...DEFEAT Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: ...............................................................You don't have to live with it
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SEID/CFS Brain Fog – Write it Down

3/8/2016

2 Comments

 
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I was driving home at night last week and the lingering snow on the ground was a few inches thick.  With temperatures in the mid 30s, there was a wall of thick fog hanging over the snow and drifting across the roads.  In high school science class I learned that sublimation is the transformation of physical matter directly from a solid to a gas without ever becoming a liquid.  So the night fog was the result of the frozen snow skipping over water and going straight to cloud vapor.  And it reminded me of the frustrating brain fog I had when I was struggling with ME/CFS.
 
Kind of like the snow, my brain seemed to skip over the natural fluidity of conversations - the ebb and flow of ideas exchanged with another.  Or the transitional thoughts needed to get from a concern to a possible course of action.  Concrete thoughts wouldn’t develop and instead slowly leaked out of my head like a balloon with a pin hole.  I couldn’t remember what someone said a moment after they said it.  It seemed to dissipate into the air without ever registering in my brain.
 
After denying the reality of my memory struggles for awhile, I finally came around and tried to cope with it.  I started to write things down as I spoke with people and it helped me to keep the train of thought going.  And when I was trying to think through something on my own, I also wrote it down.  It felt stupid at first, but when it began it help, I appreciated the sense of accomplishment that resulted.

How are you coping with brain fog?  What strategies have you developed?  Please COMMENT on this blog or Send in your thoughts and I’ll post them with your permission.  You can use the Contact Form or send an email to Martha at DefeatCFS dot net.  And Guest Blogs are most welcome!

Look for a weekly posting on Tuesdays.  And consider being part of the conversation.

Be Well Again,
 

Martha

2 Comments
Tim Boland
3/14/2016 01:25:49 am

I remember the first time when I experienced something like what you describe, Martha. Your writing this week (and in other weeks) is so clear, so well delineated. I was always good with arithmetic in grade school days, and adding up columns of numbers was easy, and fun.

One day after my illness exhibited itself, I tried to add up a column of a few simple numbers, and found myself shocked that it was so difficult somehow, and in the beginning, I'd come up with wrong totals. Part of this may have been due to our modern laziness to use calculators, but I knew it was more than this.

I didn’t want to have any kind of mental decline, that was truly frightening. So I took to reading the titles at the end of older movies, the type where the actors and their characters scrolled somewhat slowly down the page, reading those names a loud. I found this really helped, and writing too, comments about subjects I felt passionate about.


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Martha
3/15/2016 04:53:34 pm

I had the same problem when I was sick. Columns of numbers were no longer easy for me to add in my head. So frustrating. And so much else that simply leaked out of my mind. Good coping strategy Tim. Thanks!

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    Hello,  I'm
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    After struggling with CFS for four years I am fortunate now to be fully well and making choices about how I want to live my healthy life.  One choice is to be an active part of the CFS community and to offer one voice from the fully recoverd to the dialogue.  I'm glad you're here!   For more about me, here's my Bio.

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