Dear Lord help me, I don’t want to lose my mind!
The day before yesterday I locked myself out of my house again! God knows I cannot afford to fork out another £80.00 to get a new lock. Yes, I have done it before! I mindlessly pick the keys where I put them everyday, only this time I picked the wrong keys, walked to the store and came back to find my access fob is the wrong one!! My mind has been numb for a while.
I knock on my neighbours door, as luck would have, this time I had left my balcony door open. My whole spine is screaming as I cannot stand for long and every nerve had started a rendition of the Hallelujah as sung my Katherine Jenkins. I hold on to the wall so I don’t keel over. I have had a flare for a month and as usual do not recognise it.
Brain fog is a symptom of fibromyalgia that most people don’t know how to explain. It’s like the brain has static. The words you think come out strange or you stop mid sentence because you cannot remember the next word or the name of the person right in front of you, whom you have known all your life.
The loss of short term memory can be very frightening and soul destroying. It is worse when you are writer and you start editing your work and words seem to miss and you are confident you typed them out. We hide brain fog with an uncomfortable laugh as the little red man with a pitchfork mutters, “you will lose your memory” or you have early onset dementia”.
This happens to me when my pain is at level 15. Yes really! Who measures pain by 10 when 120 is what you feel some days? Alternatively when chronic fatigue kicks in. My body does make me laugh because it simply slouches and goes to sleep for at least 24 hours, it’s tired of thinking.
What to do? What to do? Give yourself a break. I say this because your inner critic is brutal. Instead of the brain highlighting you took a dumb action, she yells “you are so stupid” “you know better, check your pockets” on and on it goes.
Mark your keys so you know immediately what to pick. Bright colours work.
Talk slower. My mind rushes and in that rush when I am tired I think the neurotransmitters get cross wired.
Read and journal even for 10 minutes. I find if I read two chapters it helps with my concentration. As a person who journals, I find that writing my frustration with fibromyalgia fog, forces my brain to slow down as I reflect.
Fibromyalgia brain fog should have several unprintable names, but I will leave that to you.