Anamnesis, its a dual word for memory and recollection, you can believe it or not but both are very different mechanisms, hence the title. This article is about acquired prosopagnosia, I will apologise in advance for the long words that you have to wrap your head round but this is a real time attempt to communicate a reality that one person close to me has had to live through. The cause of her problem is me. As I could not recognise a face that means everything to me. Facial amnesia, face blindness, or prosopagnosia, whatever word you want to use it is one of the creepiest feelings you can ever experience, not knowing if the person looking at you knows you or is just another London nutter is pretty damned disorientating on a good day. Repeatedly not recognising the love of your life is really another heart break, and for her it must be hell, and I can only say sorry. I remember everything about us, even the worst parts, but I could only remember her face through my photographs, and it is a beautiful face. A face I can now remember, a face I miss, but behind all faces is a person, and this person is very important to me even now. So I will say sorry again Go Go Girl.

The moment you hear a voice, recognition quickly follows, but since anyone with this problem will automatically be wearing head phones and probably sunglasses with a baseball cap covering their eyes, it is not always possible to hear anyone. I experimented today without headphones and nearly got into a fight with an arrogant activist journalist. Not the success I was hoping for, but it could’ve been worse. Trauma can cause amnesia as can brain injury or surgery, if you have had all three some form of amnesia is a given, it can take ages after before you re-access visual-memory, 24 years in my case, but with visual memory come visuals. Seriously the last 3 months I have had a prolonged tidal wave of very suppressed memories, bad, not bad, not good, good and on the bright side a part of self reawakened, albeit via panic attacks, and downright self loathing. I can say that many years ago I dropped a cheesecake but tried to keep it in the air so I could catch it, it hit the ground and is probably illustrative of our lives, yet that memory was not fully there until recently, but I can see her face right now as I type in the very same memory. Memory is a very beautiful thing to have back. Recollecting it all is also equalising as a more balanced memory opens a more balanced reality, not the one sided monster I lived with for too many years.

I remember wars, I remember murders, I work in journalism, I can visually recollect everything, I remember everything but I can now see it, I actually almost own my own mind again, I say almost because if you had asked me two years ago I would have believed it was all good, but it was not. Consider it a post surgical traumatic injury lead trick of the light. Trauma is what it is, but how did I remember? Screwilly this involves bus stops, as I cycle everywhere public transport is usually linked to being injured in some way, so I am never happy to be using them. Before I write more please realise that the other person in this is real, and she would be confused and hurt by all of this. That was never my intention at any time, ever. From my point of view whilst listening to thumping music, a crazy woman jumped in front of me waving her hands and then ran to her bus, sitting there she smiled and with many gestures tried to get me to respond, I did but couldn’t recognise her at all. As I waved bye I felt something connect in me, very deeply but could not figure it out. It was like a had grenade went off in my head, and memories spilled to me of London Fields and Beirut, but I could not connect them, it was like a vibe not solid.

Then several months later after a bike crash, I saw her again, and somehow recognised her, I watched as she jumped onto her bus then turned and I smiled and she nearly put the palm of her hand through the bus window. I gestured with my camera, I somehow recognised her, and this time it was more of a thermo nuclear bomb went off in my head. I walked away and felt connections connecting with memories. 3 months of remembering and with it anger, rage, depression, love, sadness, surgery, drills, cameras, light planes and even shit that went down when I was six. Chaos. Anxiety attacks fist punching your gut, as I remembered. Falling through a life past. Then in a cafe we met, but it was all still exploding in my head. I couldn’t even speak, it was impossible. So I walked away. I actually did that. Yet as this has started to calm, I am accepting myself which is not the easiest task, I was never the sanest person in the room but I was myself. I don’t believe in sanity anyway as it is just how we respond, a full human being is a map of securities and insecurities. Strengths and weaknesses. Those misbalances make all of us.

Sometimes we all use memes, the one, the love of our life, and allow the physics nut to say he prefers entanglement but when we were together our psychologies were very close to one another, but expressed very differently, but cycling in the dark, I saw her again at another bus stop and recognised her straight away, I smiled, she smiled back, she looked to the floor with shock and a smile, I had to keep cycling as I was shocked and amazed to have recognised her, and she me, my head although calming was not calm. Contrary to any previous claims I may never do calm again but I am smiling as I type this. I actually connected memories of her trying to talk to me over the years, in a Sainsbury’s, on a street, and other times where she may have been there too. How did she manage to break through the block my mind had is beyond me, but I think love has something to do with it, I know we all move on in different ways but love doesn’t change the way we think it does. If it is real yeah you can hate each other but ultimately love is love, no rules need apply and if the only madness I have left is a love of her then I will keep it for myself thanks. I will say that I hope she reads this, or that I get chance to explain it sometime. For myself I would love to take photos with her again, but for me photography is life, and I wish her nothing but the best of this life.

Facial amnesia can happen for a lot of reasons, it can be congenital or head injury, who knows, but if you read this and know someone cannot remember you, be patient, maybe rabbit punch their shoulder, as once they take their headphones off you can explain to them who you are. Trust me they will be relieved.

Steve Merrick

24/01/2026