Face blindness
I only figured out I'm autistic in 2022. I'm still learning. Writing these articles is how I learn things. They're all works in progress, to various extents. No-one can speak for an entire minority group. These are just my personal experiences, things I've found out from talking to my friends, and discussions I've seen on autistic forums. Please don't take me as authoritative. I'm not.
Excuse me, who are you?
— Mima Kirigoe, Perfect Blue, 1997
Face blindness (more formally, prosopagnosia), is the inability to remember and recognise people's faces.
It's largely recognised as a sliding scale, with some people having a photographic memory for faces, and others unable to recognise even close friends and family members, even when they haven't changed their appearance. Most people lie somewhere between these two extremes.
Face forgetfulness
Face forgetfulness (prosopamnesia) is a very similar condition often mistaken for face blindness. In practical terms, the main difference is that if you have face forgetfulness, then you can recognise people you're routinely exposed to.
Workarounds
You're probably already doing this, but you might have more luck by remembering their rough combination of gender, race, haircut and colour, glasses, piercings, moles, freckles, and so on, and more generally their voice, gait, most often worn clothes, and general location... which usually works OK for me until they change too many of these things at once.
As hard as it is, try not to feel too guilty for not recognising someone you know, even someone you know well. You don't "need to try harder". Most people don't have to try at all, as recognising specific faces is automated for them. Face blindness is literally a disability. You have no control over it. It has nothing to do with how much effort you put in, or how much you care about or even love someone.
Senses: Alexithymia | Auditory processing disorder | Dissociation | Face blindness | Interoceptive hyposensitivity
