The problem is that when I have a brain fog (which is frequent), I cannot functionnate enought to explain how it is, and when I feel better, my poor memory doesn't allow me to axplain how it was...
Usually I explain it as 'my brain pedals into semolina"...
When I am in it and try to force my brain to operate, it is usually a disaster....
That makes such sense to me, the disasters caused by trying to operate as normal when I'm bad.
I never call it 'fog'. ... 'Foggy' is what i experienced when i was healthy but sleep deprived, or when I oveslept & woke up with a start all clumsy & goofy. Or after smoking a joint.
And when people describe 'difficulty concentrating' i find it exasperating too.... 'difficulty concentrating' is when you cant keep yr mind on 1 thing at once, when you're so distracted that you read every word on the page of a book but are so distracted that you dont know what it said.
Cognitive dysfunction that comes with ME is like being drugged out of my mind. Absolutely stoned into stupidity.... When i look at a paragraph of text it's like looking at a foreign language, or i can understand a few words but not the meaning of a full sentence.
It's like having one's abilities lowered to the extent of becoming severely learning disabled, where I used to be able to understand something intellectually dense & explain it to someone else, now, on a bad day my carer has to split questions into short words only. - So if she wants to ask me if i'm thirsty & whether i want a hot drink or just water, i simply cannot understand that whole sentence because i cant hold on to the concept of a hot drink whilst also conceiving of water, let alone compare & contrast the 2 items. So she has to ask "thirsty?" & if i say yes then "hot?" & then wait my reply & so on. She used to work for severe learning disability charity & has described my difficulties as being just like that, but drs still persist in writing 'difficulty concentrating'.
I cant speak or communicate coherently & dont even know what i need never mind be able to ask for it. And when i'm bad like that i have trouble assessing how bad i am & whether I should be resting, because in order to be able to tell that i'm bad my cognitive function would have to be better. But adrenaline from anxiety improves it drastically so no dr has ever seen it. I was never good at maths but now i often dont know how to count out the correct amount of change for the taxi driver its all just coins & i dont know what 50p plus 20p makes. It's truly bizzare. And horrible. Thank God there are people here who understand.