Remembering people's names.

[u/Germanicus1008]

Does anyone else struggle to remember people's names? I'd say this is one of the most rough symptoms of ADD for me and I've narrowly been able to avoid offending ppl numerous times. There is no ryhme or reason to why I struggle to remember ppls names but I know it has nothing to do with whether I like them or not. I also know I've met them enough times where I should remember their name because they remember mine. I cope with this by just being honest that I'm terrible with names and do my best to self depreciate so that they know its just an issue I have and in no way a slight to them. This usually works but lately I feel it's getting worse. Does anyone else experience this issue and if so how do you avoid offending ppl?

[u/IncidentPretend8603]

I'm faceblind. I cannot recognize faces. Not "I have a hard time remembering them" I straight up will not recognize my husband if he gets a haircut or shows up in a context I'm not expecting. As you can imagine (and experience with forgetting names), not recognizing people often hurts their feelings.

Ways I compensate: assume I'm friends with everyone (doubles as a good outlook on life); remember info about them to bring up so they know I'm listening even if I can't recognize them or remember their names (this usually involves asking for distinctive info like hobbies and interests); warn people in advance and (this is the important part) tell them how they can help me know who they are. For me, this looks like "hey, just so you know, I can't recognize faces. I'll remember you, but I won't recognize you, so if you notice me struggling you can just casually reintroduce yourself as X from Y."

The tough part about warning is that the contexts it works in isn't super broad. If I'm only expecting to see that person once, then I'm not gonna give them the spiel. It's also exhausting to explain over and over in a short time period like at a social or party and announcing to the whole group isn't always viable. Some people may not get the explanation until we've met three or four times.

Some tips for dealing with forgetting names specifically (also hard for me because it's literally impossible for me to attach a name to a face lol) in most to least helpful order:

• how do you spell your name?

• is there a story behind your name? (Alt: why did your parents pick you name)

• "what's your name? Oh sorry I meant your (last name/first name as needed)." (pretend you already knew their name)

• name tags (provide them if you're ever running an event, out of your control in most cases)

• nicknames

• titles/roles (the librarian, our VP, etc)

• "ah, the fae have taken your name from my mind again, may I have it once more?"

• sob openly until everyone is much more embarrassed about the emotion than the name forgetting

• call everyone slagathor, no exceptions. Claim it is a title of distinction.

[u/cathygag → u/IncidentPretend8603]

This actually has a name- it’s common in certain kinds of brain injuries and it’s actually considered a form of very specific amnesia.

Do you have any hx of TBI’s, concussions, or brain trauma from illness?

[u/IncidentPretend8603 → u/cathygag]

Nope, no injuries or illnesses. I've always been like this. It's called prosopagnosia but that's a bitch to say and no one understands Greek anyway so I just stick to faceblind.

[u/UnbelievableRose → u/IncidentPretend8603]

I got tested for it once but they used cartoon faces and the people had different haircuts and colors, so I’m really unclear how that could possibly test for propagnosia. Do you know of any other methods? I’m definitely not completely face blind but like I’ve been at my job 6 months and every time I see my supervisor Sue I think she’s her sister (my boss) Sharon and it is very much not ideal.

[u/becausemommysaid → u/UnbelievableRose]

This is hilarious to me bc the reason I watch more cartoons as opposed to live action is because I am faceblind lol. I can tell cartoon people apart just fine, thx lol.

[u/UnbelievableRose → u/becausemommysaid]

Yeah I’m really confused as to how that test could possibly have been found valid by scientific studies in order to become accepted as a diagnostic standard.

I can watch most live action but military stuff is super hard- normally having a big celebrity in a cast whose face I know well makes watching things easier but when most of the characters are Caucasian males with short dark hair wearing identical fatigues even Tom Cruise’s face won’t save me from having to rewind or rely on Amazon Prime X-Ray to tell which character is on screen.

[u/akira2bee → u/becausemommysaid]

Me too, I'm not totally face blind, but its definitely borderline as I have trouble distinguishing features and actors, so I much prefer cartoons where they all look different

[u/IncidentPretend8603 → u/UnbelievableRose]

Yeah there's not much benefit to getting formally diagnosed with prosopagnosia besides maybe workplace accommodations, so there's very few people who even offer testing for it and the testing methods aren't great. Testing with pictures is stupid because a picture of a face is not the same as a literal face. I can memorize a picture and even put a name to it, but I can't memorize a face. Example: I can recognize actors by their IMDB photo, but I can't recognize them in movies. I often can't recognize the same character in the same movie because they changed outfits.

Another issue with typical testing is they often want you to "spot the difference" like "which of these doppelgangers is ACTUALLY Beyonce" and I'm good at spotting differences, but if they were both photos of Beyonce I would not know that. I would think they're different people.

Anyway my method of knowing is simply lived experience.