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brain fog
i've been living with the mental condition brain fog for 6 years already. [i just recently found out i had this condition; i diagnosed myself ] for those that doesn't know what brain fog is; "it's a condition where people are in a state of confusion and a decreased level of clarity. Brain fog can cause an individual to be abnormally forgetful and detached. It can also lead to a feeling of discouragement and depression."
i've been extremely depressed, tried to commit suicide several times, been called "delusional," became anti-social, and lost numerous interests that i used to love doing.
i coudl feel, touch, smell, see, and hear my surroundings...yet i feel as though i'm not mentally there. everything seems so fake.
i tried everything the doctor told me to do; more excersise, more vitamins, a change in diet and such...yet i still feel dead. i want to feel alive again...i do not know what to do.
i do not want to suffer from brain fog for the rest of my life. those six years having brain fog has already taken so much out of me...
help.
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Believe it or not, the real term is not actually "brain fog" but, more like, depersonalization disorder. It may also, in actuality, be PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) if something occured before these feelings began that may have altered your normal behavior.
There are many, many things you can do about these sorts of detachment issues. It's not fun to just be "going through the motions" of every day life but there ARE answers to solve these problems you suffer from.
It's very difficult to give you a diagnosis without having at least one lengthy session one-on-one with you, detailing your childhood until present day. It's likely that you are not a "dead" person inside and that you are suffering from an accute form of depression; although, like I said, it's fairly impossible to give you a proper diagnosis without meeting with you about these issues.
You must deal with this problem now. You absolutely cannot just accept it as it is. You need to solve this or you will end up leading a very sad life. Nobody deserves to have to go through a joyless lifetime.
I suggest two very major things that you would have to stick by to make them work:
1. Seek out a proper therapist. Meet with him/her at least once a month, preferably more often. Talking things out will help you to figure out what happened and when it happened. You may be able to understand this problem better and overcome the emotional barrier with a good therapist. Sometimes one event can cause a mind to shut off something very vital in the future--something you need to open back up now.
2. Begin to create a meaningful life for yourself. Personally, I suggest volunteerism because it creates a bond with your surrounding community and fulfills our desires to be needed by others. This in itself is therapy and you must view it as such--something you ABSOLUTELY MUST do every when scheduled.
Sit down and find out your local organizations looking for volunteers. You may volunteer at the hospital (keeping things organized for nurses' and help patients cope), an elderly center (keeping someone company in their old age), a child's center or library (reading to the children), at a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, delivering food to elderly shut-ins, working at the battered women's/children centers, or even raising funds for a foundation. Preferably you should set aside one day a week at the minimum to volunteer at your choice of organization. It's your choice if you want to volunteer at just one organization every friday or mix-and-match every thursday.
Many people now are so busy with their own lives that they lose sight of what it is to be loving and caring. You see, knowing that you are helping others does great things for the self-imagine. You soon realize that you aren't useless and just a blob of flesh bobbing along through life.
It really seems that the problem is our current lifestyles. We no longer "have time" to help others. Nobody volunteers now because they feel that they should be paid money for their time. Nobody goes out of their way to show care for others because that time could be used for something else. Both of these are common and we're taught (it's drilled into our heads) that we are the most important in our lives. This is not true at all: the people surrounding us are the most important.
The people who surround you create your sense of belonging though. Those people help you to see yourself as useful. Those people are the ones that can show care back for you. Without those people, you aren't anything anymore. Without others you cannot create happiness or share fond experiences with another human being. When you were a child, do you remember having an outing with a friend and enjoying it? Just sitting around, eating pizza, and joking maybe? What if you had been alone? It wouldn't have been so memorable, would it? It would have been almost pointless.
The media keeps telling us to only worry about ourselves. Sure, it's find to tend to your own needs--but what happens when everyone is too busy with themselves? What happens when everyone stops worrying about caring for others? They become depressed, wondering why they don't belong somewhere and why they feel lost in society.
What's strange is the more we focus on ourselves and stop helping others, the less we feel good about ourselves. As humans, we NEED interaction. We NEED acceptance. We NEED to know we are important in life. We NEED to SHARE experiences with other people to find the joy!!! Most of all though, we desperately NEED to help others to gain all of that plus more.
Now, you may even consider doing random acts of kindness while you find an organization best suited to your current lifestyle needs:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
I suggest you grab a phone book and make a few calls. Sit down with a calendar and set up one or more days a week to volunteer your time at certain places. Don't stress yourself out trying to fit things into busy schedules, but move things around so that your schedule won't be hectic but will have the fulfilling volunteer time in it. It's important to make time for this so start creating some free time to make yourself useful to your community.
Find a good therapist that you can open up to and who can find what the cause of this problem.
Begin creating reasons to feel by helping other people.
Give yourself some time to settle into the new situations. Make new friends. Laugh about jokes with eachother. Listen to how sad someone's life has been or about their exciting youth. Laugh and cry when it comes to you. It will come--just don't push it back and try to hide anymore.
Don't give up and "accept" this. You can change it. I promise.
Lastly, there are places that you can get help for the REAL problem of brain fog if you look well enough. A very wonderful, helpful site about this is CureZone, which specializes in "educating instead of medicating." You can actually reverse problems like this with herbal remedies and various exercises. For their form on Brain Fog, specifically, look here:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Your answer may be there if you take enough time to do that.
And I do apologize if this comes off as rudely but if you're willing to die because of this then what's a few hours or days to research into your own health? Seriously. If you feel that your life truly does not matter then why NOT look for a cure? Why NOT try a few things out that may OR may not work? Why not?
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You cannot diagnose yourself. Never. Not even the world's best doctor is able to correctly diagnose himself. Why? Because what if our judgment is clouded by our condition? Either you are actually a victim of mental disorder, or you are just susceptible and naive to information.
You might not have brain fog, but instead, you may have schizo-affective disorder. Schizo-affective disorder is different from schizophrenia, so don't worry. Schizo-affective disorder mainly says that you experience some symptoms of schizophrenia, but you don't meet the whole criteria to be schizophrenic.
Considering that you still feel the need to stay alive (or feel alive), you can try to talk with a HIGHLY, and I stress the word HIGHLY, professional psychologist about psycho-surgery, or at least, anti-psychotic drugs. Although most forms of psycho-surgery are shunned today, i.e. the lobotomy, there are still methods considered slightly effective, such as a form more commonly known as shock therapy. Be warned, as psycho-surgery has it's major risks, the biggest being death, the second being worse off than before, and the third, being apathetic.
Talk with a professional, as we are not there to properly give advice. This is advice, and it is your opinion whether to follow it or not.
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I'm afraid NinjaNeer is right: You can't self-diagnosis a mental condition any more than you can self-diagnose cancer.
Also, you have to remember that much of the information you find online is TOTAL bullshit. For example: Brain fog isn’t a condition. It’s an old term for a symptom. The actual medical term used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is Cognitive dysfunction and it’s not a condition by itself, it’s just a general term for a SYMPTOM of an underlying condition. So mental health professionals define brain fog as something that is caused by something else, and look for the root cause. Brain fog is a symptom of several mental illnesses, including ADHD in Depersonalization disorders, but not a mental illness by itself.
If you’ve done your best to seek all the physical solutions through diet and exercise, then it’s time now to talk to a mental health professional, preferably a physiatrist, because it sounds like there is something inherently wrong at a cognitive level, not a behaviour problem.
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Unfortunately, you really can't diagnose yourself as having a mental condition. Dr. Google often misleads people into thinking they have strange, exotic disorders, when they may have something else. What you're going through sounds a lot like what I go through in my depressive phases.
If you are concerned about your mental health, you should go to see a mental health professional, not a family doctor. A counsellor can assess your condition and refer you to a psychiatrist or psychologist if needed. Counselling doesn't cost all that much, and may be available for free in your community. Be open to what they have to say. Medication may be necessary, or it may not be the best course of action for you.
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Does your doctor know you feel as if you have brain fog? I feel you should try counsling to sort things out. You can be on anti depressants for your depression. which will also help many of your situations that you are going through and wants you are not so depressed you become more social etc
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