I miss my mind

[darkemeralds]

I see the counselor again in the morning about my job. My first session a couple of weeks ago got me down out of the boughs about the unrealistic demands of my new assignment, and since then I've become more comfortable with them.

I'm hoping this second session will jump-start my brain again, because I feel mentally paralyzed, in a very eerie and creepy way.

I had some numbers to generate this afternoon, and I simply could not make myself focus on them. It's true that numbers are not my best thing, but this wasn't calculus, just some spending data analysis. I had the most horrible feeling of stupidity, of wondering if I seem stupid to my coworkers, and of desperately wanting to hide my stupidity.

This is, frankly, unprecedented in my life. In the long list of less-than-positive things one could truthfully say about me--moody, insecure, shame-based, lazy, angry, arrogant, obsessive, persnickety, mean, selfish--"stupid" just doesn't appear.

It's realistic, I think, to expect a certain drop-off in mental acuity as the happy life-dancing hormones decline--I will, after all, be 55 in a month. But this overnight-idiot act is freaking me out.

Comments

[without_me]

Wow--this is not going to be helpful at all, I suppose, but--I never imagined that the marvelously talented woman who's writing Restraint is in the same demographic I am. (I'm still in my 40s, but still, vastly outnumbered by younger folks in fandom.) Also, I too am experiencing occasional brain freezes and wondering if they're hormone-related. Ugh.

[darkemeralds]

Fannishness knows no age limits! There are plenty of over-40s in my corner of fandom (and more all the time, of course), and even a few over-50s.

After 40 I became subject to that memory effect that's commonly talked about--the Velcro of my brain lost some of its oomph, and I couldn't call facts to mind as easily. I got kind of used to that, developed workarounds (Google!), and have since blamed a lot of my mental changes on internet use, since I read all the time about how similar things are happening to people much younger than me.

But this thing today? I have to think stress was involved, because it's come on so suddenly and is so stark.

And thank you, by the way! I love that you're enjoying Restraint.

[without_me]

Oh, yes, I have a few other friends around who are my age, but I'm very glad to find one more. (Not that I don't love my younger friends, too.)

And if I tried to explain how much I enjoy Restraint, we'd be here until we're both collecting Social Security.

[darkemeralds]

:D

[tehomet]

To be honest, I don't think that the difficulty you had recently with the numbers was due to a drop-off in mental acuity. I think it's because you're stressed.

I only discovered recently that the condition of being stressed can manifest in depression in the traditionally understood 'got the blues' way, but also in the less frequently acknowledged adrenaline-issues 'fight or flight' response way, sometimes at the same time. I did not know that stress could affect one's ability to think straight. I only thought it affected one's ability to be serene. I have had trouble concentrating all year due to stress myself and thought it was lack of application or laziness or stupidity or epic PMS, or a lovely cheerful combination of all of them. :D

But now I'm thinking, this has been a exceptionally challenging year for me for various reasons, and having done a bit of reading about the effects of stress, it's now clear in hindsight that I was 'fight or flight' stressed/depressed all year as a result... although I've had some of the lovely and delightful 'bluesy' feelings too. The adrenaline-spiked rollercoaster I've been riding has of course affected my ability to get my thoughts in order.

Does very eerie and creepy mental paralysis sound familiar to me? Oh, you betcha.

I hope I'm making some semblance of sense as I've also got insomnia due to stress, and it's nearly five bloody a.m. here. :) Insomnia is a new thing for me and I'm really hoping it goes away soon. Lordy. But hopefully you see what I'm trying to say despite my lack of communication skills and sleep.

I bet as your sessions with the counsellor continue and as you have a chance to get to grips with the demands of your new position, you'll notice that the lack of focus fades away.

Also, <3.

One day I will comment concisely. Today is not that day. Sorry!

[scribblemoose]

Yes! This! My doctor told me that the memory issues are a bit of a myth of menopause; his belief was that women in their 40s and 50s are encountering some of the most stressful experiences of their lives, at a time when they're already worn out from twenty years of child-rearing, career-building, caregiving of various kinds, superwoman-being etc. etc. Looking at my own experience that makes perfect sense; perhaps it does for you, too?

Stress is a strange, insidious beast. I hope you have a good session with the counsellor.

[darkemeralds]

Excellent, excellent insight! Thank you.

I didn't rear any children, but I'll cop to there having been some real, if not equivalent, stresses associated with that choice: living alone, self-reliance, social costs, and so forth.

I really appreciate this point of view. It's very helpful to me.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you so much for this comment! It's helping me clarify my own thoughts and let go of some of my worries (alzheimer's! senility!). I am intimately familiar with the ways in which adrenaline/cortisol work on me--I even know that they rob me of basic faculties. The trouble is that when you're in the midst of them, the clear thinking that lets you remember that stuff is one of the first casualties. In short, thank you for the excellent reminder!

I hope you get some stress-relief and some sleep soon. I'm terrified of insomnia and tiredness, and I think I know just how you feel. ♥

[lamentables]

Two thoughts.

#1 What tehomet said - stress does that kind of thing to me too. I've had to learn to recognise the level of stress (and, incidentally, the level of illness) at which I need to stop because the number of errors I make and the difficulty seeing things clearly mean that I'll just screw things up or have to reperform the job later. (In fact, I got a text from a client when I was at Heathrow and had to try and fix something I'd screwed up - as a result of rushing and being ridiculously stressed - whilst I was in India.)

#2 Last time you saw the counsellor she pushed you towards the epiphany of realising that you're getting all this extra work because you're smart and good at your job. I find it unsurprising that your subconscious might fight back: "Extra work? DNW. If they realise how SMRT I am, they're just going to load me with more and more stuff to do. And they won't pay me any extra. And I'll lose the bits of life that I love. I'm not smart. See, I can't do this. I'm actually quite stupid. They should leave me alone."

[darkemeralds]

"...I'm not smart. See, I can't do this. I'm actually quite stupid. They should leave me alone."

That's brilliant! I've just come from my second counseling session, and the therapist didn't hit on this aspect, but it rings a real bell with me. During my trauma therapy, there was a moment where I became fully conscious of the particular "handicaps" (if you will) of my particular PTSD: no sense of direction, an inability to think clearly in a crisis, a rather slow overall thinking process, etc. I remember thinking to myself, "Oh my God, it's all right for me to be stupid!" and it was an enormous relief. It was a key moment in my therapy process.

The counselor today did hone in very quickly on stress and anxiety as a cause, and had some very good advice, which I'm still mulling over, having to do with seeking help, tutoring, allies and support.

And Dreamwidth is coming through on that like champ! Thank you so much. :D

[lamentables]

That's brilliant!

That's 13 years of therapy and a sense that we're not too dissimilar :)

[communicator]

I know what you mean because stress is paralysing my creativity these days, and it is scary. Like you, I am prone to conclude 'it is my age'. But no, I agree with tehomet, you are struggling with stress.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. That's the worst, really: the sapping of creative energy. I'm sorry you're going through it too. I know that there's an underlying fabric of "hard times and major change" that is affecting pretty much everyone in the world right now, on top of which we get our individual trials and struggles.

It's a relief to me to know that I'm not alone in my particular worries about women and aging. I appreciate your mentioning it.

[kis]

I've always shied away from numbers, particularly when there are a lot of them together. They all dance around and I can't seem to work out which order they're in. I have that a bit with words too - which I've explained to myself as either some low-level dyslexia which makes me a painfully slow reader. As you're a leftie too, I wonder if you might share the low-level dyslexia? I've heard glasses with coloured lenses can help. Got any pink or blue lensed sunglasses?

Of course, it might just be that you're brain has spent so much time in the realm of lovely words over the past couple of years, it simply can't be arsed to make sense of numbers. I really don't think the problem is stupidity, though. More the result of prioritizing. ;)

[darkemeralds]

Colored lenses, huh? Interesting. Am looking at some material about that now. I used to be a very fast reader, and I think in words-per-minute, I'm probably still fast enough, but in minutes-per-sitting I've become very deficient. It's more of an attention deficit problem, I think, than one of dyslexia. On the other hand, I have wonderful success with the slowest reading method of all, being read to--listening to audiobooks.

I wish I could believe that deep engagement with prose writing over the last several months has left me less numerate, but the fact is that the brick-wall, dead-end, paralysis feeling I had yesterday in the face of the big spreadsheet is echoed by a similar feeling of overwhelm when I sit down at home to Google Docs and chapter 40.

I think "overwhelm" in general is the key. The counselor this morning had some good tips, which I'm mulling over this morning. I'll undoubtedly report.

[karen_jk]

The more worried I get about making mistakes speaking French, the more mistakes I make. I seem to lose my brain.

I agree w the others about stress being a probable cause.

*hugs you*

[darkemeralds]

Oh, man! Yes! There is real truth to the joke that one's foreign languages improve with alcohol--because they improve with relaxation and disinhibition. No question about it! And it's very true that getting flustered means you'll get more and more flustered until you just stop, right?

I occasionally have a dream where I'm still (relatively) fluent in French, so I know it's in there somewhere, though the barriers between it and conscious expression get thick with disuse and, yes, with stress.

[erda]

I didn't realize you were older. ::unsubscribes::

Hee, just kidding. I often feel ancient around here, and I think ageism is alive and well in fannish spaces, though I haven't seen much mention of it.

I've had this brain problem, too, but as others have mentioned, it's hard to tell what is stress and what is age related. It's scary to have that effortless memory thing suddenly not so effortless.

Interesting thing I have noticed is that my memory for storing new verbal type information is decreased, but my ability to memorize music is sharp and amazing. Music is something I have only been working seriously on in the last 4 years or so. Perhaps that area of my brain is not overflowing with content? IDK.

[darkemeralds]

didn't realize you were older. ::unsubscribes::

LOLOLOL.

Okay, you just pinged a fear of mine. That was excellent. Hee!

Yes, ageism is alive and well in fandom as in every other thread of society, though to be fair, I've got lots of younger online friends who seem at least to bear with my old-fashioned ideas in writing. scribblemoose, above, says My doctor told me that the memory issues are a bit of a myth of menopause; his belief was that women in their 40s and 50s are encountering some of the most stressful experiences of their lives, at a time when they're already worn out from twenty years of child-rearing, career-building, caregiving of various kinds, superwoman-being etc. etc., and I found that extremely valuable.

There is a very strong tendency, which women absorb and internalize in ways that I never see men doing, to assign all problems, failings, lapses, mistakes, and health concerns to "age"--by which we (and our doctors and bosses and everyone else) really mean "menopause, that terrifying turning point after which you have no useful purpose in the herd world."

I'm fascinated by your newly-discovered music memory. In perhaps an analogous vein, a few years ago I took up Mandarin lessons, strictly spoken, with no reading or writing. My brain went into a whole new realm of absorption and retention. I'm good with languages and have studied several, so it wasn't an underpopulated area of my brain, but the auditory-only aspect struck me as very powerful.

What kind of music are you learning?

[ranunculus]

OMG you are OLDER than I am???? a

By perhaps one whole year. ;)

When I was 29 I got divorced. Theoretically it was a very civil process. He made me file, but didn't contest anything.
I was in graduate school at the time. I moved out the third week of the semester. At finals time it was very, very interesting. I could not remember a word spoken in any of my classes. Fortunately I had good notes, so I could study for finals, but there was NO recollection of the process.

At the same time I was trying to do some creative work. My sub-conscious wasn't very happy with me, and clearly it was the part of me that came up with "art" (in the form of lighting designs). I remember sitting down to do a design. Usually I sat down, thought for a while and could "see" what the lighting should be. This time the visual I got was a vision of plunging my hand into a deep velvet curtain. Soft, pretty but NOTHING but black. Pretty clear message.

So don't beat yourself up too much. It isn't necessarily ageism.

Oh, and another thing: My mother worked as an assistant to the Family Planning doctor in our town. The doctor, a woman, was a really lovely person who had TWELVE children of her own. Girls (women) would come in to the clinic and say something like: I'm really worried my period is skipped/late/early/heavy/light whatever wasn't normal. The Dr would reply: what is going on in your life? Generally the reply would be something like "well we moved, but it was a very positive thing and I'm really happy about it. The Dr would then say "yes, but it is a very emotional thing, and these things affect our bodies.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you so much. This is such a valuable perspective. I spent most of my early adult years in a (relatively mild) state of shock-trauma-PTSD, and I barely remember any of it. It's true that stress and shock really do disorient a person in time and space, and make things very hard to retrace and remember.

Your description of the velvet curtain image is very apt. Right now I'm in more of a solid-wall mode, but I've been in the velvet-curtain place too. It's enormously helpful to me to be reminded of these altered states that stress hormones put us into.

[ranunculus]

I think I've gotten to the solid wall mode a couple of times, briefly, but I don't remember it well. Smile.
What I do remember is the portion of brain malfunction where I put the screw gun tip thorough my finger leaving a bloody trail. More than once. I then took a vacation, as it was clearly needed (and that worked). I'm currently quite clear on this subject; when I begin to think that a cruise on board ship sounds good, I should down tools and take a rest.

[darkemeralds]

Yikes! Yes, I'd think accidents with power tools would be strong indicators of a need for a break.

And I have to admit, the idea of a cruise (generally TOTALLY antithetical to my values and my ideas of what travel should be) has been sounding kind of good lately. Uh oh.

Well, I have TWO four-day weekends coming up, next week, and a couple weeks later for Thanksgiving. Yay!

[erda]

My doctor told me that the memory issues are a bit of a myth of menopause; his belief was that women in their 40s and 50s are encountering some of the most stressful experiences of their lives, at a time when they're already worn out from twenty years of child-rearing, career-building, caregiving of various kinds, superwoman-being etc. etc.,

Make that 30 years of child rearing (foster care)for me, and add the stress of the older ones coming back home with their children, and maybe stress does explain my intermittent stupidity.

Language learning methods, brain development and so on have been interests of mine for a long time, so I'd love to hear more about your experiences.

Re: PTSD, eh, we had some big things going on here with some of our older adopted children and their PTSD that ended with my PTSD. We joke in older child adoption circles that PTSD is contagious, but like most jokes, there's truth in it.

As to the music, I took up piano lessons at my counselor's suggestion that I find something I would enjoy doing just for myself. The method I am using is called Suzuki. I'm not sure how well known that is, so I'll just say it's usually thought of in conjunction with very young children, and requires a lot of memorization.

[darkemeralds]

My hat is off to you! What a difference you must have made in the lives of so many people.

I know of the Suzuki method, though it was never applied when I was learning music--I don't think it was widely practiced in the US until I was in my teens. A glance at its Wikipedia entry shows me that the method is based on ideas of natural language acquisition, though, so it's not surprising that it's helped you experience a renewed memory that sounds a lot like what I experienced with Mandarin.

Arising from my Firefly fannishness, I took an interest in Mandarin a few years ago. I did some research and discovered the Pimsleur method. I got lucky and acquired the first Mandarin set for free, put the lessons on my portable device, and started walking around the neighborhood repeating beginner Mandarin phrases.

I can't make a logical case for what happened in that process, but it was one of the most exciting things I've ever done. There was all the normal gratification of unlocking a new language, but more than that, there was something happening in my brain. I wanted to ascribe it to the tonal part of Mandarin--the musical part that draws on my pitch--but my mother described the same sensation taking the Pimsleur French course.

In any case, there's a hearing-listening-aural focus component that I suspect is very important. And now I'm going to start my Mandarin lessons again!

[erda]

I have the Pimsleur Arabic course, but, even though it seemed very interesting, I couldn't quite give myself over to the process. My auditory discrimination is not that great, and I struggled with a feeling that I wasn't able to pronounce the words correctly without some hint of what the letters were. I'm not sure if it was just not a good method for me, or if I should have tried harder to let go of my need to be 100% correct every time.

[darkemeralds]

Interesting! Perhaps with Mandarin, the concept of "seeing it in writing" was so very foreign, and so not phonetic, that I was able to let that go. Though I did learn Spanish early on by ear only (with pictures, but no writing), and I can still remember every word of those early lessons.

I think the Pimsleur method is just exactly perfect for the way my brain works. I also had some really good noise-cancelling in-ear earphones to help with the nuances of the sound.

Oh! And motion. It was AMAZING how much better the sounds and the words stuck with me when I practiced them while walking. I think the Suzuki method has a similar component, doesn't it?

[erda]

That's very interesting about the walking. I'm going to try that out the next time I have something like that to learn. It rings true to me, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

I do think sound & pictures is an excellent way to learn a new language, but I want someone standing by who can enunciate clearly for me. I think it would be awesome to learn Mandarin, especially if I were an immortal so i had time to do all the things I want.

Suzuki does have a lot of rhythm and movement things for beginners because many of them are like 2 years old and can't really sit still for long at the piano, but I didn't do any of that stuff. Heh, maybe I should have.

[thedarkages]

I think the stress hypothesis is right on, and the idea about your internal rejection of a situation in which your best efforts only lead to more exploitation is also right on. I have fallen apart at several jobs because of paralysis stemming from exactly those reasons. It was only when I became self-employed that these mental difficulties lifted even partially.

I have faith that you'll work this out. I think you're stronger and more self-aware than I was during that period.

[darkemeralds]

I appreciate your perspective. My meager attempts at self-employment in the past have been far more stressful to me than having a J-O-B, and I'm full of admiration for anyone who can handle those stresses! Different strokes, I guess. Thank you for your words of encouragement. I've made a little headway today and am feeling more myself.

[cat63]

A bit late to the party here, but very much agreeing with the folk suggesting that this is probably a stress issue.

When I'm overloaded with tasks I get rather as you describe - I can't focus on what I'm supposed to be doing, even when it's something relatively simple.

[darkemeralds]

Thanks. I'm making some headway following the second counseling session, and the monolithic block of tasks has begun to reveal some footholds and finger-grips.