I had my a period of Fibro Fog May - June of 2012. A similar situation occurred in 2010 right before I left my job on disability: short-term memory loss and a general feeling of incompetence. This year the Fibro Fog was the worst it's been in 20-plus years of having Fibromyalgia.
Bills didn't get paid, things didn't get done, and some days ended in tears just because I was so sad at the loss of competent me! Where did she go? And would I be like this for the rest of my life?
I've been an over-achiever for all my life, memorizing numbers, filing things away, knowing right where anything was that I needed.
It's very, very hard to accept that I'm not that person anymore.
I did come out of the fog, thankfully before I went insane because of it!
Some of the effects of it, however, are still sharp in my mind...and what sense does that make?! Can't remember if I paid the electric bill, but I can remember how awful I felt contemplating letting the "me" I knew go.
I would tell Scotty I paid a bill, fully believing that I had, and we'd get stuck the next week with the service guy from the electric company in the driveway, here to cut off the electricity right that minute! I was blessed that my Daddy was available for my phone call and let me use his account to pay on the spot, preventing a forced power outage that I could have avoided.
Scotty began double-checking me on everything! And I mean everything! I've handled the bills since we got together over five years ago, and it reminded me of micro-management I experienced at my job before I left. Although, I WAS competent then, and certainly wasn't when he was following up with me!
It frustrated me to no end for him to ask me things countless times! I was mad about it, really mad, while at the same time, understanding WHY he was asking me. I wasn't mad at him; I was mad at the position my faulty Fibro brain had put me in, and I didn't want to be the incompetent, forgetful girl that I had become.
I cried many days, which is another thing that is really foreign to me, by the way. I cried for the loss of the competent me, and for the possibility that this would be the new me, a foreigner to myself.
Fibromyalgia robs us of the me-ness that we are so familiar with. I've never been a perfect person by any means, but the realization that my mind might join my body in betrayal is a serious issue for me, and something that I am forced to accept when in a fog period.
I'm thankful for the glass half-full optimism that I've always intrinsically had. It's gotten me through everything in my life up to this point! And I'm sure it will continue, as I have to believe that Fibromyalgia is incapable of stealing at least that from me!
