Debilitating symptoms. Brain fog...extreme memory loss...spacey 24/7!

Hi Taylor,

Oh my gosh, what a wonderful descriptive!! You just described multitudes of us on here! I am so sorry you are going through this. I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and general anxiety disorder. I have been this way for over 2 years. No medicine has worked very well. My psychiatrist is trying a new med so here's hoping. I see a psychiatrist and do group therapy. It helps. I too want the old me back. I feel your pain. Hang in there. 

To everyone on this thread (there are so many of us suffering from these horrible symptoms):

I’ve been following this thread for about 2 years now. My symptoms were identical to OPs and have been gradually getting worse for 4 or 5 years (I’m 25 now). I had all but lost hope for myself to pull out of this foggy, no-memory, depressed, lethargic, miserable existence.

I’ve been on depression medication, anxiety medication, had MRIs and brain scans, the whole 9 yards. All with no luck and no answers in sight.

Recently I had a couple revelations (thanks, Acid):

1) I noticed how I had a strange...sort of head pressure I guess. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just there, and I felt like I could pinpoint the spot within my head that it was most prominent: near the top of my head, and on the left side.  It was most prevalent when my memory and focus were at their worst, they seemed to correlate. However, the revalation that recently clicked with me was that my TEETH felt...just, tight. No pain or anything, my teeth were just a little tight feeling, and probably had been for a long time (happening gradually to the point that I never noticed it). Turns out I’ve had 4 impacted wisdom teeth for the last 5 years or so. I had them removed a week ago and holy hell do I feel better...and this time last month I didn’t even know my teeth were a problem! However, I’m not cured yet, but my symptoms have surely eased a little. 

2) This one may be more applicable to all of you than some wisdom teeth. Apparently I’ve been living with undiagnosed adult-onset ADHD and I had no idea. I was a straight A student with no effort all the way up until about my junior year of college, when I first felt the fogginess coming in, and my mental acuity slipping away. Slowly I just couldn’t learn new skills as easily as I always could, couldn’t study, couldn’t focus, sometimes would be listening to someone talking to me and not be able to comprehend what they were saying, was severely losing my working memory and short term memory, felt like I was going crazy or getting dementia! I began to obsess over these symptoms for years! It has been destroying me to say the least. My recent revalation here was that it seems like all of this has roots in my inability to focus. If I can’t focus, of course I won’t feel present, of course I’ll feel foggy. If I can’t focus, of course I won’t be able to remember things because I’m basically not committing things to memory. It clicked with me that this sounds a lot like ADHD. I began to research adult onset ADHD and dammit the symptoms lined up nearly perfectly. I then began to read testimonials on Reddit (great resource, by the way) of other adults who had adult onset ADHD and began treatment, and was met with great results like:

-I have my life back.

-I’m excited about basic challenges at work or with learning new skills for the first time in a long time, rather than being afraid of basic challenges/responsibilities.

-I can remember what I was doing 5 minutes ago, which was previously a struggle.

-My internal monologue is no longer distracting and I don’t live in my head anymore, but I can live in the present instead. (This one really rang with me, my thoughts are so distracting from what’s going on right in front of me sometimes!)

Today I was prescribed adderall, in conjunction with an anxiety medication (basically to help me “reset” my thinking/overthinking). I’m excited for the outcome and I will report back how the treatment goes.

 Feel free to message me if you have questions or whatever else; none of us should have to go through this nightmare alone.

Hi Taylor,

My name is John and I am so sorry for what you have gone through. I have had all of the same symptoms as you have had and have just now gotten a diagnosis this year. I was originally misdiagnosed with 'depression" and "ADD". The only symptoms I have that you left out were "sleep paralysis" and "hallucinations".

I have narcolepsy type 2, which was diagnosed from a sleep study called an MSLT. I had been to an endocrinologist, neurologist, rheumatologist, cardiologist, and several doctors without any luck. When I finally went to a sleep doctor, I described to him what TIRED meant (not just sleepy, but sleep that doesn't refresh, sleeping 5-6 hours at a time during the day), and right away he told me that he had an idea of what the issue could be. 

I hope this helps, again there are good and knowledgable sleep doctors and there are bad ones. Narcolepsy is said to affect 1 in 2,000 in the Unites States and that almost 50% of Narcoleptics have not been diagnosed correctly. It is also normal to onset in adolescence and the symptoms develop overtime.

If you have any questions, PLEASE message me.

I'm 24, I have suffered from depression and anxiety. It sounds like depression. I never had the foggy feeling. I do with anxiety however. But yeah when I was depressed, i felt the same way. Also with anxiety I have had problems with short term memory. I think the only thing that helped was talking to counsellor, and journaling. Trying my best to take my mind off of it. But then again I am currently dealing with anxiety so I'm looking at through that lens. Hope it helped. Something I tell myself a lot to calm myself is "this to shall pass" 😊

I’ve started neurofeedback and pmf therapy for my “brain fog/dreamworld” I got a brain mapping done and my results were said to be just as bad as someone having head trauma. The doc said when you stress or have anxiety for so long eventually your brain mapping will be like mine. One part of your brain draws from the other trying to protect itself and it messes it all up, actually making it worse. But the neurofeedback is self training, they hook you up on wires and it tracks your brain waves while you simply watch a movie of your pick, whenever your brain overreactes or gets off of the movie the movie flickers and the sound goes low. Training your brain on how it should be. The PMF therapy is a pulsed magnetic therapy and it’s basically like a hat but it’s not, and it restores cellular energy. Each training is 30 min. It’s the most “natural” thing out there for anxiety, depression, whatever they think “this” is. No major risks. They do it on seizure patients and pregnant women. I’m done with pills that made it way worse and spending money on other things that my results say are “fine”. I’ve had a couple light days but not a full relief of the brainfog, and my job is making it way worse right now so it’s been real bad lately. They say most feel a difference around 20 treatments and I’m on 13 now, total of 40 treatments. I’ve also had some tingling in the chest lately, which has nothing to do with the training, thinking it’s stress. Anybody have that with the brainfog? I just don’t like it. Seems like I’m getting more and more effects from “this” that I haven’t experienced in the 7 years I’ve had this. But just an update! Maybe look into those treatments I’m hoping this helps me!

I think we are on to something getting this group of people together with the same symptoms and struggles. I wonder which other things we have in common? It seems that high intelligence is one of the heavy common denominators here. 

I have the same symptoms as everyone else, and they had a sudden onset while remodeling my house myself to sell it while running my own business and being a single mom. It is quite safe to say that stress and anxiety were deeply involved. I also experienced emotional trauma around this time as well that triggered emotional trauma from a past abusive marriage. I have always had high functioning anxiety and could tell when I was battling situational depression but it seems like during a period of extremely high stress and pressure combined with emotional pain triggered the brain fog / lack of motivation / memory loss, etc. 

Throwing another layer out there: At the point where it started I had been single for the majority of 4 years and severely lacking physical contact, sex, cuddling and love and any feeling of being "protected" which is a biological need. During a short period of dating someone that I was comfortable with and trusted I noticed that my productivity/motivation returned and my memory cleared up. 

I am wondering if serotonin/dopamine deprivation combined with high stress is causing our brains to go into some sort of protective mode that is a defense mechanism. This maybe causes detachment on purpose as a sort of self preservation emergency protocol, similar to some types of PTSD.