So a few years ago, I started losing my mind. I was getting into these states where I felt as if there is a fog cloud in front of my eyes but sort of coming from the frontal lobe of my brain. It was making every thought misty and soon I would totally loose the touch with self, I was merely a pre-programmed robot. It was hard to distinguish if I am really there or if it’s just a dream. A very dull antagonizing and confusing dream-like experience. It is a strange state to describe really, I knew exactly what I was meant to be doing in a day in terms of “get up, get dressed, now eat” and how to “make” my body do it but I lost the tangibility of my sense of personality doing those things. These “cloudy” moments would come and go until finally, few years later, they came to stay. I had no clue what was going on so being a psychologist, I went to get help. My therapist told me maybe I should go and have my head examined, no other ideas of it being psychosomatic. I didn’t (looking back maybe I should have but I was lucky the problem was not a tumor or something horrific like that).
So on I went into my life with this damn cloud in front of my eyes. The feeling is kind of you are in a stuffy room staring at the window and having this disparate craving to open it and breathe in the fresh air, but you simply don’t know how to open it. The agony was devastating at first and then, as any good old hurtful but persistent thing, I got used to it. Occasionally I would totally forget it was there for many months at a time. I didn’t speak about it to people, fearing they will label me as “crazy”. But very occasionally if I valued someone spiritually or psychologically or in any way as “brain-literate” I would burst out and tell them this story about the cloud that lives in my brain. And yes, they too nodded their head in sympathy and confusion, but probably just thought I was crazy. I can’t even blame them, I would probably think the same if the situation was reversed. I mean, after all, I was still seemingly fully functional. Until one day I took a substance with a group of friends, and the mist casually picked itself up and left my brain as if nothing had ever happened. My brain took a deep fucking breath and I was in total awe! The substance is illegal, of course, but it gave me crucial information: it is a condition that can be manipulated! “Ok” – I thought, “I can work with that”.
I suppose different things help different people. After years of experimenting with different diet plans, supplements, exercises, I found that, for me, the most effective hack is a supplement called DMAE, I get it off the internet, legally, it costs £4 and lasts me months.. Clears up my brain fog like a janitor. I can’t believe it took that much time for such a big yet so easily manageable problem to be solved. I am so glad I was persistent in experimenting on myself and grateful for the sharpness of thought I have from the results. There are many other strategies now out there too. The point is, if you feel you could be feeling better, you probably can, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Life is not meant to be suffering. The saddest thing I realized on the way is the number of people who are experiencing the same, but don’t think much of it.
Many many years later, now finally, in the heavily underrated information age, to the thrill of us all, when you type in “brain mist” into your search box, you get hundreds of helpful links and explanations of what is it in fact you are experiencing. It has a name, it’s “brain fog”, and you can finally comfort yourself that you are not bloody crazy. It’s a state of mind that can be easily attended to.
Roll up your sleeves and get that best version of yourself you deserve!!
Love,
G.
oolloum 