Meet a Family Whose Members Don't Recognize One Another

Sept. 6, 2006 — -- Imagine scanning a crowd, looking for a familiar face, but everyone has the face of a stranger. That's what happens every time Heather Sellers walks into a restaurant.

"I am known to everybody else, and I don't know if I know them or not," Sellers said.

Some people never forget a face. But for 40 years, Sellers, a college English professor, has never been able to remember one. Even a face she's known since birth.

"I wouldn't be able to recognize my mother out of context if she was walking down the street. And then, along with that, I mistake people for her," Sellers said.

Growing up, Sellers had difficulty making friends. Later in life, not being able to recognize her co-workers, she said, strained relationships and hurt her career.

"I avoided a lot of committee meetings and a lot of my duties at my college, because it was so confusing to go into a room after five years and still not know who these people are," Sellers said.

She avoided parties and social gatherings altogether, because they were torture for her. Amid a sea of faces, she'd have trouble picking out even her closest loved ones.

"I could not recognize my husband, my then-husband, in the grocery store [or] in my own backyard," Sellers said.

Sellers suffers from a neurological disorder called prosopagnosia, or face blindness. The instant someone leaves her sight, the image of that person's face fades from her memory.

It's not that Sellers has a bad memory -- she can recall names, phone numbers, even a book she's read with ease. But mysteriously, she is unable to recall faces. Even her own image in a mirror throws her off.

"There is just a sea of faces that are reflected," Sellers said. "I won't know which one is me. It's frightening, and it's confusing. And I didn't want anyone to know. I thought I was crazy. "

Sellers isn't alone. Jim Heard, a retired art teacher, has spent his entire life pretending to recognize faces when often he can't.