Prosopagnosia

What is prosopagnosia?

Prosopagnosia is often called face blindness and I describe as a dyslexia of faces to my students. It refers to a severe deficit in recognizing familiar people from their face. I'm seriously useless at other aspects of face processing, such as judging age or gender and recognising certain emotional expressions. 

I was once asked by a colleague to guess his age and after lots of insistence from him I did :( This was the thought process in my head:

     How old?
     Looks about 70
     Can't be that old - he'd have retired. So can't be 60
     Could be 55?
     He'd have taken early retirement, he hates school.
     Oh yes! So can't be 54 or 53 even as he'd have talked about impending retirement.
     Ok. So 50 then?
     Out loud:
     Me: 50?
     Him: 50? (Outrage!) I'll be 40 next month!!

I didn't dare say that I'd knocked 20 years off my initial thought...

How does prosopagnosia affect my life?

As a secondary school science teacher I meet lots of people everyday and most of them are a mystery to me! If you imagine a typical class (if you're not aphantasic you'll probably visualise them!) and describe them. The majority are white (in my current school), a similar height with brown hair and wearing school uniform. Without distinguishing between faces how do you identify them? If a student is particularly tall, or short, then that's a name I can learn with confidence. Other distinguishing characteristics help and after that I'm stuck! Most of my students are really understanding and don't take it personally when I get names wrong multiple times in a single lesson. The start of a new school year is always hard for me as all the names & faces I've learnt the previous year are gone and I have to start from the beginning again.

Staff names and faces is a different matter & generally colleagues are less accepting of my continual mistakes. That means I avoid starting conversations, other than saying hello, in corridors or staff room etc. and instead try to see people in own classrooms because I can learn which room belongs to who.

Prospognosia has meant that I've inadvertently upset people. When I was a child in junior school my Mum had her waist length hair cut during the school day. I walked out of school to see my younger brother being led by the hand by a complete stranger and screamed that she was kidnapping him. She wasn't, I didn't recognise my Mum with chin length hair. She was, understandably, upset that her daughter was screaming at her!

Dating can prove challenging... I went on a date with a bloke about 5'10" with brown hair and a blue shirt with a fine white stripe (you can probably guess where this is going). We had a few drinks and a lovely dinner. Everything was going really well until we went to another bar which was busy so we stood at the bat chatting with our drinks, I left to go to the toilet and returned to where we'd been stood and resumed the conversation. Except, he'd found a table and sat down and I was talking to a complete stranger. Oops! Date guy wasn't happy that, in his opinion, I was chatting someone else up whilst on a date with him. I did a double take between the two guys in similar shirts, same height and similar hair. How was I supposed to tell them apart? I tried to remind him of my 'face dyslexia' and he continued shouting at me. The other guy and his friends were lovely and interested in the reason for my confusion. They insisted that I join them and saw me to my train after we laughed a lot at my mistake. It is frustrating when people believe I'm being deliberately difficult and are disbelieving that prosopagnosia exists.

My sense of direction is impaired because of my aphantasia or prosopagnosia. I learn a route from a to b and c to d etc and am fine until I need to drive from b to d, for example, and cannot visualise where roads connect. It means I often drive more interesting routes than intended. Map apps on my phone are incredible as I can choose to use them and drive more direct and efficient routes. I always thought I was a bit stupid got not being able to grasp simple local geography and knowing it's not my fault is liberating.

• Why am I writing this bloglet?

I discuss my autism, aphantasia and prosopagnosia with my students and they always have questions. They appreciate my openness and honesty whilst the SEND students like that they have a teacher who's SEN. I realised that maybe other people have questions about these conditions too and I can play a small part in answering them. I really appreciate the response that I've had so far, thank you. I'm on Twitter as @NuttySalt if you'd like to ask anything.

What is autism to me?

What is autism?

The NAS describe Autism as a lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them.

I have autism, aphantasia and prosopagnosia. To me autism is part of who I am. I am not me in spite of or because of my autism, it's part of my uniqueness.

What does my autism look like?

I'm intelligent with an excellent long-term memory (unless it's autobiographical as I am useless at remembering details about myself) with a weaker short-term memory and a spiky strengths and weaknesses profile. I hyperfocus on my interests for bursts where I don't eat or drink and completely lose track of time.

Knowledge and learning fascinate me and I teach myself to feed this passion. I have both short and long term obsessions; needlework was everything for about a month! Special needs education is my lifelong obsession, is it a strength that I'm obsessed with my job? I hate lunch times, work socials and the minutes before/after a meeting; what am I supposed to talk about? I moved jobs quite a bit at the start of my career when I felt overwhelmed by finding that balance. Now I'm more open about my challenges and accept myself which hugely reduced my anxiety levels. I self soothe by fiddling with a hair bobble round my wrist.

Like many autistic women I repeated a year at Uni. This was partly because of made the wrong choice and mainly because I felt overwhelmed. Attempting to fit in is mentally exhausting.

As a strong, capable independent woman I do not know how to ask for help. When I do ask it's often the wrong person at the wrong time. I'm working on this! I hate making mistakes and am my own biggest critic.

I'm a natural leader, independent, strong-willed, determined and can be highly competitive (especially with myself). I'm dispassionately rational and calm in crisis situations. I process the information to make rapid, considered decisions. It is only afterwards in my solitude that I feel the emotions and worry about the what ifs. That reflection time is important so that I can learn from it for the future. I'm resilient bouncing back again and again.

I prefer socialising with a few people I can have real conversations with than a large group that requires the dreaded small talk. Social chit chat, gossip and flirting are all complete mysteries to me. In groups I feel like I don't fit in and therefore am left out. I sometimes accept invitations because I really do want to attend then find myself making an excuse so that I can stay at home by myself with a book. Retreating to bed with a book or my thoughts balances the over stimulation of the world.

People take advantage of my trusting nature. I take things at face value and miss the underlying plotting and subterfuge. I speak my mind, whilst trying to rein myself in to so that I don't unintentionally offend, with no hidden agenda. That can mean I'm judged by others standards so people interpret my words/actions to find what they think is my real intention. Until I've got to know someone I miss when they're telling a joke because I've accepted the words at face value, with strangers I sometimes click a few minutes later when I've processed it.

Weird and eccentric are no longer insults but compliments. They tell me that I'm being myself rather than attempting to mimic others to fit in. My biggest failures are when I attempt to conform, it's exhausting and soul destroying. I spent a long time not entirely sure exactly who I was until I embraced all of me. Research suggests that autism may be undiagnosed in women because we're more successful mimics which could explain the high proportion of mental health conditions. I dress differently not to be different. I usually dress for comfort which isn't necessarily physical comfort e.g. comfy shoes it may be the texture of my clothing or a pattern/colour that comforts me. This may mean I look over dressed or oddly dressed for the situation.

Oops! I have a tendency to share too much detail and bore others (I'm happy to be told when I'm doing that!). I'm emotionally too honest with an inability to hide my true feelings when it would be more socially acceptable to do so. Sometimes I think I'm being compassionate but my actions don't  come across that way. 

I feel things deeply and am receptive to others emotions in person and in books/films/music/art. I can't watch horror films because I'm overpowered by the emotions. I have a strong sense of justice and work hard to be fair.

The sound of powerlines and fluorescent lights are overwhelming. I have to consciously ignore them so that I can hear what's going on around me. I have an odd relationship with pain with things that should hurt not and vice versa. I often find myself with bruises that I can't explain as I wasn't aware of 'hurting' myself.

I'm introspective and self aware. As a teacher I'm an intuitive practitioner and highly self evaluative. I am my own harshest critic. I constantly aim to be better than yesterday. I hate failing.

Through this blog I aim to share what special needs means to me personally and professionally as a special needs teacher of SEND.