Clouding of Consciousness

“Brain fog is needing a reminder to remind you what your reminders are for.” — Selena Marie Wilson

One thing most of us chronic illness warriors have in common is brain fog.

It's like driving at night through heavy fog, when your headlights are bouncing off the moisture in the air and you can only see a few feet in front of you. You're not exactly sure where you are. You're not sure how soon the corner you need to turn at is approaching or whether or not you've passed it already, or wait...were you even supposed to turn?

It is a couple bounds past "pregnancy brain" and a few leaps short of dementia.

It is not being able to remember the names of teenagers you've known since they were in kindergarten. You open your mouth to cheer for them during a soccer game but their names won't come into your mind quickly enough. You echo the other parents around you, hoping no one realizes your slightly delayed cheering.

You never know what day it is. You can't keep track of schedules. You ask your clones how a test went and they sigh at you because they told you five minutes ago how the test went. Thirty minutes later, you ask again.

Someone asks you what you've been up to lately and you give a generic "not much" because you can't actually remember what you've done lately.

You call your doctors office to make an appointment and make it for the 18th only to hang up and be reminded that you were told to make the appointment for any day except the 18th.

You forget words: Door. Car. Light switch.

You listen to your spouse telling you something but you have no idea what he just told you because your native language sounds foreign.

You read and reread a sentence multiple times because you can't understand it, you can't decode it, even though the sentence is simple: "She packed her bag and ran out the door."

You get stuck mid sentence when talking. You can't complete your thoughts because a word is missing and while you search for the word you realize you have no idea what the topic is anymore, or worse, you forget that you were even talking.

You take your medication and then start looking around for it because you've forgotten that you just swallowed it.

You make a note for yourself so you won't forget that you need to...wait....what was I just talking about?

Right. There's something I'm not supposed to forget...Did I write myself a reminder? And if so, where did I put it? Dang it.

Well, that is what it's like living with brain fog.