Finding Out Will Change Your Life Forever: Dealing with the Knowledge You are Face Blind

By Ronald Haines

We all grow up with the assumption that everybody perceives the world in the same way that we do and, as an adult, live what we feel to be normal lives and interact socially just like anyone else. Imagine what would happen to you if you found out that you are really very different, that you have been compensating all of your life and that what you considered normal behavior was actually an elaborate coping mechanism you had created for yourself. Your world suddenly changes. That's what happened to me when I found out I was face blind.This book recalls numerous true instances from my life that are highly amusing when seen from the point of view of someone who is not face blind. It also provides both an entertaining as well as an enlightening read about the intricate methods I developed in order to get by, and my perception of the world as a person who did not know he was face blind.This book also deals with how my life would have been different if I had learned earlier in life that I was face blind, and how my life dramatically changed after I did learn about it.I conclude with a word of caution to well meaning parents and clinicians who might identify face blindness in their child.This second edition was written six years after the first and includes how I learned to cope with the knowledge I am face blind. I share my coping mechanisms and explain how I am able to deal with people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haines Communications
• Release date: May 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637860229

Ronald Haines

Ronald thoroughly enjoys his life and has a fully working understanding of what life is.  He is a perpetual student, constantly seeking out new information and updating his world view when he comes across knowledge that expands it. He is also a teacher, sharing what he has learned with interested others, and in this way may be able to contribute to the progression of humanity. He has no need for superstition or rote belief in anything, and lives life on his own terms. He is a firm advocate of individual freedom and its necessary companion, personal responsibility.

Book preview

Finding Out Will Change Your Life Forever:  Dealing with the Knowledge You are Face Blind

by Ronald Haines

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

Copyright © 2022 Haines Communications

2nd Edition

Table of Contents

––––––––

Introduction

1.  Childhood in England

2.  School in America

3.  The Working World

4.  Coping as an Adult

5.  Married Life

6.  Impact of Finding Out

7.  Island Life

8.  The Return

9.  How Wonderful It Has Been

Introduction

––––––––

Finding out I am Face Blind

At the age of 59 my world changed dramatically, the result of watching a 60 minutes television program about face blindness in March, 2012.  As we watched the show together Cindi, my wife, repeated over and over how hard it was for her to believe that anyone could live that way, while I watched in silence.  When the show was over I explained how it all made perfect sense to me.  I was shocked by the examples given of what I considered perfectly normal activities being described as elaborate coping skills.  I spent the next day sitting at my computer researching prosopagnosia, the scientific term for face blindness, and took an online test which confirmed that I, indeed, had it.

The first reports of prosopagnosia date far back into antiquity, but it was a German neurologist by the name of Joachim Bodamer who in 1947 actually scientifically described the condition and gave it a name, combining the terms for face and recognition impairment.  Since then, more than a hundred case reports have been published. 

There are reports of people becoming face blind after a trauma, but to date there is no definitive understanding of how congenital face blindness arises.  The closest thing I can come up with as an explanation for myself is that I was born prematurely and a recent study at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden suggests that face blindness may be common among premature babies.

Once I found out I was face blind I realized how I had been living an exemplary life in a world where the norm was not like me, as I had always thought.  The norm was to be what I called a recognizer.  I had developed functional coping abilities without realizing it and my perception of the world to date had been very unique.  All this came about in spite of the fact that I couldn’t even recognize myself in a photograph.

To someone who does not have prosopagnosia, face blindness seems not only unbelievable but actually comical.  Even I could see that.  As I began to recall numerous instances from my life I realized that, if you looked at them from the point of view of a normal person, both the situation and my reaction to it were highly amusing.  I tell these little stories in the first five chapters of this book, sharing both the incidents and my perspective at the time.  My wife found them hilarious when I shared them with her.

Had I known I was face blind, had I been diagnosed as a child and told I was different, my life would most likely have taken a very different route and I would not be the person I am today.  I discuss this in the last chapter, and conclude with a word of caution to well meaning parents and clinicians.

1.  Childhood in England

––––––––

I was