‘Brain fog’ or ‘Cog fog’ (Cognitive fog) is a neurological condition where mental fogginess gets in the way of people’s cognitive skills; making it hard for them to think straight and recall and process information. It can occur in a lot of disabilities and conditions such as Lupus, MS, Fibromyalgia Hypermobilty Syndromes, Dysautonamia, chronic fatigue, menopause, pregnancy and anxiety.
- Recalling words. “You know that thing…where you…ah?
- Misplacing objects. Either loosing them or feeling like there’s a poltergeist in the house because an object has appeared in a totally random place (where you absent-mindedly left it). Spatula in the washing machine and socks in the sink?
- No sense of time passing or your place in time. Not being able to keep track of what time or date or even day it is, throughout the day.
- Trying to catch fog. Trying to express something that you feel passionate about but you can’t seem to pin down the important points or get them in order in your mind before they drift away again.
- Visual processing. Starring right at the damn product on the shelf and still not being able to recognise and find it.
- Auditory processing and recall. By the time the person you are talking to has finished their sentence you’ve forgot the start of it. For instance – you know that you agree with them but now are clueless as to what you are agreeing with.
- Information sequencing for basic math, writing and logic. You would automatically know this this normally but today you can’t make sense of what the logical order is.
- General sensory processing. Everything is too loud or too tight or too bright or you can’t sense/judge things enough like temperature, spacial awareness, speed, distance. Scary when trying to cross a noisy, busy road.
- Feeling spaced-out and oddly detached. Not quite being able to comprehend the seriousness of situations or people’s problems. Coming across as slow to react, flippant or even uncaring.
- Concentration and sequencing. Managing to loose your own point mid-sentence by getting easily distracted “I simply will not put up with…Ooh shiny!
- Struggling to make simple decisions or feeling rather apathetic to things and just saying “You choose, I’m good either way.”
- Literally going blank and ‘phasing out.’ Nope, I have no idea where I went there for a moment, either.
- Learning difficulties. Having to do something repeatedly and within a fairly short time frame to be able to learn it or get into the habit of doing it.
- Basic auditory processing. When you are deep in thought or involved in a task and someone talks to you, because you are not expecting to hear something, you can’t process what it was, only that you heard them say something. So they say it louder -_-
- Recalling specific details. You are having a great conversation and taking in everything that is being said, you feel today is a brain fog free day. The next day when relating the conversation to some else “They went on holiday to…somewhere and they went with…someone and it was last week or last month, ah crap, never mind.”
I know people with Dyspraxia, Autism, ADD, ADHD (or a combination of them), will have struggled with some of the above naturally, since childhood – I know I have – but those brain fog moments make these things even more difficult, which is why Brain Fog has earned a whole list of it’s own ;o)
Which do you relate to? Let me know in the comments.
❤Chrissie❤
Vamp It Up 