town, you also run into them and are expected to recognize them IN OTHER
PLACES.
Figure I – Basic
Distinctions – Weak to Strong Recognition
Figure II – Bonus
Distinctions – Strong Recognition
None of these
observations – from skin color to hair length or texture or color to age to
gender identity…--- is a judgment for G or me (well, maybe style -but I
celebrate style diversity!). We are
generally much too engaged in attempting to navigate this neurotypical world to
feel critical of others’ looks. Visual differences (there are others uncatalogued
here that may be helpful: moles, glasses, braces…) are just ways to recognize
people.
Once I get to know
someone well, I am able to recognize them…most of the time. Certainly close-up!
This is not the case for all people with prosopagnosia, some of whom are never
able to recognize even their closest associates. G has thought other women were
me from time to time, and continues to do so; only when he gets right in front
of them is he able to see that he was mistaken. Disconcerting – but I get it. In
fact, it was through watching G have some pretty notable encounters of this
sort that I began to realize that I had the same tendency. Before this dawning,
I’d been prone to wondering why I could not distinguish between most of the
mothers at drop off (or their kids, or who went with whom…), but I’d just put
it in my “quirky me” category, with a side of “pathetic.” Around the same time,
there was a great article in the New Yorker by Oliver Sacks ***http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/face-blind***
on this very subject (which also goes into topographical agnosia – another form
of visual agnosia [lit.: not-knowing] - that I also share, but, luckily, G does
not), and I realized there was a name for what G and I were experiencing!
G realizes that he
has this Sensory Processing Difference, and that it’s something I, too, deal
with. He’s learned to check himself in this area, and he’ll often say, now,
“…Is that? …No.” He’s become more careful over time of calling out to his peers
unless he’s sure it’s the person he thinks it is, which, frequently, it is not.
As G grows, he will
be able to develop tools for recognition and hone his skills in this area. As
awareness grows, he’ll know his face-blindness is a sort of Sensory Processing
Difference that is shared by many. He’ll figure out his own best Distinctions,
recognition-wise – and never need to call himself “pathetic.”
Love,
Full Spectrum Mama
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