Fog

This isn't what I intended to write about tonight, but as often happens, something I encountered during the day has hung with me all day long.  I read a Facebook post by the Compassionate Friends Network.  A member asked about something he called 'Simple Memory Loss' in which he (or she) has entire conversations and interactions that later on he (or she) can't remember.  The writer wanted to know if this is normal.  Judging by the responses by other members, this is extremely 'normal' and can last for quite some time.  Longer than I thought.  Thank goodness.  I thought I was going crazy.

Honestly, I was relieved to read their responses.  Early on I wandered through my days in a fog of forgetfulness and indirection.  I would have conversations with friends setting up future plans and forget about them entirely.  I would walk down the hall and forget where I was going.  I would repeat the same conversations with my husband several nights in a row, sometimes remembering that I had asked him about something, but not remembering what his reply had been.  I am not in that fog any more, but I am not 'recovered' no matter how much I try to tell myself I am.

The primary result of the early 'fog' (it is actually called 'grief fog') was that I tended to become much less social than I had been before.  After a few very embarrassing instances of not remembering people's names, children, or something important they had told me, it just seemed easier (and less embarrassing) to isolate myself or socialize in only the most controlled situations.  One on one encounters I could usually manage.  Large groups were terrifying.  There were some situations where I couldn't avoid large gatherings, so I coped the best I could by keeping people I knew well near me, sitting with my back to a wall as far from the 'action' as I could, or simply leaving for awhile to take a long walk alone or with a single person.  I see now that my husband protected me then as he does now.  He used to joke about me being the social person and him being socially inept,  but now he takes care of our social responsibilities for me.  In a group, he is out talking to people, working the room (so to speak), so I don't have to. 

It has been almost 16 months.  Unlike many on the grief network,  I cannot (and will not) count it down to years, months, days, and hours.  I am not who I was before.  I never will be.  I no longer walk around in a continuous heavy fog, but rather like a fall morning where the fog rises up in low lying areas unexpectedly causing me to slow down and take care.  Stumbling along with my hands in front of me, taking tentative steps, trying to be safe.  I have been pushing myself to 'get better', to function normally, to get back to the top of my game...and beating myself up when I fail.  And I do fail.  I have those foggy periods when I just can't function like I used to.  Multi-tasking is impossible.  I find that I make a lot of mistakes towards the end of something I am working on because my mind has moved on to the next thing assuming that I can finish the current project on auto-pilot.  But I can't.  I make silly mistakes. 

Once I got a rental car for Bill for a trip to visit his mom; but I reserved it for the wrong year.  I made a car reservation for our vacation last weekend to North Carolina, but when we got there, they had no reservation for us and no cars either.  A problem that could have ruined our trip.  Travel plans are something I used to be very, very good at.  The day after the long weekend, I must have been very tired because I made several serious errors at work.  I knew I wasn't functioning at 100%, so I tried to work slowly, double checking everything, but I still made mistakes.  And then the fog lifted, and the rest of the week I was ok.  Go figure. 

In many ways, this spotty fog is as bad or worse than the initial fog.  Early on it was expected and easily tolerated by everyone around me and even by me, myself.  People had nearly unlimited patience with me.  Now, both me and the people around me (friends and coworkers) expect more from me.  I will go days, maybe weeks, appearing to be perfectly capable and then I will stumble and make a series of dumb mistakes.  I still prefer to protect my environment, keeping mostly to myself or one on one with close friends (and having someone double check my important work), but my friends seem to expect me to be who I used to be...probably because sometimes I am.  Sometimes I can be that person and all appears normal.  So when I can't, it appears to be something it isn't.  Anti-social, uncaring, selfish. 

I remind myself that this is a process.  It is not a series of steps, but rather like diet where there will be gains and losses along the way.  I will come out of the fog.  I will not be the same person who walked into the fog, but God willing, I will be a better person than I was before.