It's all fun and games 'til somebody loses their mind

Greetings friends!

I hope everyone has had a good week. Or maybe more importantly, I hope that you had a week doing the best you could and not dwelling on the things you couldn't do. I, for one, have had a very long week. Then again, I'd had a long week by Wednesday (and I will be starting a petition to make three-day weeks a thing).

The second year of my university course commenced on Monday and I have barely had a chance to breathe since it did. Last academic year (pre-glandular fever/post-viral fatigue) I decided to challenge myself by taking the interesting and unreasonably complex modules this year (because apparently, I'm a stress junkie). Unfortunately for me, my brain no longer works at the same capacity as it did previously, meaning that keeping up with the content has gone beyond my desire for a challenge and has turned into a seemingly impossible task. Anyone who does medical sciences (or a science subject in general) will know it's difficult enough just to remember the acronyms, so with a memory like a sieve I find myself typing "what does APC stand for" into google at least four times a day. So given that I have gone back to my studies this week and become more aware of the impacts of brain fog, I thought it would be apt to shed some light on this today.

Brain fog is defined as a (usually) temporary state of diminished mental capacity marked by inability to concentrate or to think or reason clearly. Most people will have experienced similar sensations at various times, typically when tired after a long day or early in the morning before having completely woken up. However, brain fog itself is associated with chronic fatigue and occurs commonly in people who experience invisible illnesses that cause this extreme exhaustion.

For a lot of people, brain fog manifests as not being able to concentrate, struggling with word finding or short-term memory loss. Sometimes brain fog is linked to physical symptoms, such as vision problems, but lucky for me my eyes are rubbish anyway so I'll never know the difference!

As a university student, it's a difficult symptom to contend with. I spend roughly 8-10 hours a day studying when I am at a productive level of brain power. However, as the week progressed, I found the fatigue was becoming more aggressive and with fatigue rears the ugly head of brain fog. I wanted to post a blog entry earlier this week but the reality is that by the time I had done the necessary work for my course (often the bear minimum of what is expected) my vision was too blurred and my mind too foggy to spend another hour in front of a laptop screen writing and editing for my blog. In fact, some days even an extra five minutes would have been too much.

Brain fog is described as such because it feels like you're not seeing everything you should be able to, figuratively speaking. This can mean it's easier to forget things and (my personal favourite) mixing up words/failing to remember the word you want to say, and then if you're me, panicking and saying a word that is completely incorrect just to fill the silence. My course at university consists of a large amount of small group sessions (SSGL for short), where you get together and research a certain topic or disease and then present your findings. Brain fog is the biggest fan of these sessions and always likes to come and join in with the group discussion and pipe up when it's my time to talk. On most days I can find ways to disguise it (like awkwardly trailing off at the end of my sentence so that everyone can hazard their own guesses at how I might have ended it had I not forgotten what I was saying midway through). Some days it's hard to string a sentence together at all. That is why I currently prefer writing to talking - if I forget what I am trying to say I can just go back and read the first half of the sentence! Forgotten the word I want to use? No worries, just open google and find a dictionary! Get tired halfway through a conversation, people think you're rude if you walk away... not my laptop! She even saves my rambling so that I can come right back when I've had a nap.

All in all, brain fog just slows us down. It makes us feel like we're stupid or incapable of doing things we could once do with ease. So, here's the important bit:

If you are struggling with brain fog, it doesn't mean you aren't clever. It doesn't mean that you're not worthy of your place at university or school or your job. If you go out and forget your keys or shut yourself out of the house/car/office or go to the shop for a specific item and forget it (haven't we all done that anyway?), remember that you are doing your best, then laugh it off and move on with the rest of your day. All anyone can ask of you is your best and that will not look the same every day and it will not look the same as another person's best. Doing your best is more important than being the best.

Look after yourselves.

Charlotte x