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jesse_the_k) wrote2023-08-20 04:25 pm
Spilling the Tea re “Brain fog”
I first encountered the term brain fog in the mid 1990s on a fibromyalgia listserv. I see it popping up all over mainstream media in re: Long COVID. Vocabulary derail:
I’m a picky fussbudget so I describe my current cognitive issues as "trouble making new memories" as well as "difficulty word-finding." massive frustration derail:
can't nail down the source of these impairments: candidates include ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, PTSD, depression, anxiety as well as the medications I take for all those things.
Couple months back I realized I spilled every time I drank out of my tea glass (sipping through a straw!) My grip strength seemed to be declining.
Brainstorm! I could use an adult sippy cup: my Camelbak 600ml water bottle with a bite-valve straw. The only drawback was my tea infuser was too large for the sippy bottle opening. I asked MyGuy to find me something I could make tea in.
He came home with a polyethylene 2-cup measuring vessel. I put 100ml fridge water into my sippy bottle then added 500ml from the kettle to make 165° water. I prop my tea infuser in the measuring cup, pour the water in to brew, then pour it back into the sippy cup.
Now I was spilling the hot water out of the measuring cup, because my grip isn't so great anymore.
Up north I said I'd prefer a vessel that's a little bit deeper and has a narrower throat so I don’t spill. Our host BB, who has stunning thrift powers, came back with a possibility the very next day. Sadly, that heavy glass pitcher cracked.
Amazingly, I did remember to poke MyGuy again when we got home. He reached up to the top cupboard and handed me a porcelain teapot--indeed a teapot just large enough for my 600 mL sippy bottle. Its sunny yellow color matched one wall of our kitchen.
It took me four months to realize that I needed to use a teapot I'd already bought to make tea.
That is brain fog.
How do you feel about the term brain fog? Does it build a bridge from our disabled experience to non-disabled people? Does it minimize the impact? Feel free to rant.
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Having lived somewhere with fog, I like the mental image of brain fog rolling in and out, and sometimes lifting. Some days it's light fog. Some days the fog is far enough overhead that it's a cloud, not fog, but it's still there.
The other day one of the Discord chats that I'm in with a large number of variously disabled people were talking about being part of The Matrix while having disabled bodies, with the conclusion that in many cases, we would allow the evil robots to run their processing jobs as a time share in our brains if it meant that we weren't dealing with the pain. I thought that probably the robots could have the processing time that I was currently devoting to anxiety. It also occurred to me that just Dealing With Background Pain takes up such a huge amount of processing time, and it's so invisible. And the things that temporarily able-bodied doctors don't understand about chronic pain: yes, it's absolutely possible to compensate for pain with brain tricks like they say it is, but at this point we have run out of brain tricks; there's more pain than the brain tricks can compensate for.
I say this as a person who was able to cope unmedicated for a broken tooth for the approximately 12 hours before an emergency dental appointment. I can do self-hypnosis like a motherfucker! But some things you just Should Not Have To.
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Time sharing pain is a brilliant idea
It's the worst daemon ever.
I have zero evidence for this, but I believe that memory issues are my body's way of minimizing the impact of chronic pain. Rolling around on the floor felt terrible -- let's forget it right now.
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For me, brain fog is, I was fully planning to pack that item with me for the day and here I am without it, or, I knew that event was coming up and now it’s two days later and I missed it. Where I think I’m functioning just fine and I’m not. And then there’s losing words and short-term memory for a while and being aware of it. (Which sounds more like what you’re describing.) Both kinds caused by breathing chemicals or eating foods that don’t work for me. Possibly a kind of migraine?
Intermittent memory is v frustrating!
I always wish last-week me had paid attention and made a note so that today-me would know what to pack!
I've dinked around with many digital reminders kind of tools and none have beat paper-and-pencil -- but then I mislay the paper.
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Yeah, while the experience of actual
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azurelunatic is illuminating, another reason the words brain fog make me cranky is how vague they are.
You've certainly had too much experience with cognitive impairment this year. Any metaphors come to mind?
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I used to get really annoyed by non-disabled people using the words "spoons" and "brain fog" about 10+ years ago, and these days I've just resigned myself to the proverbial toothpaste being out of the tube, plus I have fewer people shouting at me about bootstraps/overcoming/etc than I did a decade ago so my hot take is that - these words entering common usage may have actually helped non-disabled people to understand the inconvenient body-brain things they experience are far worse for us and I feel like dialogue has been shifting towards better awareness/willingness to understand while obviously ableism is a real ongoing problem in every direction. I also think it might have helped people realize "oh wait, there might be something going on with me" and get diagnosed with stuff, because one thing a lot of us are really good at is masking and thus what looks mild/inconvenient might be worse than anyone realizes.
That said, I don't think disabled people who feel negatively about non-disabled people using the words are overreacting, we are allowed to have different reactions and feelings about things, so I have no problem with people venting about it.
Thanks for your thoughts!
I'm very glad that you've experienced fewer people shouting at me about bootstraps/overcoming/etc in the last decade.
In an earlier life I worked as a non-disabled person in Deaf community and blind community (not Deaf/Blind). I vividly remember those first few months when I began to wonder: hey, am I disabled now? I was so fortunate to have disability doulas who offered to sit with me and explore what that might mean.
I hope that people may have an easier way in -- masking is so much work and also horrible.
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I'm so glad you rediscovered your sunny yellow teapot!
Hooray for a smart prescriber
...who connected you with such a helpful med.
That suspension between knowing and doing sounds so frustrating.
The pot was so happy to be found that it jumped into my icon.
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When I'm in pain, it's more like "brain fizz" -- carbonated water fizzing all over everything in ways that are bright and sore and make it difficult to see anything.
Pre-migraine is like a combination of both: carbonated cabbage soup, which sounds as disgusting as it feels.
Trouble with executive function doesn't feel "like" anything -- it's just how my brain has always been. Other people remember they own pyjamas once they take them off? OK.
The closest I get to "fog" I suppose I do associated with chronic fatigue, but the closest I can say is that everything is very far away. I wouldn't know about the teapot because I'm too far away. I also get very weepy.
But these are all imperfect metaphors I've come up with over years of not knowing how to put my experiences into words. "Brain fog" feels extremely imprecise, but it's an easier shorthand than saying "I'm soup today."
Thanks for bringing this up, it's interesting.
Those are great metaphors
...and I'm sorry they're based on extensive personal experience.
Carbonated cabbage soup! Here, put it in this bus bin and I'll take it outside.
Re: Those are great metaphors
Yes, please do put it in the bin! :)
Re: Those are great metaphors
It was great soup -- MyGuy's chicken ginger.
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If you have read Pratchett’s discworld books, this sounds like something that would happen on the Sto Lat plains!
I love this! Though my neurodivergent brain would want to know which type of soup, and assign all sorts of characteristics to various ones.
‘being soup’ is a great description for when I have multiple disorders squabbling with each other and using all my energy in the process.
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I find "being soup" is very good for when all sorts of disorders are fighting with each other, yes. I haven't given a lot of thought to considering different kinds of soup, but I suppose I'm generally picturing the kind of thick, bland vegetable soup where numerous vegetables are boiled down into a mush.
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But the blurry failure of cognition that started happening after developing fibromyalgia? Brain fog is a good description for that.
I’m mostly okay with non-disabled people adapting brain fog and spoons for smaller uses. So far it seems like it’s providing a language that people can use to draw better boundaries and communicate limits, where previously, lacking specific language, it might go unspoken. (That said, I’ve been very isolated in the years since I started using the concept of “spoons” regularly, so I’m not coming up against any egregious misuse to annoy me.)
Part of my tolerance is that I sometimes specify which type of spoons are an issue for me. I might be out of spoons in general. When my arthritis flares I might have limited “hand” spoons. And since developing problems with my hip and lumbar vertebrae, that’s another set - I might have overall energy, but not be able to stand or twist because I’m out of “back” spoons.
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"Noun deficiency" is lovely.
So far it seems like it’s providing a language that people can use to draw better boundaries and communicate limits, where previously, lacking specific language, it might go unspoken.
Thanks for reminding me of this -- could the unlinking of "spoons" from a specific diagnosis result in an easier on-ramp to honoring our bodyminds' limits?
honoring limits
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I've found the term brain fog *incredibly* useful to describe what I experienced when I had Covid-- It took *so much more mental effort* to do cognitive tasks that would normally be trivial for me, to work or to write an email or to participate in a conversation. Work was like swimming through a thick soup (I see soup metaphors are popular here). If I didn't write things down, they didn't exist-- even more so than normal given the amount of task switching I do at work. The second time I had covid (ugh) I took real sick time, rested a lot, and took very seriously the advice of PWD and the brain fog went away a lot faster. I'm very aware that I'm temporarily able bodied in this way now, and I think I understand a bit more about what people in my life who more frequently experience brain fog are going through.
I think for me Depression Brain (don't want to do things, can't enjoy things) is different than this. Brain fog is want to do things but can't brain about them. Depression Brain also finds it hard to think, but it's different-- is that true for others as well, or would you consider depression to be like brain fog?
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I would agree that depression brain and brain fog are quite different experiences. I can't articulate the difference, but I can kind of feel the difference between now (long term post-viral syndrome) and previous (depression).
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I'm glad it's been useful!
I'm so sorry to hear of two spits COVID infections, and relieved that aggressive resting really did help recovery. I know I've commended it to many people -- only because I wasted 18 months trying to exercise my way out of the "deconditioning" I thought was my problem, post-viral bronchitis. (Followed by more than a year in bed.)
Yes, the depression brain has enough planning to ruminate at length about why I'm doing things wrong, while the foggy brain is mostly "huh?" and "What was I doing?" and "Did I plan to be doing this?"
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I like it as a descriptor, because it is what it feels like for me - the amount of effort to think things through vs the amount of effort to stay safe when driving or cycling through thick fog. I'm another with noun problems, although I tend to refer to it as mild aphasia; the more tired I am the more likely I am to lose other parts of speech as well.
I also use 'my head is full of glue'.
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Oh, glue brain is indeed excellent. Useful things may be attached to each other, and also totally unrelated things pop up in my day and I get lost.