Woman who can't recognize her husband or kids reveals what it's like living with condition that's more common than you think
Topics: Health, Science, Social Media
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: eleanor.flegg/Instagram
Topics: Health, Science, Social Media
A wife and mom has opened up about a condition which affects millions of Americans and has left her unable to recognize her own family.
Eleanor Flegg, an author who lives in Dublin, Ireland, admitted that she felt 'different' growing up, partly due to her struggles to recognize her peers.
Seeing her classmates in school uniforms meant she couldn't recognize them by their clothes, so she often found herself having conversations with the wrong people.
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In an article written for The Sun, Eleanor also recalled a weekend away with a group of friends and what she believed to be a former boyfriend - but she couldn't exactly ask him if she was the person he'd dated, so instead had to try and avoid him.
Eleanor went on to get married and welcome two children, Vanya and Turlough, who she could recognize when they were young. As they grew up, however, she began to struggle more.
She recalled: "One day in 2013, I saw a young man walking a greyhound and thought: ‘Wow, that dog is just like ours.’
"When I saw Turlough, then 17, later that day, I told him about it. He just laughed and said: ‘Mum, that was me!’"
Eleanor found her confusion would happen more often when she was stressed or tired, but her second husband, Jasper, helped her try to see the funny side of it.
It wasn't until 2020, five years after Eleanor and Jasper married, that Eleanor began looking into autism as part of research for a book.
She recognized many of the traits in herself, and at the age of 53 she decided to go for an assessment which included being asked if she had difficulty recognizing faces.
Eleanor learned her condition had a name, prosopagnosia, and it's not as uncommon as you might think.
In fact, according to a study cited by Harvard University, as many as one in 33 people (3.08 percent) may meet the criteria for prosopagnosia - otherwise known as face blindness. This translates to more than 10 million Americans.
After speaking to her mom about her struggles, Eleanor learned she'd had the same problem, and discovered the condition runs in families.
There's no treatment for the condition, but Eleanor has come to accept it as part of who she is.
She and Jasper continue to see the funny side of it, and she recalled one occasion in which she saw a 'handsome stranger' smiling at her.
"Then, as he got off his bike and walked towards me, I realized that it wasn’t a flirty stranger - it was my husband Jasper, who I’d known for 23 years," Eleanor recalled.
She now finds support for her condition on TikTok, and shares her own videos to let others know they're not alone.