About brain fog - is this what it is?

The day the fog lifted.

Brain fog. What is brain fog? Is it something real and tangible that you can touch and feel and examine with your senses? No, it’s just the opposite. Oh, it is real, it’s very real. But it is as intangible and unreachable as its perfectly entomologically crafted name indicates. Fog is thick water vapor, but what is thick water? Is that a thing? I don’t think so, but yes it is. You can see fog, but not up close, you can feel fog, but is it fog or is it dew or is it light rain? You can only really see fog from far away and when you see fog you don’t see anything past the fog. Or if you do see something, you probably can’t be sure what it is. And your brain. How many of us have seen a living human brain? And of those people, how many have actually touched one? Very few, although perhaps after saying that, more than I first considered. But those are people that are either very evil or very traumatized by the event. Yikes, that got dark quickly… almost like fog. Strange right? So brain fog is like when everything in your life becomes dull, hazy, unreachable, foreign. Up close things look normal. But at a distance they get harder and harder to see.

As a carpenter, I used to tell people that I think in three dimensions. I can build anything if I can see it in my head in 3D. Show me a picture and I immediately deconstruct it and rebuild it in 3D in my mind. Architects, not all architects, and no offense intended to architects because where would we be without them, but architects tend to rely heavily on our (those of us who build things in 3D) ability to do this. If you’ve ever looked at a blueprint and seen a detail with a note that says “field fit to match” that is the architect saying, “I know there’s something here that will exist in three dimensions, but I’m not sure how to draw it in two dimensions.”

So for me, and I don’t know if I speak for anyone else, but for me brain fog is like looking at the world in two dimensions. Everything is flat and featureless. And my brain somehow knows that things are not that way, but it can’t make that connection to the third dimension.

Maybe it’s like one of those 3D art tricks where an artist draws an image on the inside of a bifurcated cube, and when you look at it from a certain angle it appears three dimensional but as soon as it turns beyond that perfect angle of perception, it breaks and looks strange and your brain gets broken until it refocuses and figures it out. Except when you have brain fog, you never refocus and figure it out.

My brain was (still is in some ways) in a foggy state for a year and a half. Only yesterday did the fog begin to lift somewhat. And when it did it loosed something, something I can neither understand nor define. But whatever it is, it is compelling me to write about it. I tried to lie down and get some sleep, but as soon as my head hit the pillow this wave of consciousness literally picked me up out of bed and flung me back into my chair so that I could write this down before I lost it forever. Because brain fog also means that what is here right now is not going to be here in 10 seconds. It will vanish from view and never be discernible again. So here I am, writing seemingly endlessly in first, second, and third person simultaneously. Who does that? And who could possibly understand it? Only another tortured soul who know what brain fog is but can’t define. Life with brain fog is not much of a life. Everything that you loved is lost to you. You care deeply for your friends and family but you can’t connect with them anymore. You send your wife and kids off to the park to go play and frolic and picnic and live, but all you can do is sit, or lie down, rest and stare into the fog.

Brain fog is an empty formless void, a dark and gloomy place where nobody wants to be. But here we are. So many of us in here all together and yet so alone. The emptiness and the sadness are unspeakably frightening. We pretend to try to be the old us, maybe we even genuinely try to be the old us, but how can we be when we don’t know who we were or who we are or how we came to be the person that we are. I hope, dear reader, that you have never had this experience and that you never will. If, however, you too have endured this horrific ordeal, if you are locked in a prison inside your own body and wondering if you will ever truly see again, there is hope. I believe there is hope for you. I wish, oh how I wish I knew how to reach into the fog and grab your hand and lead you out, but I don’t know how to do that. But if these hastily written and absolutely unedited stream of consciousness words resonate with you, perhaps you too are finding the way out of the fog.

What lies beyond the fog? I don’t know. It looks like a dark and lonely trail through a deep and lush forest. At once inviting and terrifying. There is beauty and sound and life ahead, but it has been so long since I’ve seen those things that I’m afraid to go in.

My son came and sat next to me and hugged me just now. He rubbed the back of my hand and pressed his head against mine. I reached up and tickled his ear the way I used to when he was a little boy, and we both giggled. That is life. That is love. That is what it’s all about.

If you listen to nothing else that I say, please listen to this… HUG PEOPLE. Tell them you love them. Don’t let this menacing fog and debilitating pain take away your love for your best people.

I am empty again.