This is brain fog

Everything about dysautonomia sucks, plain and simple. But brain fog is one of the worst aspects because it distorts your reality. What can you rely on when you can’t rely on your thinking?

I underwent a new treatment for my depression recently (I’ll write all about it soon). Since treatment, I’ve had several moments of striking clear and vivid thinking that have shown me how I’ve been wandering around in varying degrees of brain fog for years, whether it be from dysautonomia or depression.

While I can’t discern whether my brain fog is from dysautonomia or depression at any given moment, the fact is, I have it. Until you’ve experienced the unreliability of your thinking, you probably won’t get it. But I want to help you try.

Brain fog is when you have read the same sentence five times and it still doesn’t make sense. You think about how to break the sentence down so you can comprehend it. You look at each word individually. You see them all separately. You can read each word just fine, but you can’t string them together. You work on putting together a couple of words—maybe “they went” and “the car” but your brain can’t put the pieces together. It’s not working. This post is unreadable when brain fog is present.

Brain fog is when you learn someone’s face and name and forget them both instantly. The details of the conversation you’re having fade away. You try to catch up on what they’re saying and what they look like as they talk, even as you study their face. They ask you something. Wait, what? Who are you? What is this?

Brain fog is when you say something and immediately pause, look at someone, and ask “what did I just say?” because you have no idea what words just came out of your mouth. Hopefully, it’s something very similar to what you intended. Sometimes, you don’t even remember what you were trying to say.

Brain fog is when you are asked a question, you think hard about the answer, you open your mouth and the answer disappears. You pause, you try to speak as though that will bring the answer back and ask them to repeat the question. You try to think. Nothing. Blank. Where did it go? Where did the thoughts go?

Brain fog is when you can’t remember what you did that day. You know you did something. You must have done something. But there’s nothing to be remembered. What happened?

Brain fog makes you doubt your intelligence. You know in your heart that you know things but your brain is actively betraying you. You can’t even take the steps to calmly self-talk your way out of this because the fog is too thick—you can’t remind yourself of your strengths and your accomplishments because no thoughts are getting through. All of them are getting lost. You can form some sentences, but not others. Why is this so hard? You must be stupid, you decide. That’s the only logical explanation your brain will let you come up with.

Sometimes brain fog lasts a few minutes. Sometimes an hour. And sometimes it lasts days. You do everything you can to break through the haze. You drink lots of water. You exercise. You get eight hours of sleep. You eat healthy meals. You can think perfectly fine sometimes but when you try to talk, you’re totally tongue tied.

Thank every higher power for those few moments of levity when brain fog is funny—the good days when the world isn’t so heavy and being tongue tied is hilarious and not finding the right words isn’t frustrating because there’s no rush to express yourself—there’s plenty of time. Those days don’t come by often, but they help get you by.

2 comments

  1. “Brain fog” sounds more like “Brain ran into a brick wall.” Dang. I hope you are able to find more of those moments where life slows down and allows you to navigate through the fog at the pace you need. Love you!!!

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