Face Blindness

Adored Wife suffers from prosopagnosia, face blindness.  I ask her what it's like having it, and the response is "what's it like not having it?"  What would a sighted person say if a blind person asked what it was like to see?

There's a part of the brain that puts facial features together into a pattern we can instantly recognize from memory, so we don't have to say "Blue eyes, slightly arched nose, chin a little pointed, thinner than average lips...oh, that's Bob!".  AW's brain doesn't work that way--she can't look at my face and know it's me, and she's occasionally not recognized me if she's met me someplace unexpected.

There's nothing wrong with her eyesight (well, okay, she has limited peripheral vision and is legally blind without her glasses, but her eyes WORK), but the connect-the-dots part of the gray matter doesn't happen.  I ask her how she knows it's me, and apparently I have a very distinctively shaped left ear.

I'm now a little self-conscious about my left ear.  I shouldn't have asked.

Some people she identifies by voice, or by height, or scent, or general body shape.  We know a lady who has an unusual hairstyle, and AW loves that because she can pick her out of a crowd.  She's hoping she never changes it.  It's one of the reasons she tends to be more comfortable around those with some markedly distinguishing features--she knows who they are.

It sounds a little strange, but she's used to it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.