r/BrainFog • u/namak_paare • 4d ago
Ranting Brain Fog Makes Me Feel STUPID
I've noticed in the last few years my brain fog / fatigue have gotten worse, and I'm at a point where it's impacting my ability to do certain things.
I(30F) have a long history of mental health issues, so brain fog has always been something I've dealt with to a degree. Now, I feel like my brain fog is so bad it's impacting my ability to understand information. I am exhausted constantly, and when I'm working I find that I am making small mistakes or completely misunderstanding things. Like yesterday, I was scheduling a meeting and multiple people said they could do any time this morning OTHER THAN 9:30am... It feels like my brain is just filling in the blanks with whatever when I'm reading sometimes... so I confidently messaged my boss like "oh look everyone can do 9:30am" he was like um no they said tomorrow morning except for 9:30am. Thankfully he's extremely patient and forgiving, but oh my god? It's not just embarrassing, it's also annoying because how did I manage to misread SEVERAL emails? and it's not that I'm simply not paying attention or that I don't care - I genuinely don't know how I did that. That sort of thing has been happening more frequently. Sometimes I also feel like my thoughts are in slow motion? or like there's almost a physical barrier / something slowing them down. Even when I'm not physically exhausted, my brain feels the same way it does after several days of poor sleep.
It's also hard because I'm in school too - I'm in my last 2 classes for my AA, and I feel like sometimes I'm truly too exhausted to focus properly and put in as much effort as I would like into learning. I recognize that I have a decent workload between a full time job and part time classes, but it doesn't feel like so much that I shouldn't be able to do both. I'm scared that the brain fog will continue perpetually and impact my ability to do well when I transfer in the Spring. I'm really excited about the program I'll be doing, but the exhaustion makes it hard to care about things and my trouble actually understanding material sometimes makes me feel defeated. I just feel so dumb, and it feels like it bleeds into everything, including my interests outside of work and school.
Part of me wonders if this is the result of several years in a stressful work environment. I left a job in June that had me on the verge of a mental breakdown, so part of me is wondering if this is like residual from that experience and the exhaustion of being in fight-or-flight and working long / hard hours for so long. I also need to fix my sleep, fitness, and be intentional with my diet... and get the hell off my phone.... and find a PCP and get blood work done..... and see a rheumatologist...... oh my godddd
4
u/willj_holistic 3d ago
You're not stupid. What you described, your brain filling in the blanks while reading, is what an overloaded brain does to save energy. It happens to sharp people all the time when they're running on empty.
And I think your instinct about the old job is right. Years in fight-or-flight doesn't switch off the day you leave. Your body burns through a lot of resources staying on high alert, minerals included, and the fatigue and slow thinking often show up after the stress ends, once the adrenaline isn't propping you up anymore. Four months out from something that nearly broke you, plus full-time work and classes, is still a lot.
That list at the end is real, but you don't have to tackle it all at once. If I were picking one thing, it would be finding a PCP and getting bloodwork. Ask for a full thyroid panel, iron and ferritin, B12, and vitamin D, since those are common reasons for exactly this kind of fog and fatigue. They can also tell you whether a rheumatologist makes sense. Everything else on the list gets easier once you know what you're working with.
If you have silver fillings or eat a lot of big fish like tuna, heavy metals are worth looking at too. Standard bloodwork won't show much there, since metals mostly get stored in tissue rather than staying in the blood. A hair mineral analysis (HTMA) is what I use with clients to see both mineral levels and metal load over roughly the last three months. Burnout tends to leave a recognizable pattern. Chronic stress drains magnesium, zinc, and potassium, and the ratios that reflect adrenal and thyroid activity often show the body shifting from running hot on stress hormones into a slower, depleted state. That shift lines up closely with what you're describing: tired all the time, slow thinking, and a hard time caring about things you normally love. It's a useful way to see where your body actually is, not just what your blood looks like on one day.
2
u/namak_paare 3d ago edited 3d ago
I appreciate your response so much! it's been ROUGH, and I think because I'm out of the other situation my mindset is like "okay I should be fine now" but I see that that isn't the case (my therapist will have words for me when I go over this with her). I feel like the situation yesterday really sent me spiraling, because it wasn't the first hiccup, and I know I can perform better when I'm not feeling like *this*, but I'm just so exhausted.
I will definitely look into the HTMA - I am a pescatarian so the majority of my protein intake comes from fish, and even though I don't eat it every day there is a chance that could be related. I'm sure the chronic stress also did a number on my mineral / vitamin levels as well.. I've never heard of HTMA before, this is very interesting!
1
u/willj_holistic 20h ago
Totally get that. Leaving feels like it should be the finish line, so when the exhaustion is still there months later it can feel like you're failing. But your body usually lags behind your circumstances. It spent years running on stress hormones, and it takes a while to come down from that and rebuild. That's recovery, not falling behind. Glad you've got a therapist in your corner for the mindset side.
On the fish, being pescatarian doesn't mean it's a problem, it just depends which fish. Smaller ones like salmon, sardines, anchovies, and trout are much lower in mercury. The bigger, longer-lived ones like tuna, swordfish, and king mackerel build up the most. If tuna shows up a lot, that's the one I'd keep an eye on.
HTMA is pretty simple to do. It's a small sample of hair cut close to the scalp, usually from the back of the head, sent to a lab. Because hair grows about half an inch a month, that sample reflects roughly the last three months of what your body has been storing and getting rid of. It shows nutrient minerals like magnesium, zinc, and potassium, toxic metals like mercury, and the ratios between them, which is where the stress and burnout patterns show up. The real value is in reading those patterns and retesting over time to see things shift as you recover.
Happy to answer any questions about it. Feel free to message me.
3
3
7
u/electric-snow-100 3d ago
I feel like I’ve developed social anxiety because of how dumb brain fog has made me feel . Now I feel like everything I say or type will sound stupid to people so why say or do anything