I’m starting to be very concerned for my mental health as I regularly fail to recognise people I haven’t seen in years. It sometimes happens to meet people I apparently used to hangout with in primary school (I’m now turning 19). I sometimes recognise them by name, but I cannot possibly find any visual resemblance. 


I remember the way they looked the last time I saw them, but it’s like they’re a complete different person now, I’m just completely unable to recognise them. I live in a small town, so I meet people I know almost every day, but I very often greet people back who I have no fucking clue who they are. 


As long as we just greet each other it’s all good, but if they wanna start a conversation it suddenly gets extremely cringy and awkward as I try my best to act like I know them. The worst is if they talk about some past event we took part in together, which I obviously don’t remember. 


I sometimes recognise them if I know them by name, but it takes me some good minutes for my brain to be able to put their past and current facial features together and see them as the same person. I also seem to forget family members I haven’t seen in 3-4 years, it’s the same issue as I know them by name but I forget how they look.


Even if some of them haven’t aged and look almost the same, I won’t recognise them if I see their face unless they tell me who they are and then everything clicks in. It’s sooo weird. The main reason I post this is because today I had a 15 minutes conversation with a middle aged man I met at a gas station who seemed to know me and my family very well. 


He asked me how I’m doing, if I graduated, if I have a job, how are my parents (knew their names) and he even knew the things our family struggled with because he asked me if we’re doing ok with x and y. I talked to him like I knew him, but I swear to god I never saw this man before in my life. I have absolutely zero idea who he was. From my point of view, there’s the first time I met him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me at this point.