A Woman, A Mom, A Vet, A Ptsd Survivor!

[Ruth09]

Also,...

I think the reason for only paying 50% of a retiree's base pay is because if a person enters the military at 18, they could retire at 38. This is still young enough to get another job and retire from that one. However, the person who did this was healthy.

Ruth

 

[Deaf Global Nomad]

Welcome to the forum, Morning!

Wow - 20 years of dealing with PTSD is definitely a long time. If you apply for Social Security Disability, keep in mind that you are allowed to work a certain amount and thus earn a little money. I do not know the details of how much or how your pension will affect your qualifying, but I hope it goes well. It sounds to me like you definitely deserve the help.

Have you always had the disability with recognizing faces or is it something that came on with the PTSD? I guess there are other options as well, such as recognizing it when you recognized the PTSD? There is a neurological disorder called Prosopagnosia, which has recently been recently quite a bit of attention because it is much more common than originally. Several universities are conducting research on it and we are learning a lot about it. I recently also watched a documentary on the issue.

Whether or not you, or any others who have responded, actually have Prosopagnosia or the difficulty recognizing faces is related to the PTSD doesn't actually matter. My therapist explained that the frontal lobe shuts down in stress situations and only the back parts of the brain fire. Researchers have discovered this through fMRI studies.

Regardless what the original cause of the difficulty is, I suspect that you can find all kinds of assistive strategies or coping strategies in addition to the ones that you already use that might help if you look up what people with Prosopagnosia use.

Best of luck on your journey!

 

[Lucycat]

Hi Morning,

I too also struggle with facial recognition and understand you 100% . I think I have always been like this but it is only recently that I have acknowledged it.

I don't recognize even the closest of friends and family and always use other cues - such as hairstyle, voice, posture etc. I too have become quite a good actress and try not to show people I have not got a clue who they are. It can be very difficult at times. It is not about remembering names - once I have worked out who someone is, I usually know their name too.

Although the idea of taking pictures might help, I cannot envisage taking out a huge album to cross check who someone is before proceeding with a conversation! Anyway I can see two pictures of the same person and not see it is the same person if there is some difference - like a hair cut.

I also don't recognize very famous people. I frequently ask Rory to tell me who a particular film star or other celebrity is.

From what I have read about the condition there is no treatment or therapy to help. It seems to be just about managing to live with it. I am unsure if it is related to PTSD or is simply a quirk of who I am.

Regards
Lucy x