Lately, I feel like I have lost my brain.

Lately, I feel like I have lost my brain. Not in the way where you sometimes can feel confused, but in the way where I feel like I have lost my capability to think and connect the dots.

Honestly, in many ways I was the typical “from gifted kid to burned out adult” trope. I was often hyped up about being intelligent, about absorbing schoolwork and getting good grades without needing to put in any effort. I just listened and just, got it. Connected the dots, could connect it to other knowledge I had, and it stuck on a deeper level.

Even as I got older, when my mental health really started to deteriorate, I still absorbed new knowledge as a sponge. It kept up, through all of life, through all the chaos, through everything. I at least still had my brain. When my health allowed it, I could just jump onto a university course and sail through it as easy as I always could. I could find a new subject and quickly get the basics, enough to follow discussions about it. I could follow discussions, and discuss with, people far smarter than me.

And, shamefully enough, I took pride in it. Not in the way that I was somehow better. But in the way where it was a part of my identity, and one of the things I could name that I liked about myself. Even though my health stopped me, the world was still open for me. I knew, with everything that I was, that my only limit was my health. And I took some comfort in that. That one day I can reach what I want to reach.

Somewhere along the way, it changed. And with changes like that, I can't say when. When I first noticed it had already gone pretty far. The last time I read a university course I blamed my incapility to absorb the new knowledge on me being to stressed, in a too bad mental state, of just now interested enough.

But the signs started showing up elsewhere. Always in places where I could easily blame it on other things. I usually blamed my motivation, that it was bad because of things outside of my own hands.

Until lately, when I have come across concepts that I'm really interested in, really motivated to learn. And find it nearly impossible. It's like the dots are still there, but I can't find the lines between them. I try different tactics, getting it explained for me like I'm a child, and I still can't grasp it. I have never experienced that before.

And then, the discussions. I come across topics I'm interested in being discussed by sharp, intelligent people. Situations that used to be my forte, where I often felt like I had the opportunity to learn, and share, and be an equal. And instead, I now find myself being unable to grasp the concepts. Not only parts of it that's new for me, new knowledge, but also parts I sit on a lot of information on. I can't really connect what exactly they are trying to say, and even when I feel like I have figured it out, I can't form my thoughts into intelligent responses.

It's like something has fried my brain. And I don't know what. If it's the many years of mental illness that have caught up. The high level of stress that have done it's thing. If it's just age. If it's something else entirely. I don't know.

All I know is that for me, it means losing a sense of myself. The topics that interest me, the topics I want to discuss, I feel like I can't anymore. I come across people that I find so interesting and sharp and interested in engaging topics that I want to talk to and engage with, but the most I usually find myself being able to write is “I agree with you”, or “exactly”, or something of the like. When I try to dive in and actually discuss the topic at hand, I find my brain as locked between a wall, or in a cage, or just, asleep.

I can't grasp the finer points of their arguments, I can't form any thoughts outside of what they say, and I just can't manage to actually... Discuss things on a deeper level.

The experience is similar on subjects I have knowledge in since before. Even though it's no new information as such to take in, I find myself unable to gather the information that lives in my brain into intelligent text.

Then I started noticing it in real life as well, in everyday situations. I find myself struggling to explain even basic concepts for my kids, or when talking to other adults in my life. Discussing anything at all is, often, a struggle.

I even struggle to read books. Series, when I also get a picture of the situation, is fine. But regular novels, I find myself struggling in. I find myself unable to actually catch the underlying meanings in the texts, the fine little details that makes the difference between reading something and really understanding it. I have been a big reader all of my life, and my university studies has mainly been literature studies. And now I can't really even enjoy books anymore.

I would be extremely worried for my cognitive health if it weren't for the fact that I have no problem talking, writing creative texts or writing this. To plan things in many steps and many details in my life. To keep a lot in my head at once without missing details.

It's only when it comes to knowledge, and when it comes to catching the small details in texts I'm reading, I struggle. And for me, that feels like the difference between reading something, and actually understanding it.

It's like I have lost my capability to analyse what I read, to understand abstract concepts, and to form complex answers.

A part of me likes to think that it's temporary, that those parts of my brain is just on vacation, that I will get my brain back. Another part of me is terrified. What, who, even am I without that? It has always been the one thing I have felt proud of that is only myself, and the one thing I have always been able to trust in and lean myself on. It has given me a sense of self, and even though I struggle with social interactions, it has given me a way in. At least on an analytical level, I have been able to contribute in conversations.

Without it, I'm lost. I don't know really who I am. And what feels worse, I don't really know what I have to contribute with in life. In relation to other people.

I'm trying to see myself with the same grace I see others. Everyone is enough just by existing, and what people contribute with is being themselves. But I struggle. Because I have always held myself to other standards than I hold others, and I, I have to have something to contribute with. I'm not really funny. I'm socially clumsy and akward. I struggle with my health. I'm very restrective with who I integrate with. I'm overall a lot more trouble than good. The only things I have really had going for me is that I'm kind, and that I'm smart. And now I feel like I have lost one of those.

I don't know where that leaves me. I'm just trying to find my footing, and to understand it.