It does sound like you are experiencing yourself as a sum of discrete parts that are hard to get a holistic sense of, whereas most people process faces more as a whole, in a top-down, pretty instantaneous fashion. Curious if you have trouble recognizing other people or have to memorize how they look based on specific features, as well. It's so fascinating how processing the world can break down from efficient to effortful, and how there is both disorientation in the breakdown, but also beauty. Which of course is evidenced in you learning to take in more of the natural world around you and learn all the small features of the plants around you.
Thanks for these thoughtful questions! I have zero trouble recognizing other people, for the most part -- I tried in vain to find a term for prosopagnosia that was more...existential, I guess, and came up empty. I think that's more what I experience, a constant state of surprise about what I look like rather than a complete lack of awareness, if that makes sense.
And holy cow, what a poem, thanks for sharing it! I had seen you rec Mik's work in your book, obviously, but this was the first I think I've actually engaged with. It's really staggering. "I can’t make friends with people I am scared of losing." is a hell of a line.
Did you ever read Kim / Mik's poem on tumblr about prosopagnosia? You might like it: https://mikeverett.tumblr.com/post/56766116489/prosopagnosia
It does sound like you are experiencing yourself as a sum of discrete parts that are hard to get a holistic sense of, whereas most people process faces more as a whole, in a top-down, pretty instantaneous fashion. Curious if you have trouble recognizing other people or have to memorize how they look based on specific features, as well. It's so fascinating how processing the world can break down from efficient to effortful, and how there is both disorientation in the breakdown, but also beauty. Which of course is evidenced in you learning to take in more of the natural world around you and learn all the small features of the plants around you.
Thanks for these thoughtful questions! I have zero trouble recognizing other people, for the most part -- I tried in vain to find a term for prosopagnosia that was more...existential, I guess, and came up empty. I think that's more what I experience, a constant state of surprise about what I look like rather than a complete lack of awareness, if that makes sense.
And holy cow, what a poem, thanks for sharing it! I had seen you rec Mik's work in your book, obviously, but this was the first I think I've actually engaged with. It's really staggering. "I can’t make friends with people I am scared of losing." is a hell of a line.