wispfox

Sorry, random guy on the street, I am not a good calibration for whether or not it's strange to have people in this town stare at you as if they know you...

Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to a random stranger that you are accustomed to people that you don't recognize staring at you as if you should because they are probably actually people you know?

*wry* Poor guy was so confused, and just gave up.

Define "acquaintance", please?

( cut to not affect your reply, is my reply and reason for asking )

Not that it really needs advocacy, but the frequency with which I talk to people about face blindness is pretty funny. :)

*talks to co-worker about face blindness for 30 minutes, randomly*

Any of y'all face blind? Do other members of your family also have trouble with face recognition?

I ask because one of the better known face blindness research teams is, as always, looking for more people with face blindness, _especially_ if multiple members of a family all have it.

So, go fill out their contact form if you're face blind/prospagnosic, especially if others of your family are, too. (it is very likely that the more severe the congenital face blindness, the less likely one is to realize that it's missing. Finding out I had it caused me to ask my mom if she did. She did, but did not realize it)

I can, indeed, switch my brain into a state where I can be intensely social for long periods of time. But it requires me to not need to keep track of time, makes me _very_ flighty (counteracted by being cuddled), not great at self care, and makes non-highly-social activities not things I want to be doing (so I made it to no panels at all, and played very few games). It also requires that I have people I am utterly comfortable with clinging to/cuddling with reasonably easily available. It also makes me _way_ less good at being aware that I am not seeing as much of people as I might like, if I'm seeing them at all and I _am_ getting time with comfortably cuddly people. It also means that I start getting less able to handle touch from those I'm not as comfortable with. And starts meaning my impulse control goes away (although that may have been insufficient sleep).

I have done this before (when I met the_xtina and cos, and went to the housewarming where I knew no one), but it's been a long time, and I didn't really understand then how to make it last without huge cost. Now I have more data. :)

So! Arisia mathmatics:

( cutting is kind )

I feel like I've asked this before and just failed to follow-up, but I cannot find evidence of this, so I ask again.

If y'all were looking for an autism spectrum disorder specialist from whom to get an adult ASD diagnosis, how would you go about finding such? (I suspect I can guess my diagnosis, but even so)

I am reasonably confident that it's _much_ harder to diagnose a) as an adult who has developed coping mechanisms, b) if one is female, and c) if one is (mostly) functional. Thus specifying both 'adult' and 'specialist'.

I also wonder how much having a sleep disorder, a mood disorder, and partial face blindness will screw with diagnosis. Heh. Because I cannot be simple. :)

La!

(and now I wonder how many people reading this are diagnosed as being on the spectrum)

National Invisible Chronic Illness Week - my comment in shadesong's journal.

It appears that beards seriously screw with my ability to differentiate people from others with beards, and with my ability to recognize those that I have developed some ability to recognize _in_ context, when they are no longer in that context. It also seems to make it far more difficult for me to read a person.

Excepting people who grew beards after I was close to them, I can't think of anyone I'm very close to who has a beard. And even in the 'grew it later' category, I don't think I'm _still_ amazingly close to anyone who did that - but then, I can only think of a single case, and there are other possible reasons for that.

Annoys me that this is true, since it annoys me that there's a category of people who I apparently will not get close to based on something as trivial as a type of facial hair. But... I don't think this has ever not been true, and may be a large part of my dislike of such things.

This was sparked by a reminder of the fact that I was _completely_ unable to figure out _why_ someone knew me (and who I was pretty sure that I knew, as well) a few weekends ago, when I saw them out of context. Felt really bad about it, too! On the plus side, for once him saying his name _did_ help... (since I'm also bad with proper nouns)

Wanted to do a poll about visualizing people's faces, as well as relating to the fact that I have a hell of a time finding people in a crowd. Exhausted, but wanted to do this before I forgot. :)

[Poll #341839]