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Please excuse the big print... I'm nervous and that makes it harder for me to see although they tell me there is absolutely nothing wrong with my eyes. I am a female veteran with a Traumatic Brain Injury. VA hasn't been very spot on with treatment, but I recently got diagnosed with Face Blindness. Helps to understand what is going on... its all really baffling when you don't have an explanation. I guess the head injury caused me to not be able to retain face recognition, but I'm realizing it explains a whole world of social issues as well that they just don't automatically explain to you. At first, I thought I needed to find people with the exact same issue and they would understand and I wouldn't feel so alone. But then I realized a.) that's harder said than done, b.) perhaps anyone experiencing grief could relate, and c.) I feel like I've lost everyone but most of all myself.

Because I can't recognize people I've known all my life without context I don't make new friends easily and I feel completely alien to the people I supposedly do know. Also, I can't pick up on emotional cues as easily because that is part of facial recognition. But the darkest part of it all, is that if I don't have constant and continual sensory input from my other senses regarding people I know and love, my memories of them freeze frame. But they keep changing. So when I do come in contact with them again... I can't relate to the new person as being the old one. It's as if they person I knew and loved is dead. Even though they are standing there. I don't know them as the same person. Emotionally it feels like an impostor has been put in place. I know better, but apparently my heart is more attached to the old them, and my damaged brain can't catch up. The only thing that possibly helps is spending a lot of time uninterrupted with the new impostor, but the feeling is never fully recaptured or at least it has not been in a single instance yet. I have little or no emotional attachment to them. I'm still missing the old version of them. Even if I do, its hard to ever feel like it was the original person. So what this means is for me, its like everyone I used to know died and was replaced by pod people. And I don't even get the luxury of closure on that.

There are no graves, no funerals, no death certificates. Because they aren't really dead. When I am with people, new or old, I feel like the dead one. Nothing. I tend to sit with my memories and feel guilty. Because I can't really grieve properly and because to most people this is all in my head. I'd agree except its not actually psychological. I tell you this much, its given me a lot more empathy for psychological conditions. Nevertheless, its completely neurological and that has two major problems. I can't get over it. I can't be cured of it. At least not yet. Like many impairments that can't be seen... I have trouble talking about it even with medical professionals which is probably part of why its taken 20 years to diagnose properly. And why 99% of my doctors still don't even get it. it's sooo easy to label problems with the mind mental and then that's like a code word that nothing you say has any validity anymore.

I don't know what to do with this sadness. It occurred to me today that I might should go to a graveside... any graveside... I hardly think dead people care if you know them even if most live people take it very personally when you don't.... and see if I could manage more than two tears at a time. I haven't cried in years. It's been like a terrible hole in me and I filled it with guilt because I didn't understand it myself. Why I suddenly had so little feeling for people and why I felt so utterly alone all the time even in a sea of people. You hear people say that. Its supposed to be one of the things we all have in common... so why should I feel bad for it. I don't know. Getting answers to the puzzle has helped some but now I just want to know what to do next. How to manage... Perhaps candle lighting would be more appropriate and I've thought about doing that. I noticed as a rule catholic churches don't seem to have fraud police at the door checking for catholic id before allowing you in to light candles. But I'm not sure what will help me deal with this pain.

According to the cartoon G.I. Joe, "knowing is half the battle." I wish I knew what the other half was. I feel like its doing something about it. But I can't fix it. I'm not sure if what I grieve most is the people I've lost or the fact that its so monumental of a task to bond now. I don't know if I can. Seems the world is too fast for me. What am I supposed to do? Ask people to slow down and not go away for any time so my brain can process them? That's sounds a bit neurotic.... LOL It's so frustrating. I now know why I have inadvertently lost every important person, and managed to run off all the pod people by my silence and awkwardness, but knowing doesn't make it feel any better or change it. I'm trying really hard to forgive my brain for being like this. But I still kind of angry about it.

My therapist suggested I look for support online. My first attempt at that did NOT go well. My pain was minimized because no one was actually dead. That really hurt. Probably because I'm already super uncomfortable talking about this so I finally open up and I felt like I kind of got my teeth kicked in for not fitting in appropriately. I hear that someone grieving a death feels my pain is different or that I don't qualify because they feel like if there is a living human there is hope... hope that they don't have. I can see how it might seem that way if you didn't have my problem. But I hardly think dead is the only unfixable loss. Until someone comes up with a brain transplant (and frankly, I'd rather have the parts of my brain that do work than a different one) I'm stuck with the cards I've been dealt, and all of them aren't very happy cards. Life is a gamble. I took a risk for others-- and I paid a heavier price than some, and not as heavy a price as some others. I would never ever tell someone that their pain didn't qualify because its not exactly like mine. I think its fair and honest to admit that I don't understand some things which are out of my realm of experience, but I'm hoping that here online I can either make contact with that less than 1% of the population which has the same experience, or that someone will be able to look past the differences in why I am sad and just say "I get it because I've been sad too" regardless of why they were. So that's all I know for now...

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Please excuse the big print... I'm nervous and that makes it harder for me to see although they tell me there is absolutely nothing wrong with my eyes. I am a female veteran with a Traumatic Brain Injury. VA hasn't been very spot on with treatment, but I recently got diagnosed with Face Blindness. Helps to understand what is going on... its all really baffling when you don't have an explanation. I guess the head injury caused me to not be able to retain face recognition, but I'm realizing it explains a whole world of social issues as well that they just don't automatically explain to you. At first, I thought I needed to find people with the exact same issue and they would understand and I wouldn't feel so alone. But then I realized a.) that's harder said than done, b.) perhaps anyone experiencing grief could relate, and c.) I feel like I've lost everyone but most of all myself.

Because I can't recognize people I've known all my life without context I don't make new friends easily and I feel completely alien to the people I supposedly do know. Also, I can't pick up on emotional cues as easily because that is part of facial recognition. But the darkest part of it all, is that if I don't have constant and continual sensory input from my other senses regarding people I know and love, my memories of them freeze frame. But they keep changing. So when I do come in contact with them again... I can't relate to the new person as being the old one. It's as if they person I knew and loved is dead. Even though they are standing there. I don't know them as the same person. Emotionally it feels like an impostor has been put in place. I know better, but apparently my heart is more attached to the old them, and my damaged brain can't catch up. The only thing that possibly helps is spending a lot of time uninterrupted with the new impostor, but the feeling is never fully recaptured or at least it has not been in a single instance yet. I have little or no emotional attachment to them. I'm still missing the old version of them. Even if I do, its hard to ever feel like it was the original person. So what this means is for me, its like everyone I used to know died and was replaced by pod people. And I don't even get the luxury of closure on that.

There are no graves, no funerals, no death certificates. Because they aren't really dead. When I am with people, new or old, I feel like the dead one. Nothing. I tend to sit with my memories and feel guilty. Because I can't really grieve properly and because to most people this is all in my head. I'd agree except its not actually psychological. I tell you this much, its given me a lot more empathy for psychological conditions. Nevertheless, its completely neurological and that has two major problems. I can't get over it. I can't be cured of it. At least not yet. Like many impairments that can't be seen... I have trouble talking about it even with medical professionals which is probably part of why its taken 20 years to diagnose properly. And why 99% of my doctors still don't even get it. it's sooo easy to label problems with the mind mental and then that's like a code word that nothing you say has any validity anymore.

I don't know what to do with this sadness. It occurred to me today that I might should go to a graveside... any graveside... I hardly think dead people care if you know them even if most live people take it very personally when you don't.... and see if I could manage more than two tears at a time. I haven't cried in years. It's been like a terrible hole in me and I filled it with guilt because I didn't understand it myself. Why I suddenly had so little feeling for people and why I felt so utterly alone all the time even in a sea of people. You hear people say that. Its supposed to be one of the things we all have in common... so why should I feel bad for it. I don't know. Getting answers to the puzzle has helped some but now I just want to know what to do next. How to manage... Perhaps candle lighting would be more appropriate and I've thought about doing that. I noticed as a rule catholic churches don't seem to have fraud police at the door checking for catholic id before allowing you in to light candles. But I'm not sure what will help me deal with this pain.

According to the cartoon G.I. Joe, "knowing is half the battle." I wish I knew what the other half was. I feel like its doing something about it. But I can't fix it. I'm not sure if what I grieve most is the people I've lost or the fact that its so monumental of a task to bond now. I don't know if I can. Seems the world is too fast for me. What am I supposed to do? Ask people to slow down and not go away for any time so my brain can process them? That's sounds a bit neurotic.... LOL It's so frustrating. I now know why I have inadvertently lost every important person, and managed to run off all the pod people by my silence and awkwardness, but knowing doesn't make it feel any better or change it. I'm trying really hard to forgive my brain for being like this. But I still kind of angry about it.

My therapist suggested I look for support online. My first attempt at that did NOT go well. My pain was minimized because no one was actually dead. That really hurt. Probably because I'm already super uncomfortable talking about this so I finally open up and I felt like I kind of got my teeth kicked in for not fitting in appropriately. I hear that someone grieving a death feels my pain is different or that I don't qualify because they feel like if there is a living human there is hope... hope that they don't have. I can see how it might seem that way if you didn't have my problem. But I hardly think dead is the only unfixable loss. Until someone comes up with a brain transplant (and frankly, I'd rather have the parts of my brain that do work than a different one) I'm stuck with the cards I've been dealt, and all of them aren't very happy cards. Life is a gamble. I took a risk for others-- and I paid a heavier price than some, and not as heavy a price as some others. I would never ever tell someone that their pain didn't qualify because its not exactly like mine. I think its fair and honest to admit that I don't understand some things which are out of my realm of experience, but I'm hoping that here online I can either make contact with that less than 1% of the population which has the same experience, or that someone will be able to look past the differences in why I am sad and just say "I get it because I've been sad too" regardless of why they were. So that's all I know for now...

Hi Genna,

It certainly sounds like you have been dealing with a terrible situation. I'm not exactly sure I understand it all correctly, but nevertheless, it must be horrible to experience such a frustrating and scary process. So, when you meet new people and discover you like them--the next time you see them you don't recognize them or even like them? And you feel the same way about your family and friends you've known all your life? That must be horrible.

And there is nothing they can do to help you? Have you developed any kind of coping mechanisms--like taking notes when you meet someone to describe your feelings and your experience. That way, you'd at least be able to read what you, yourself, wrote about that person. Would that help trigger anything?

So is it your short-term memory affected or your emotional center (if we even have one)? Do your family members try to help?

Well, that's okay. We will try to be supportive and encouraging. Maybe it will help that you can't actually see us.

ModKonnie

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It definitely can make things challenging and now that I know the WHY of it... I don't feel like such a "needy" or scared person. I've been jotting down names in a diagram of where people were sitting the first time I met them. Doesn't solve the problme but it does help me place the previous conversation if it was a group one. Sometimes I'm not sure who said what... its like a group can become a person almost but that sounds worse than it is. I just have a hard time remembering who expressed what opinions so even though I've heard them I may not have any reference for a single person the next time I see them.

My family acts like I'm making this whole thing up. They totally don't get it. It can be frustrating to be cast in the role of hypochondriac when you actually do have a illness. Although I imagine it feels just as bad if you actually are a hypochondriac. It's hard sometimes to separate guilt for when it is supposed to be there and having it all the time when you can sense you are upsetting people repeatedly with social blunders. The other week I met the same man twice but thought he was two different people and managed to say to him that I knew he wasn't the same guy because the other guy's head was larger than his. How mortifying to find out the "two guys" had the same name and phone number when the contact information for the support group was handed out. Because now i know it was the same man. I swear sometimes I think I would do better to never speak at all, but apparently I'm not capable of keeping my mouth shut. And the more nervous I am the more likely I am to run off at the mouth. Thanks for replying. It's nice when people try to understand even if they don't perfectly. Then you don't feel like such an alien. <grin> And your right, it is much easier to face people's words and nicknames than to face faces in a crowd. GG

Hi Genna,

It certainly sounds like you have been dealing with a terrible situation. I'm not exactly sure I understand it all correctly, but nevertheless, it must be horrible to experience such a frustrating and scary process. So, when you meet new people and discover you like them--the next time you see them you don't recognize them or even like them? And you feel the same way about your family and friends you've known all your life? That must be horrible.

And there is nothing they can do to help you? Have you developed any kind of coping mechanisms--like taking notes when you meet someone to describe your feelings and your experience. That way, you'd at least be able to read what you, yourself, wrote about that person. Would that help trigger anything?

So is it your short-term memory affected or your emotional center (if we even have one)? Do your family members try to help?

Well, that's okay. We will try to be supportive and encouraging. Maybe it will help that you can't actually see us.

ModKonnie

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Hi Genna,

Thanks for sharing your story. I have told my little sis that she's had several symptoms of a brain tumor or injury for years. Yet,she refuses to accept it or go get a diagnosis. It frightens me to watch her health deteriorate while she looks very healthy for the most part! I saw several of her symptoms in your story that I didn't know were symptom of brain injury. I grieve for her and our relationship every single day. You don't know how you affected my life by sharing knowledge.

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