This is What My Brain Feels Like.

Lyme disease has not made me stupid. In fact, I am pretty sure I am just as intelligent as I was before I got sick.

However, lyme disease has made it incredibly difficult to access my intelligence.

Here’s the analogy. I know next to nothing about horse racing, but I did read Seabiscuit. In Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand beautifully details a critical moment that occurs in every horse race. It’s the moment when the jockey determines it’s time to make a move. Hllenbrand describes it as asking the question of the horse. Are you ready to run?

When I want to do something that involves intellectual engagement, I’m basically asking the question to my brain. I’m asking if it’s ready, willing and able to work with me. And guess what? More often than not, the answer is not so much.

This is one of the many manifestations of the lyme related chronic fatigue I experience. I am so very tired. And when I try to engage my brain in something like writing this blog post, I have to fight through layers of brain inertia. When I reach for a thought, what I land on feels like a cloud of dead gray matter. Nothing happening. Nothing going on. The question falling on unwilling ears.

I have no idea what my IQ is, but I know I’m not a genius. I’m probably of average intelligence. But I’ve always felt I was blessed with a quick mind, and that’s my competitive advantage. I can very easily read a room or situation, connect dots, see a problem and formulate many possible solutions. When I was in advertising, I never thought I was the smartest person in the room, but I often believed I was the quickest, and that served me very well.

But now my brain doesn’t feel so quick. It’s like a car stuck in neutral. When I’m ready to drive, my brain isn’t. And on those occasions when I do get my brain into drive, I am often left mentally exhausted by the effort of engaging in whatever I engaged in.

Is this frustrating? Yes. Double yes. Makes me crazy. Is there much I can do about it? Not really sure. I’m doing everything I can to defeat my lyme and fatigue issues, but so far I’m not winning that battle.

In the absence of a cure, patience and self-kindness are the only remedies that feel plausible at this point, and I exercise those with abundance. I use my brain when I can, I rest it when I need to, and try not not get too whipped up about whatever is or isn’t happening brain-wise.

Do I like having to operate this way? Absolutely not. It’s very inefficient, unpredictable and non-productive. But I can howl at the wind all I want, and it’s not going to do a damn thing to help me concentrate on a day when my brain is encased in fog.

So I don’t howl. I don’t whine. I just treat myself with kindness, and wait for a better day.

It always comes.