Surely many of you are just like Tik, in that you are a bit bad at remembering faces. You probably
have a bad memory, and it's sometimes difficult for you to recognize someone you were introduced
to a while ago. However, don't worry about that tiktakers, since that's perfectly normal.
Now, could you imagine if this bad memory for faces was something more serious and
frequent in your life? If you were not capable of recognizing any of the people closest to you,
including your very own family? Or even reaching the point where you look at yourself in the
mirror, and see a complete stranger? Well, unfortunately, this terrifying condition
exists in real life: It's a disorder known as prosopagnosia, term that comes from the Greek
"prosopon" which means "face", and "agnosia" which means "lack of knowledge".
This condition is more commonly known as facial blindness, but it has nothing to do
with the eyes nor losing your sight. It occurs due to a malfunction of a part of the brain
known as the fusiform gyrus, which allows us to recognize and memorize faces in greater
detail than other objects. This condition can be heréditary, or it can occur due to brain damage
caused by an injury or a disease. And although it seems to be a pretty uncommon condition,
it is believed that it affects around 2% of the population.
The issue is that there can be many people who suffer from this disorder and
don't know it – maybe they just think that they have a very bad memory, or that they are
more absent-minded than most people. Many even feel shame about acknowledging their condition.
In fact, this was an unknown disease until the mid 20th century when the first case was diagnosed,
on an apprehended German soldier during World War II.
He suffered an injury on his head, and although he recovered completely,
he was no longer able to recognize the faces of his caretakers.
In 1947, the German neurologist Joachim Bodamer (1910-1985) carried out the first studies about
this, but the condition was still a clinical curiosity until the end of the '90s. It was then
that several articles about prosopagnosia were published, and the people who had been dealing
with the symptoms for years finally discovered that they were suffering from a real disorder.
The most terrifying thing is that, since this is a neuronal disorder, it has no possible cure. Those
affected are capable of identifying eyes, noses, mouths, and even recognize if someone is sad or
happy. However, they are not able to comprehend faces as a whole. Their last resort is learning to
remember people through different characteristics, such as their hair, voice, gestures, an item they
always use such as glasses, or another characteristic such as a scar or a mole.
The testimonies from those who suffer from this disorder are horrifying:
A Welsh woman says that she once greeted an acquaintance she saw at the bus, who she
didn't realize was her own mother. She says it's overwhelming to spend an entire day in public,
constantly asking yourself if you should have spoken to someone in particular,
and if you were seen as rude for not doing it. Many times she had to stop watching a
movie midway because she couldn't recognize the characters, and thus couldn't follow the plot.
And on one occasion she was checking out an album with old family photos, and couldn't
recognize a stranger that kept appearing in them… Turns out, the stranger was herself.
Another woman from Germany confessed that this disorder turned her childhood into a living hell:
Since she was not capable of distinguishing her teachers, she made a list of their
particular characteristics, also noting if they were friendly or bad-tempered.
Unfortunately, one of them confiscated her list. She would spend recess alone, and when going back
to class she would frequently end up following the wrong group of kids, ending up in the wrong
classroom. Her classmates and teachers thought she was dimwitted, and would frequently make
fun of her. They even suggested to her parents that they sent her to a special needs school.
Prosopagnosia can deeply affect your relationships with other people, especially if you are famous.
Brad Pitt acknowledged that he suffered from this disorder in a 2013 interview, and that many people
would hate him thinking he was being rude to them, when Brad just didn't recognize them.
There was a time when he would try asking people where they had met. Unfortunately, this
only made things worse: They would get even more offended, and would think he was being arrogant.
Facial blindness has even appeared in movies and literature. In the tale "The man who mistook his
wife for a hat", the British writer Oliver Sacks (1933-2015) narrates the story of a
man with facial blindness whose wife always has to wear a flashy hat so he can recognize her.
And in the movie "Faces in the crowd" (Julien Magnat 2011), Milla Jovovich
plays the role of a woman who manages to identify a murderer – however,
after being injured in the head, she becomes incapable of recognizing faces.
As you can see, tiktakers, the workings of the human brain are still a mystery.
And even in 2021, new diseases and disorders are being discovered,
which can turn a person's life into a living nightmare.