Prosopagnosia & I.Life was already as challenging with the absence of Prosopagnosia and now, with the presence of it, my life has gradually became even more challenging and tough as they days pass by. It is really tough when one loses his or her ability to recognise people, remember how they look like. I believe many of us, we remember people by their face and not their names. It is easy to spot someone we know by looking at their face in a party rather than remembering their names especially if he or she is just a friend you met randomly. It gets even harder when you cannot recognise someone you know for quite a while, it pretty much take its toil on your emotions rather than your mind.
Some of you might be unsure on what Prosopagnosia is, I think most of you don't even know what Prosopagnosia is in the first place. Well, Prosopagnosia is ....
" Prosopagnosia (sometimes known as face blindness) is a disorder of face perception
where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact." - Wikipedia.When I first lost my ability to recognise the photos on my mirror, I was very afraid because it was like out of the blue, I was not able to recognise the people in the photos when I could have always been able to. It came to me with a big shock like I was really slapped hard by it. I was afraid that it might just deteriorate and leave me with no memory of the people around me including my very loved ones. After all, losing my memory is one of the most feared tragic things to happen to me and that would be the last thing to happen to me ever. I was very afraid, I remembered it came to a point that I wasn't even able to recognise my bestfriend even when there were photos of us hanging on my wall. I felt my whole world came crashing tumbling down because I wasn't able to recognise the handful important people in my life and should this condition gets worsen, it is really going to pose hazards to my future if I want to be in the PR industry.
I remembered clearly how it was like when I couldn't recognise the faces of my mentors from my school. I was always under this constant fear that the person I am meeting might not be the person I am suppose to meet like the time I was suppose to meet Melanie when I fought hard with mum, I was so afraid that I was meeting another Melanie from that block. It took me a lot of courage to go with my gut feeling and just go on with it. Thankfully, it was the right Melanie and after that meeting, I realised I have acquired a new skill which might help me to deal and cope with this impairment of face recognition. I have used something tangible or intangible like character traits or voice even to help me identify people. Again, I am going to use Mel because she was one of the first few that I had to meet during my first experience with Prosopagnosia. I identify Mel with her funky, colorful spectacles. That is the only way that I know that is Melanie Lee, my mentor from CCC. For intangible things like character traits or voice, I think that is for Audra. I identify and know that it is Audra by her voice which have this nyonya accent that I can easily identify with.
Every single day, I see true courage in me when I meet people who I have met before but I have forgotten their faces or simply said, I am unable to recognise them anymore. Their faces are no longer in my memory bank. All left of them are just blurred or empty faces and names with their character traits. I see myself pluck a whole large amount of courage sometimes to say Hi to people or say Hello back at them when we bump into each other because I really wouldn't want to make a fool of myself for saying Hi to the wrong people or being slapped with a title of 'arrogant girl' for not saying Hello back to people and especially if these people are those who are of higher authority or older than me. Seriously, that would have left them a wrong impression of me to them. Impressions count they say. (:
Yesterday, I went back to my previous school where sadly, I have lost a great deal of faces that I know in my memory bank. At every moment, I call out their name, their faces never appeared and even if they do appear, its either blurry or something that I barely can make out. I was glad that I was still able to identify some of the faces there like my NPCC ma'am with her forever rebonded hair and Ms Teh who I at first could not really identify but I decided to just go ahead with my intuition and approach her. My intuition proved to be right and I met Ms Teh at the foyer. As I was waiting for my girlfriend to collect her certificate, my eye caught this lady who was in the room beside the Principal's office who gave me a quick smile. I couldn't really make out who she is but I returned her a smile since it is after all, showing some respect to someone who I don't remember her face at all smiling at me. (I mean, I smile at strangers who smile at me so I guess it is perfectly okay to do that to a staff of the school.) There were quite a lot of things that was running in my head when all that happened like questions, who is that lady who smiled at me? Is she who I think she is to be? And then of course, it suddenly hit me that it is my former vice-principal, Mdm Ang. By the time I realised all that, it was all too late because she wasn't inside her room already.
Apart from that, I also went up to the Art rooms to look for another teacher whom I also have forgotten how she looked like and I needed her help to pass a card that I made for Mrs M to cheer her on. On the way up, while appearing distracted by the cheers made by the uniform groups during their training, I was thinking hard on how I was able to identify her and then I remembered her headscarf cos' there is only one Art teacher that I know wears the headscarf which of course made it easier for me to identify her. Lucky me, she was around and of course, I was able to identify her even though I had this slight fear in me thinking that I might have got the wrong Art teacher but I remembered what Jeanette once said to me that fear hinders growth. Hence, I pluck out all the courage I have and waved to her when I saw her. It really required a lot of some unknown great true courage in me to do just that because ever since Prosopagnosia hit me, I have become slightly more hesitant to say Hi to some people and often fear that I may have said Hi to the wrong people. Prosopagnosia in a way has really affected me in a sense of the ever friendly girl I used to be but I guess, I am dealing with that quite well now.
Albeit all that, something hit me quite hard from yesterday's visit. I was without a doubt hurt but I am alright now since I have decided to brush it off and be the greater person and understand (or try to, to say the least) why it turned out that way. I think for someone who is having Prosopagnosia, who is unable to recognise people and misses you a lot, who needed you just to assure her that things will be alright soon and do what you have always been doing to make her feel better, the least you can do is let her see you face to face for a while, 2 minutes would suffice. But of course, you didn't do that. I was very surprised that you didn't even allow me to pass the thing I brought personally to you and told me to left it outside with a simple reason, you were leaving and I thought you were really going to leave then but 10minutes later, I realised you were still inside. Oh well, it doesn't really matter now since I have already done what I was suppose to do and make sure the thing gets to you. I just hope, you like it.
Prosopagnosia one way or another have taught me a few things and brought in not only negative effects but the positive ones as well. At least, I know, it is much easier for me now to not able recognise those people who have hurt me badly in my life and maybe even forget about their existence after all. Courage and confidence, Prosopagnosia have succeeded to instill that in me to keep me going on in this world even with that impairment and inability to recognise people. One challenge and obstacle in my life that I am facing now which I believe in time to come will make me even a stronger person.
That is the story of Prosopagnosia and I.
x - I am writing this not to seek or indulge in any form of pity from you or whatsoever. I am just penning down my thoughts regarding this matter which I have been dealing with for the past few months and how it has really make my life tough and how I am dealing with it. It is also to serve me as a reminder that behind everything that has happened to me, there is bound to be a blessing in disguise. So don't you come up to me and tell me that the main objective of me writing all of this down is to get some pity from my readers or friends who read my blog. Get this, I don't need you or anybody's pity in the first place. Thanks.
