'My rare brain condition makes me think every stranger is my friend' | SWNS

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]I'm Jenny, and I have hyperfamiliarity for faces. My brain connects memories to faces that shouldn't be connected together. So, everybody that I see in the street, I think I've had time with them, and I think I've got memories with them when actually I haven't.

[00:00:16]So, if I was in the street, and I connect to with people's faces, I would actually think that I knew everyone, which can be a bit overwhelming. So, over time, what I do now is I I only engage in with people's faces when I want to. So, now I can use it to my advantage because if I'm in a new situation that could be a bit anxiety-inducing, I engage with people's faces, and I instantly feel like I've known everyone for years, and then I literally just tell them anything cuz I feel like I really know them well. So, it actually can be used as a positive in my life now. So, what's been really exciting is because I've been part of these experiments um at the University of York, it's it's furthered sort of understanding about how memory works.

[00:00:56]And then, the most exciting thing for me is I was told that people with similar conditions to this would really limit their lives and stay indoors and not do things because of the overwhelming nature of this condition. So, the cool thing is by this research being done, the research being published and getting out into the media, I'm hoping that other people can see this and think, "Oh, maybe the condition isn't completely negative. Maybe I can spin it a bit more positive." So, to me, that'll be amazing if people could see this and think, "Maybe I could do that, too." So, I genuinely can't tell if I know someone or not. So, all of my friends, everyone I know, they know that if they see me in the street, I won't be engaging with faces at that point. So, they'll have to say, "Hi, Jenny. It's so-and-so." And at that point, it'll be fine cuz I'll engage with a face, and then it'll just be normal. But, they know that if they walk past me in the street, so if they didn't want to talk to me that day, they could totally get away with it, and I wouldn't even know I'd seen them. So, I've had migraines for years, but they've always been on the same side, and I had a migraine and then one on the other side instantly, which had never had before, and it was straight after that everyone started looking really familiar. So, the scientists don't know if the migraines caused the change in my brain or if the change in my brain caused the migraines. It happened at that point, but we don't know which caused which.

[00:02:13]So, if you do feel like you've got a condition like this, um it's always worth getting in touch with anyone that's doing research on it, and then they can have a look cuz the more people that come forward, the more we can add to the research and more it can be understood. But, it's also incredibly validating to have a scientist say, "You're not imagining this."