Prosopagnosia: how to live without acknowledging his own mother

Evie Prichard student counts as living with a disorder that prevents them from recognizing faces - to own the family.

               

When you find someone you know, the easiest way to recognize it is the face - but not everyone can do it.

It is estimated that one in 50 people has prosopagnosia, or "face blindness", a condition that can affect up to 5 million people in Brazil, for example.

British Evie Prichard, 24, has this disorder and tells what life is like when you struggle to recognize friends and family:

"I was 19 when I ran into a stranger at a party and asked if he knew an ex-boyfriend who had broken months before.

That floral shirt and the scent of perfume CK One should have been enough to alert me about who was there, but for some reason these signs made me think that this stranger was a friend of my ex, he might have borrowed his shirt and his perfume.

Unfortunately, as in many other occasions, the detective instinct that accompanies me on social interactions had left me in the hand - the guy was my ex.

All he had done was to cut his hair and shaved the stubble, but as I was in high heels our height difference also did not appear. My face blindness means that bet on signs like hair style and height to differentiate people, and without these things I am completely adrift.

In this sense it was to a triumph: certainly his ego took a deflated. But it was also one of several occasions when my face blindness caused me to pass by idiots.

For me, a face is like a dream. It's incredibly vivid at the moment but wanes seconds, until only disconnected and a vague memory features like face that made me feel at the time.

Living with a brain that lacks this crucial function can be very stressful, but most of the time is something only drawback - very - embarrassing.

What is prosopagnosia?



Prosopagnosics is a neurological condition where the part of the brain that recognizes faces does not develop as it should.

It can prevent people from recognizing partners, family, friends and even the image itself.

It was thought to be caused by brain injury (developed prosopagnosia), but now a genetic link has been identified (congenital prosopagnosia).

The developed prosopagnosia is rare, but one in 50 people may have congenital version of the disorder.

There is no specific treatment, but there are specific training to improve the detection of faces.

There was even a time I saw myself in the mirror in a bar and really did not recognize me. I even have some pretty critical thoughts about my own sweaty face before realizing the target of my criticism was myself.

The other day, my mother, who has frizzy hair, made a brush and I walked right past her in the street.

Studies have shown that up to 2% of the population may be living with prosopagnosia. Many do not realize they have this condition.

The severity of the disorder goes from relatively manageable to the 'sorry, I thought I was kissing my husband.' Most diagnostic lies between these two poles.

My prosopagnosia is severe, but I can recognize close friends under normal circumstances, and have a 50% chance of keeping the recognition after a haircut or exchange glasses.

The situation is worse for many people. I heard stories of people that was stolen by strangers who passed by relatives and children walking with unknown men.

Luckily, none of this happened to me as a child - I know my problem for life, so I was always cautious.

For me it was almost impossible to recognize my colleagues in school, which made the act of making and keeping friends a fight. I still remember crying wander the halls on the first day of the gym: he had gone to the bathroom and did not know which room to go back because did not recognize the teacher or the students.

People often get perplexed when I tell about my prosopagnosia. In fact I've seen all kinds of reaction of disbelief to fascination and hysterical laughter. One man even accused me - behind my back - of inventing the story to woo it.

Until recently it was thought that prosopagnosia was a very rare condition that resulted from brain damage, but it is more common as genetic disorder. And it's my family - affected my mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother, while my sister Rose has apparently escaped the curse.



It was only in this century that researchers began to realize exactly how many people were living in silence with this condition. People who, like me, had prosopagnosia all their lives, and just learning to hide their shortcomings well.

As a blind person recognizes the steps relatives, prosopagnosia carriers are forced to develop unusual ways to find out who they are talking. For obvious signs such as hair and voice to posture, gait and eyebrows, we trust dozens of tactics to face everyday.

And if all else fails, we are great bluffers. When meeting someone who may know, I usually design the level of friendship that would be acceptable to childhood friends or complete strangers. It's a very fine line.

But I still have a special calling to make me an idiot. Once it was being filmed for a documentary and two girls who knew the school stood for almost 20 minutes next to my table in an almost empty bar before I had no idea who they were.

One of them sold me a beer, and although I have the eye in the eye and smiled as he took the change, I still can not recognize it.

Last month, the Glastonbury music festival, I was camping with friends and a lot of friends of them, most unknown to me. During the festival, people joined us and I had no idea if they were the same people who had spent the previous day drinking and talking.

Worst was when my sister and I entered the VIP area one afternoon - apparently had every kind of celebrity there, but I had no idea who they were.

Although I can - and do it - play with my condition, it is always tiring be struggling to discover the identity of someone at each meeting. As university in a small town, I should recognize dozens of people a day, but end up offending many of them too.

I am a sociable person by nature. But after some of my best friends recognize who thought I was cool at first because I always ignored them, became more and more difficult for me to want to meet new people.



In the end, the student journalism saved me. Talk about prosopagnosia in a column allowed me to be 'that girl with face blindness'. Although not the niche of the dreams of many people, was the most efficient way to explain to people that eventually hurt the reason to treat them as outsiders.

Ironically, as I became a recognized face on campus, it became more acceptable for me fail to recognize others.

Faces are an important part of identity. Not recognized can be terrible - it's like to be ignored and someone say that you do not matter.

But nothing compares to the pain of knowing that is hurting people constantly, making them feel undervalued and ignored, even having no idea who is doing it at that time.

Alienate is a world faces is strange, but me comfort to think that articles like this can help people forgive me and others like me.