rainy
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
This is the main thing about my brain fog I think.I guess in part this relates to the limit on how much information we can hold in mind at once.
I think of it as having limited brain hands. To think I need some hands to hold information and some to move the information around.
If I'm doing 4 + 7 + 8 in my mind, three hands are needed to simply hold each number. Then additional hands are needed for adding them together.
If I'm trying to make a decision or something, there will be so many factors needed to be held, arranged around or saved for later, and none of that is possible now.
Before ME I had many hands, I'm not sure how many because it wasn't something I ever thought about. My brain could just do what I needed it to. Now I have one hand, maybe two or three.
In addition there was table surfaces where I could let the information out of my hands but pick it up again moments or minutes later. So in addition to the working hands there was a large amount of table space.
Now there is no tables. If I'm going to add 4 + 7 + 8, and I focus on 7 + 8, I have to throw the 4 up in the air and just hope it will land in my hand again after, and it usually doesn't.
Writing helps me a lot with thinking because I can use it as hands and tables.
Bright lights and noise remove hands. Laying down gives me more hands. When I'm standing on my feet I never have more than one hand.
When I lose all the hands momentarily my mind goes completely blank.
Though another important part is fatigability also. It's not small number of permanent, well functioning hands. If I figured out 8 + 7, and by luck 4 landed in my hand again, it might not be possible to do anything with it if 8 + 7 broke my hands already.