Remembering people

[Rainagain]

This may not be a thing but I seem to be unable to remember new people.

I don't remember their names or faces.

A few times I will be chatting to someone and they will tell me that we have met before.

They seem quite puzzled that I obviously didn't remember them.

This is a new thing, I used to be a bit poor on names but accurate with faces.

Just wondered if anyone else has heard of this. Its a bit like amnesia I think, it doesn't sound important but the way these people look at me makes me think it is pretty abnormal.

Oh well

[Ellis]

Hey Rainagain,

I haven't had such a thing happen to me. But it does sound quite troubling. I hope everything is okay and nothing drastic has happened to cause such an influence on your memory.
But I don't think people would be too bothered by not being remembered, especially acquaintances. It might be unusual but it's not annoying I'd imagine.

Regards,
Ellis.

[fullofsoundandfury]

Hi Rainagain,

Do you lose time? Do you always remember what you have done in a day or night, or how you got to a location? 

[Wattlebird]

Hi Rainagain,
This happens to me constantly, I have developed a couple of theories,
1. I am so uptight and anxious meeting new people that I don't take in details like name and face.
2. I dissociate in these situations and don't remember the encounter
(I do dissociate a lot)
3. I have that face blindness thing,
All 3 theories have merit, Maybe it's all 3 
It is very embarrassing, further adding to my social anxiety, I usually have to meet someone several times before they are locked in my memory.
Hope that's helpful in some way

[Rainagain]

Thank you for the replies.

I've come to expect that someone on here will share in whatever odd symptom I've discovered, thank you wattlebird!

It could well be any or all of the reasons you mention.

Yes, I do lose time, I have weird stuff where I go into a trance for minutes or up to about an hour, then come back to full consciousness without realising any time has passed at all.

I'm not sure how often these happen, obviously......

And yes I also forget what I have done earlier in the day, or to be precise I forget if I've done something I should have done, like feeding the dogs.

They make a fuss if I don't feed them, probably not so much if they get a second feed.......

Its worse when I'm very anxious, but I don't sleep much then so it could all be simple exhaustion?

I'm having extreme stress lately so its all getting a bit vague, I expect it will settle back eventually.

I think my face blindness is probably anxiousness, I'm probably so hyper vigilant that face and name don't register as those things aren't a threat, maybe I focus on posture, voice, distance etc, things that raise or lower threat level. The person isn't a person to me, just a number of elements in a threat assessment I am keeping up to date every second.

Once they are gone there is no threat so there is no need to assess them any more, out of my mind they go, I survived the encounter.

Maybe these people remember me cos I'm weird, I probably am.

[goblinchild]

I just wanted to chime in that I'm this way too and always have been. I used to not be able to tell male leads in movies apart if they looked anything at all alike. Female leads usually had different enough hair and outfits that it wasn't as bad. Lord of the Rings was unintelligible, lol.

Something I learned to do from doing portraits (Yes I'm face blind and do portraits and it's as funny in real life as it sounds.) is that since I've learned to appreciate different aspects about faces, I'll notice those aspects in people's faces and I'll remember that even if I don't remember their names. I find it gives my brain a little something to hold on to so it can start making other connections like "Oh, it's that lady with the cute button nose that was talking to me about history. History button nose lady!" Instead of just remembering that at some point recently someone told me something about history but not remember who or where it happened.

My advice, if you'd like to use it, is to start noticing facial features that aren't stereotypically considered beautiful and find value in them. I like big noses, or like when someone's nose bridge connects to their eye brow ridge in a nice curved way. Those prominent smile lines that some people have are good. I also feel like finding something to like about people lets me feel like I'm engaging with them as people and as something positive a bit more instead of navigating some kind of threat. It also helps if being anxious makes you awkward at eye contact. Especially with drawing people, I find that they can tell if you're not looking them in the eye if you're looking anywhere from like....lips down but any higher than that they can't tell unless you're making a weird squinty "Now how do I draw that eye wrinkle?" face.   

[Rainagain]

That is really interesting goblinchild.

I've been pulled up by someone lately for not making eye contact.

I wasn't aware I was avoiding it, but it is interesting that you mention it.

To me its yet another symptom, one I was unaware of.

The last person I failed to recognise was wearing a hat and I decided to try to remember the hat.

Funny really, hats change and I hadn't thought to try to remember anything permanent, like distinctive facial features.

I'm not actually a really stupid person, at least I don't think so, I've had some technical jobs in the past and did OK, these days I can't remember if I've fed the dogs, or myself. Why would I think a hat was something useful to use as an ID? Madness.

People have a personal space they unconsciously maintain between themselves and others. If someone encroaches they are not comfortable.

Most people have a personal space of a few feet I think, mine is more like 5 yards unless there is a physical barrier like a table or a car in between.

5 yards is actually around the same distance as the reactionary gap, its the distance you need to be away from an attacker in order to be able to run, defend or otherwise respond to an attack.

I think that distancing is related to my poor facial recognition.

I'm actually quite badly affected by my traumas I think, in ways I barely realise....

I try to act like a normal person but clearly I do not convince.

[Blueberry]

I've been pulled up by someone lately for not making eye contact.

I wasn't aware I was avoiding it, but it is interesting that you mention it.

To me its yet another symptom, one I was unaware of.

I avoid eye-contact too. I've been aware of that for a while.

[Contessa]

I find remembering names difficult at the best of times. It does take a few meetings and conversations for names to stick.

Prior to trauma my 'memory like an elephant' used to regularly be commented on as I could clearly recall details of settings and conversations from months to years prior.

But like wattlebird mentioned, I believe 2) disassociation became a massive thing. I have years of blank memories. I can't recall specific people or events. I once had a big conversation with someone I thought I was meeting for the first time, when they asked me how I went with doing something from a previous meeting... turns out I'd met them a few times already 

Not fun

[Rainagain]

Since posting about this I've remembered other times I have forgotten meeting people previously, they seem shocked that I don't remember them.

Its the reaction of others that tells me I'm not doing too well, I have no other way of knowing.

Its not meds, it happened with meds and is still happening now I'm off everything.

[Rainagain]

I hope nobody minds, I wanted to bump this thread, there are such good insights in the replies.

I've been feeling bad recently over an incident that happened a few years ago, I was chatting to a fellow dog Walker and he said, 'you dont remember me yet we were neighbours for ten years'.

At the time I was very unwell, but even so, I feel shame about that and keep going over it.

[IRedW77]

I used to be the person that remembered everyone else that didn't remember me, but not as much anymore.

I can remember startling people with details from conversations we'd had years earlier. "I know that thing about you because you told me" Or maybe I was just adjacent to your conversation that was mostly with someone else.

I used to never, ever forget a face.

As I've aged I've lost a lot of this. I think a lot of it is probably natural aging. I'm not sure, but I'd at least like to think that.

I used to have an amazing memory, now I think it's just average. My father in his 70's has a memory like what mine used to be, but I think his is way above average.

I wonder if facial recognition is just a lack of practice. When I did know everyone and remember all of their names was in school days. You saw the same people every day and heard their names more.

I tend to stay away from people more as an adult and maybe that dulls your facial recognition skills, just like any other skill you don't use.

Now I still recognize people, but it can take me 20 minutes to figure out why I recognize them and where from.

I've always been terrible with names. Often you get a name while shaking hands and I hate shaking hands. It's always too full of adrenaline and I feel like I'm shaking too hard or too soft.

Meeting new people is just all around stressful so I think the shock of the meeting just drowns out the name.

Also, personally I don't remember things I hear as well as what I see. If I saw a name in writing I'd remember it.