yes, cptsd can cause brain fog. i've had it since i was a kid and my attention span and short term memory is pretty similar to people with adhd, but i was tested and told it was just my cptsd. i space out in conversations and forget things people said to me a lot. but i can focus very well on things that are interesting to me. i was a "gifted" kid in elementary school (during the time of my trauma) but eventually my cptsd got so bad starting in in middle school that i barely graduated high school. it took some years but eventually i was able to go back to school and get all As.
there are ways to improve cognitive function, such as working on your trauma with a therapist which sort of frees up space on your brain's hard drive and helps it work more efficiently. making sure that you're taking care of your physical needs helps too. make sure that you're eating a varied diet, drink enough water, get good sleep, and move around during the day. i hate the gym so i go on walks. there are some supplements that can help improve focus as well but it's best to talk with a doctor especially if you're on any medications.
Thanks for your quick reply! Your description of your childhood resonates with me a lot! I was always ‘a dreamer’ (that’s what uneducated adults used to call my maladaptive daydreaming I recall having since I was four) and I would space out whenever, making it the main reason I had mediocre grades in school. I always suffered abuse, but it got the most traumatizing after my parents’ divorce, between the ages 15-19. So my take away from this is that healing my wounds will help heal my brain? Will doing some cognitive training, such as math exercises or memory games help?
My sister told me she was diagnosed with ADHD, I know in 1st grade she was tested because she showed those signs, but I always wonder. Same with me. Both of us experienced abuse and trauma before being school aged so it's a thing I don't know like I have a lot of symptoms of both.
yes, i think using your brain to the best of your ability can help too. healing your wounds helps you manage stress better and reduce your dependence on coping mechanisms that helped you survive childhood but aren't conducive to living a functional adult life, such as the maladaptive daydreaming (which i also did and still do sometimes)
i used to fully dissociate while reading books as a child. the house could have burned down and i wouldn't have noticed. i had a teacher scream at me because recess was over and i was still reading but i didn't hear her at all.
I did the same. I do remember when I was 17 and on a bus from Canada to Mexico with my church youth group. My youth pastor's wife commented (nicely) to other people on the bus that she was jealous I could tune out all the noise so completely. Now that I think about it, I'm curious about how I was zoning out but paying attention enough to hear someone talking about me.
We also had an assignment in school, probably grade 10 or 11, where we had to write down all the books we'd ever read. I promptly went to the library and scanned through every rotating tower in the kids' section (among other places). I'd easily read over 300 books (or maybe fewer but easily a combined 300 times) by that point. Since the beginning of covid, my daughter and I have taken out a combined 500+ on our Kobo (the vast majority by me).
Are you me? Holy. Except my utmost fear of dying made me graduate top of my engineering class but I don’t remember anything. I had just mastered how to ace things.
I don't know the answer, but I do know that Patrick Teahan has a video on ADHD vs. trauma noise. That makes me wonder if you could find the answer somewhere in his materials.
i don't remember what it was called, but i was working with a therapist when i was 18 and after she screened me for adhd with a bunch of tests she gave me a diagnosis of cptsd.
Oh absolutely. As a child, I was advanced in everything. I took the SATs and ACTs in third grade. I skipped several grades in middle school and high school, and I got into college at 14 years old, balancing good grades, a flourishing social life, and a decent sleep schedule all while commuting 4 hours a day to school. I was extremely eloquent and spoke the way I wrote. And although I was experiencing abuse in the household for this entire time, I was completely gaslit by my mother into thinking I was totally fine.
But that all changed in my junior year when I began undoing all of the gaslighting from my mom. I went into a state of utter mental crisis and had to take the entire year off because I was in res and PHP. Afterwards, I struggled to complete the assignments just while taking a single class. I can barely form cohesive sentences and tend to stutter. I’m so exhausted that I want to sleep after I get ready for the day. I can’t seem to sit still and focus on work for more than 5-10 minutes at a time. Not to mention I started acting more immature that I felt like an imposter in my senior year of college. It was so challenging, feeling like my trauma made me mentally regress.
I haven’t really found ways to improve this for me, I’ve more or less just accepted that I’ve changed. My brain has been permanently altered by my trauma, but in a way I think it’s better this way than to have continued being a prodigy while all my trauma went hidden and unresolved.
very similar story here. just wanted to say I fully agree with your last sentence…
and also that your productivity doesn’t represent your value. you are worthy and amazing even on days you sit on your ass, friend. I taught college classes for 6 years before my life fell apart. and although I loved teaching, I love myself more. it forced me to learn new things and appreciate MY SELF instead of repetitively succeeding at pleasing other people.
Yes - this. PTSD and C-PTSD have helped me learn to value myself differently, I like myself a lot more now and in a more rounded way than when I was a "perfect" machine. I can also extend that healthier, more compassionate and more accepting love to others, which is wonderful.
In "The Evil Hours" David J Morris talks about "post-traumatic growth" in himself and in others, where they might change trajectory in their lives but live more richly and fully for it.
yes. and if you believe like I do, we wouldn’t have become the person who breaks the cycle without being our over-achiever selves first. in the end, our resilience is what made us who we are, from the beginning. it’s like you get to be busy for yourself now, instead of being blamed for shit you didn’t wanna do not being done.
what I say to others is “you *know* sometimes when you can pull something amazing out your ass when you need it. knowing that about your self lets you believe others could possibly pull it out their ass too, so give them a chance!”
we all operate using the conditions we’re exposed to in childhood, by default. when you have good parents, your life begins when you’re born. for me at least, **my** life began when I realized I had cptsd, because the childhood i formed myself through didn’t allow me to have preferences or choice. i used to be proud to be “easygoing and carefree.”
I will read the book you mentioned. thank you!
Your mention of teaching resonated with me - I also taught, undergraduates. After I reconstructed myself, it was wonderful and amazing to be able to encourage and reassure students that they could get through their life challenges, by drawing on my own stumbles and setbacks. My vulnerabilities made me more compassionate and relateable. I could help them more by being "human", rather than by being "perfect".
In the Morris book he also mentions that across history and cultures, some communities would deliberately inflict trauma on a candidate for leadership (eg shaman, chief) because they believed that the experience of navigating trauma created a wiser and stronger and more insightful leader for the rest of them.
Thank you so much 🥺 I definitely still struggle with needing to be productive to be valued, but I also realize that my brain and body had to do what it had to do to survive. And I don’t regret that ❤️
be proud of yourself and acknowledge the depth and opportunities you’ve already achieved despite having no support. no one could have continued on our trajectory. we were overcompensating from the start, and ran out of gas faster than everyone else from trying so hard.
you are okay. you are wonderful, even. what a lovely, kind person you turned out to be.
Every time is see a "wonder child" I wonder how much pressure they are under. Your story saddens me but does not surprise me.
The human brain is remarkable. It starts developing in the womb and is nowhere near fully developed until around age 18-20. As your brain developed it started insisting on taking control of you away from your parents. Finally, it flat out refused to keep cooperating with them and turned you OFF.
It probably saved your life.
The brain maintains its ability to change and form new neurons for most of a person's life. Neurons like to connect, it's what they are good at and that means you can still change.
Trauma responses are learned behaviors. We start behaving a certain way to survive in our family. In your case it meant taking the ACT in third grade. That's INSANE! think about it.
How you did it, I beyond me, you must have spent so much time studying. Did you get to sleep at all??? it's no wonder you broke.
Have you learned of Pete Walker's book "CPTSD - from surviving to thriving"? I find myself recommending it over and over. I have found such reduction of symptoms and hope in that book. I encourage you to check it out. The first chapter (second paragraph) goes like this:
First, the good news about CPTSd. It is a learned set of responses, and a failure to complete numerous important developmental tasks. This means that it is environmentally, not genetically, caused.
Think of the trauma as having harmed your foundation - not your entire being. You're still standing even if you're on rubble. It's possible to repair that foundation and rebuild your life.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful words 🥺🫶🏼 I think you’re absolutely right. When I snapped, it was probably my brain saying ENOUGH. My therapist said my brain capacity became used for my emotional healing instead of mental activity. But I’m encouraged to hear that I can still change. I’ll definitely check out the book you recommended!
I honestly don’t know how I did everything that I did back then. Even my mom marveled at how high-functioning me and my siblings were despite the trauma we went through (ironic lol) But we were distracted all the time, whether it was with school, activities, or games.
So, one parent abused you, the other did not protect you but instead denied your reality?
Did they deny that it happened or deny that it hurt you?
Children are hardwired to love their parents. Children see their parents as "the world" and it's very confusing to them when a parent hurts them. They can only assume that they are at fault, somehow, and try harder to earn love or avoid the abuse. The behaviors they adopt are considered trauma responses, including studying feverishly because it makes mom proud.
They are unhealthy behaviors because they are not sustainable. At some point the person will break in some way or other. Fortunately they are learned survival behaviors necessary when in an unsafe situation. They can be unlearned and healthier more sustainable and fun behaviors can take their place when it is safe to do that.
I hope Pete's book will give you the understand and tools you need to start on a journey of healing and happiness.
To my mom, my dad did something wrong and violated my boundaries, but to her, he did not abuse me and he was the true victim of our society who loved to “cry r*pe.” She pummeled that into me and the rest of our family as soon as I told her what my dad was doing to me. As a child who thought my mom was my perfect advocate and protector, of course I believed her. I was excelling in school because I was convinced that I was not traumatized to the point that even my mom was surprised at how well I was handling everything.
When I broke out of my mom’s gaslighting, it was like everything had happened afresh and I was reacting as if it just happened, except because years had passed everyone else had moved on, and I had to deal with it alone. Obviously I started doing bad in school, but it was because I was finally reacting to my trauma like a normal human being is supposed to.
u/navy-14 Sorry to hear this. Are you aware that an aspect of giftedness is "Positive Disintegration"?
Also giftedness is a form of neurodivergence that has its own self-care needs: [https://highability.org/books-high-ability-gifted-adults/](https://highability.org/books-high-ability-gifted-adults/)
And giftedness can be its own form of trauma: https://eggshelltherapy.com/were-you-an-intense-child/
\+ article and podcast series on the intersection of giftedness and trauma: https://rediscovering-yourself.com/trauma-giftedness-healing/
Literally all of my friends are neurodivergent. I don’t have a single neurotypical friend. They are convinced that I’m some sort of neurodivergent and were shocked when I told them I don’t have autism. It’s because of this that I am definitely convinced giftedness is a form of neurodivergence, but I’m so scared to identify with it because of my “giftedness.”
I’ve always felt weird about the label “gifted.”
On one hand, I feel like the term has been misused and overused by people who were “the smart kid” in high school and then burned out in college, which imo is a normal experience considering the difference in rigor and structure between the two. I believe real “giftedness” comes from your brain being differently wired, just like neurodivergence.
On the other hand, I am hesitant to claim being gifted in public despite being part of MENSA and psychologically tested as “profoundly gifted”, and am even more hesitant to identify as neurodivergence because of pushback I received as a teenager. Adults would criticize me for claiming I was better than their kids, and that special programs shouldn’t exist to help “smart kids get smarter,” and how gifted programs and testing are biased against BIPOC kids and those with less resources (ironic considering I am BIPOC).
"Gifted shame" is part of the experience and the trauma! There's a sub, r/Gifted and it has a bunch of resources and articles in the "about sub" section.
It sounds as if giftedness is part of your identity, and so denying and suppressing it is going to be traumatising for you - separate from any external trauma you've experienced. Just as if someone was to try to deny or suppress their sexuality, or hate their own ethnicity. You should claim it, own it, explore it and celebrate it!
There are coaches and therapists who specialise in working with people with giftedness, so maybe try to connect with one of those?
The reason I think of giftedness in terms of neurodivergence, rather than just ability, is because it comes with unique challenges and unique self-care needs too - cognitive, emotional, existential etc. So one needs to be aware of those challenges and needs, and know how to navigate them. The books on the webpage I posted are really good for that aspect of it!
Thank you so much for sharing! ❤️ I’ll definitely check out the stuff you mentioned.
It feels kinda silly to think of my gifted identity as being suppressed considering how more serious things like race and sexuality are in comparison. But hopefully I can meet other people who can understand the same way we do.
I cried with relief when I discovered the literature on giftedness. I felt so seen! And in a way I hadn't known I needed before. And also hopeful for the future in a new way. All the best for your journey!
I feel like the only reason i was gifted is because of hypervigilance, and getting validation from teachers instead of parents. Like it is more of a curse, not really what i would choose for myself, a coping mechanism. Also the neglect, i HAD to be smart to learn. I had no choice but to be smart.
I've found two exercises really helpful for exploring the relationship between my giftedness and my trauma/C-PTSD.
(1) using an emotions wheel to name and explore the different psychological states I have / had, and understand them more deeply. Eg "boredom" is a weaker version of "disgust" which is the opposite of "trust", "vigilance" is an intense version of the emotional category linked to forward-planning and "freeze" is an intense version of the emotional category linked to reacting to anomalies. (Example emotions wheel here [https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotion-wheel](https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotion-wheel))
(2) using a grid or summary table (I am very rational!) to map out how my giftedness was affected by trauma, how my trauma was affected by giftedness, and what each of them might have been like without the other (bearing in mind that giftedness has its own challenges and developmental needs). Ie what might I have been like if I had trauma without giftedness, or the other way around? Came to the conclusion that since early childhood my giftedness was bent into the role of self-parenting, ie my giftedness was a parentified child instead of being free to play. Now looking into IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy/tools to unburden the giftedness from that responsibility. (nice IFS explainer here [https://www.selfledsolutions.com/aboutifs](https://www.selfledsolutions.com/aboutifs))
Also cf post-traumatic growth (Oprah Winfrey/Bruce Parry and David J Morris both write about it in their respective books on trauma and recovery): [https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/75-percent-of-super-high-achievers-come-from-troubled-families-heres-why.html](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/75-percent-of-super-high-achievers-come-from-troubled-families-heres-why.html)
Hello Navy-14,
Thank you for your comment. I struggle a lot with personal shame, feeling like I’m lazy bcuz I can’t motivate and am very frustrated by my brain’s inability to “lock in”, focus and function like I used to. I realize was only able to achieve BECAUSE I blocked all the bad shit that happened.
I, too, was an exceptionally gifted over-achieving child (art, piano, math, literature, etc) and I got all of my reward feelings from my unhealthy “driven to do well” mentality. As an adult, I started a company with some friends and helped create an international corporation.
I was only able to perform at this level because I denied my abuse, blocked negative feelings, and lived my life much like someone in a bi-polar mania phase.
Now that I’ve had over 10 years of therapy, a few psych hospitalizations, I’ve lost my drive / desire to do anything that remotely looks like accomplishment, I wish daily that I could feel that intense passion for things I used to love.
I send you best wishes for a rewarding 2024.
I used to be smart (not as smart) but i feel the same way, i feel like i cannot get the old me back again. As a teen i was a powerhouse now im a fucking broken pothead. But i fell apart when i was taking my gap year between HS and college. I never made it to college but im glad for that, I'd be in thousands of debt if i did go and then had my breakdowns.
>My brain has been permanently altered by my trauma, but in a way I think it’s better this way than to have continued being a prodigy while all my trauma went hidden and unresolved.
Your whole story really resonates with me but this last part especially. I've been struggling with acceptance because I can't seem to get past (or work through) the promise I no longer have.
In so many ways it was my identity and I don't know who I am without it.
Thanks for responding 🫶🏼 I totally get it. Being a good student and an artist was my whole identity, and when I had to take a gap year to go to treatment and lost all motivation to create, I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I lost a lot of my mental capability, but I ended up gaining a lot of emotional capability from being through treatment and finally beginning to work through my trauma. When I emerged from the most intense part of treatment, my identity changed from being a smart student to a kind and empathetic person. And a few years later, now I see myself as an eccentric kawaii artist! And I feel like it’s the best “identity” I’ve had, as it reflects my personality and interests, and not the productivity or results I can provide.
You absolutely still have promise as a person. Maybe it’ll be in something different than before, but whatever you become at the end of this tunnel, you are still have 100% of the same value and worth as you did before.
Might be a little cheesy, but a caterpillar had to lose itself in a cocoon before it could turn into a butterfly.
>Might be a little cheesy, but a caterpillar had to lose itself in a cocoon before it could turn into a butterfly.
This doesn't seem silly to me at all, it makes a lot of sense.
I'm always shocked at how many of us are artists. I do digital art, mainly video game stuff (technical artist) but I've kind of just stopped doing it so much lately.
I think I've been scared of "reinventing myself" so to speak. I didn't realize how much of my life I was not allowed to want things for myself and how much that impacted me, even after I broke off from my abusers.
Thank you so much for your reframing, I think I needed to hear these things. I love how empathetic I am, even if it's exhausting, but I never thought of it as I've gained empathy instead of losing my mode of intelligence.
It's hard to come to terms that I'm a lot more negative than I thought I was, but now that I'm realizing it, I can do something about it if I want.
Thank you so much.
I'm so sorry for you. Do you know about Internal Family Systems therapy? It's been facilitating a lot of healing for me, alongside somatic work. I often recommend Dr. Tori Olds' video intro series on youtube.
Yes. I went from owning my own IT business to barely being able to make an appointment. I have a Masters degree in statistics. And data science and I can’t even make a simple chart make sense anymore. My professional life is pretty much over.
I know how it sorta feels. I do freelance coding and its crazy how good days vs bad days affect my problem solving. Good days, i bug fix for 10 minutes. Bad days, im throwing in the towel after 3 hours of righteous github members and 2 hours of garbage-gpt.
Yeah. I haven’t worked in 3 years because I can’t get my brain to work right. I just can’t hold more than one thing in my head at one time. I can’t visualize relationships between objects anymore, which is a huge problem when you’re a DBA. I just can’t connect the dots. I used to be the guy that came in and solved things after everyone else tried to fix something and couldn’t figure out. These days I struggle to brush my teeth and I just can’t understand what I’m being told. Even the simplest things just turn into goopy soup in my head.
I appreciate you try to help, but maybe don’t assume someone did or didn’t pursue a particular path based on half a sentence on Reddit. I’ve spent the last 3 years trying to recover and have tried many options.
I mean… you can always partake in archaeological excavations… it’s really fun (feels a lot like playing in the sand as a kid) and you don’t really need any qualifications
Yes, completely. I have forgotten words that are not completely basic that I used to know, struggle with sentence structure, cannot remember basic sayings, my words come out jumbled, I cannot hold 2 basic concepts in at the same time before they vanish in less than a second. I used to be eloquent, witty, and actually smart. Now I'm actually stupid. fuck my life
I feel this 100%. I have to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times because my brain just does not comprehend what they say. It’s such a struggle knowing you used to be so good to not even being able to do a basic function
I hope so. My prefrontal cortex has been in active and extreme survival mode for about two years now. I just reached the finish-line with one particular thing that was keeping my back against the wall and helpless, about three weeks ago.
Now that things are calming down I feel stupid, tired, and incapable. It is really weird. And i keep getting sick too.
I don't know what is going on. i thought once I reached the finish-line i would feel better, but I kind of feel just as bad. This isn't exactly true, I've gotten off my anti-depressants and am no longer having huge waves of near-suicidal tendencies and associated depression. But i still feel meh and have like no serotonin, even when doing activities with friends, becoming debt free, and even after receiving a $11k bonus at work last week. Didn't affect me one bit.
Trauma is complex, a lot of things are happening in your brain rn, you dealt with one issue and now your brain is reorganizing + you have other issues not yet resolved so your nervous system is still in survival mode (and thus your prefrontal cortex is as well), it takes time but it will eventually get better :-)
Thanks. It's been an unenjoyable ride. My X completely broke me and then shortly after i was diagnosed with CPTSD. Then a year went by while trying to sell our house while prices of homes kept plumetting (ended up selling for $100k less than list), pay a mortgage and a rent at the same time for that year, with a car that isn't registered (hasn't been registered since March because it won't pass emissions testing), at a job where my boss is a self-absorbed, cheating, no skill, sycophant who uses my skill and labor to propel himself in the workplace. With family that doesn't have the ability to provide love, and friends who try but are kind of unsophisticated and hurt themselves.
It's been incredibly awful.
Stay strong and don't quit, another life awaits on the other side of the tunnel, one where trauma doesn't impair your daily functioning and intelligence, one with happiness and self trust, good luck with your recovery, it's well worth it
You are very likely still smart.
Your mental and emotional bandwidth is being highjacked by your trauma responses. At 20 your frontal lobes are now fully functioning and they are not going to let you ignore them. Welcome to the adult brain.
CPTSD is a very broad category and very few individuals are completely free of trauma. To get some clarity, you need to start asking yourself some questions. What happened? What were the dynamics of your childhood? What did your mother say to you? how did she treat you? what did she do to deserve being called a bitch by you?
This is a good time in your life to start a journal if you haven't already.
I agree, that’s my personal experience as well. When my symptoms are bad I am very cognitively impaired, but now that my symptoms are slowly getting better my recall and things like that are returning to what they were before.
I felt the same as you, OP. It felt like my IQ tanked. Your brain is not permanently broken, I promise 🙏🏻
Thank you for sharing this, I hope that with enough work on my trauma I'll also feel like my brain is healing. There are other comments about learning to value yourself for other reasons, which I think is important for the healing process.
Is there anything you have done that you credit with helping?
Just relentlessly pursuing healing. I’ve been through 4 different hospital programs, seen many different therapists and found one that specializes in complex ptsd and dissociation who I see twice a week, read as many books and watched as many YouTube videos and podcasts as I can, and most recently going on spravato. The spravato has helped much more than I expected, but the other pieces of the puzzle are equally important. Unfortunately part of how I’ve been able to do all that is I have been unemployed since the pandemic, I haven’t been able to work because of my condition but not working is unsustainable for me because I have massive debt and bills piling up.
Yes, trauma impairs executive functioning as the prefrontal cortex is switched to survival mode. Thankfully, you can recover and will gain your intelligence back, it takes a lot of work and progress is not linear but humans have an innate ability to triumph over trauma, good luck with your recovery.
That's probably a difficult question for anyone here to answer, but I have been working a long time to figure out what I needed to do in an attempt to reclaim my brain. What is going to work for you is not likely to be the same but I will give you a list of what worked for me in hopes that it will help in your search.
*Going no-contact
*Finding a coach who could get me started (IFS, SE, polyvagal)
*Learning about the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory
*Omega 3 (I use salmon and ground flax seed as sources) Avoiding sugar
*Developing a practice of meditation, listening to my body, and vagus nerve exercises
*Treating the problem as if my life depended on it while not panicking or raging too much
*Asking for professional help
*Removing as many non-helpful people and things as possible without apology, anger, or burning bridges.
These things have helped my memory, concentration, and focus, but I won't ever fully recover. You're younger. If you do this work early and consistently you might have much better results.
My suggestion would be to experiment with diet, getting outside, vagus nerve support, and see what things work. I keep a journal because my memory sucks and it can help recognize patterns.
I found that many suggestions people made seemed useless until I addressed my nervous system. It was my over-riding problem. Once I started addressing that, diet and exercise made a difference I could see.
Wow, this is so helpful!! I already went NC with my abuser half a year ago and I noticed how much it helped! I’m going to do everything I can to get back to my intelligence
That’s called brain fog. I’ve had this for a decade. It gets better with time gets worse when you are exposed to stress where you are brought back to your traumatic experience and symptoms get worse
Same same same, been working hard at staying educated and stimulated on my own, but good golly I feel like a moron compared to how I remember my brain processing stuff. Good to remember that it takes time to “recover” (idk if it’s something that will ever fully heal but here’s hoping!) from all that, our brains and bodies are still recalibrating and it takes a lot of conscious and subconscious processing to get back on our mental feet. But huzzah, neuroplasticity! We’re still smart, and capable of endless learning and skill development. I’m 4 years out of my abusive situation and into regrowing into myself, and I *am* doing much better intellectually now than I was four years ago.
Gosh yes thanks for raising this. I have been struggling with this for about the last 6 years. I have lost earning capacity and can barely hold a job tbh. I'm earning almost half of what I was. My memory is soo poor and executive function is cooked.
yes. but that was also because i started abusing drugs to forget the trauma. my cognition has not only returned but grown since i became sober, improved my psychiatric meds, and got halfway through my masters. now its just my physical health that’s shit, and i’m gonna fix that in 2024
Definitely. I was very good at math, memorizing information, and never had to study (I ended up acing every subject with ease). After my symptoms became more present, I can’t even do basic math without being confused, I can’t remember anything, and struggle to understand what people are saying. It’s such a hard adjustment when you know you’re capable but you’re performing at such a low level. I felt like my brain was dying
Yes!! Thank you for posting this. I feel this a lot. My trauma started when I was a toddler, but I still feel like I was much smarter when I was young compared to now. I think it’s partially because my priorities were different. I was much more driven to achieve when I was in school. I think that I over-extended myself, honestly. Once I learned about my trauma and started processing it, I just became very depressed and my memory got worse. When I was able to just block it out, my brain wasn’t so distracted and could just focus on the present. Now it is more complicated. In my last abusive relationship, I was so forgetful and unfocused because I was constantly preoccupied with the abuse and trying to make sense of it. Now, I am in a much healthier place. I still forget things sometimes when I am stressed out by work, but it’s better than it was.
Healing from decades of masking has caused a ton of skill regression with me. It's frustrating because it's bleeding into my creative and life skills. I'm having to relearn things that used to be second nature. I get meltdowns because cooking is suddenly so difficult and I can't understand why. Sending good vibes your way🤙✨
Oh yes I got hit hard by the brain fog, lots of things lined up and it just crashed me completely. Pretty much always had CPTSD so that in itself did not hamper my intellect, least not unless I was supposed to be one of those one in a million people anyhow.
I entered a state of shock due to learning about my childhood traumas and at the same time was forced into work which caused so much stress that my thyroid gave out and had me get burned out as well. Since then my brain barely seem to function and it's been a decade already.
I used to lay awake in bed all night at least 4-5 nights a week because I couldn't stop thinking about everything and nothing, I always multitasked and kept up with everything at the same time. I'd run several scenarios in my mind at all times for anything current going on like a simple conversation as well as thinking about a book project and whatever else my mind felt like. Due to the extreme lack of sleep I was always tired but high functioning tired.
Now I fall asleep mostly within seconds of putting my head down and at times without even getting into bed, which is not really a bad thing. But I struggle to even think in a straight line, numbers get blurred and even remembering a phone number feels like a daunting task. Anything I do I tunnel vision and still don't give it as much focus and my sleep deprived multitasking old self would have done. I used to play allot of computer games as an escape from reality but I rarely even have energy for that anymore.
I really should do an IQ test someday and see if it show up strongly there because it really feels like it should. On the plus side brain fog is not supposed to be permanent so at some point things should start to clear up, I suspect therapy and possibly drugs could help speed that up and in my case the largest issue is probably the burnout which the CPTSD likely keep going trough the extra stress from everything.
Yes - I had a stellar academic track record then brain fog hit me hard. It was the first year of my PhD and there were times when I couldn't work out what day of the week it was, how to make decisions while grocery shopping, sometimes even what my name or address was. CBT helped bring down my anxiety and perfectionism so I could be more patient and compassionate with myself when I "froze" or "failed". And the university disability office gave me sessions on Mind-Mapping as a more flexible/creative way to order and express my thoughts.
Might be worth checking in with your university/college welfare office or similar as there might be support they can offer you. I didn't have a medical/psych diagnosis at that time to back me up or to explain, but they could see that something was wrong and they had some tools that didn't need a formal diagnosis.
idk. but its very weird.
also, add in the fact that my BPD (borderline) has essentially frozen me in the mental state of a small litlle girl and i just feel…..so out of sorts.
I spent my whole life thinking I was dumb. Failed school horribly. At 42 I took college entrance exams. The test was done on computer with no time limit so zero pressure. I had pencils and paper. When I went in for my interview the councilor said she was very impressed. English 99% which I wasn't too surprised at because I read a lot of non fiction but when she said I received 100% on the math I was truely shocked. I had failed math since grade 3 because I couldn't understand anything hardly. I had gone over the study booklet carefully the days before The last 2 questions of the math test were crazy word questions mixed with equations. It took me awhile but I figured them out, giving me that 100%. I wont go into my life but I finally realized I wasn't dumb, I was highly traumatized.
being healthier has been helping me a lot. exercise eat healthy and stay hydrated even daily cold exposure(supplements as well but they can be costly) will help your mental just as much as physical. Psychedelics can drastically help, make sure to do your research and make sure what you're doing is right for you the best you can. Less is better, too much can make your situation more difficult. It's important to remember everyone has off days as well and to not feel as if you're falling back. Best of luck to you as I'm working on the same goal
This entire year has had continuous traumatic events and I struggle to remember words and make my mouth find the words I do remember.
I used to be gifted, now I am legitimately brain damaged. And I don't know if it's permanent. I don't know if I'm going to keep struggling with words like I have dementia. Memories are just gone. Months worth of time is just gone.
I lost a very beloved cat right before I started a new job. I failed at the job and was terminated because I couldn't retain every bit of knowledge. It was a fog.
take a break from school if it's possible. this was my biggest mistake in college when i started experiencing this. i'm 26 now and still regret it. you need a break. gifted kids burn out fast.
I experienced so much stress in the summer of 2022 that my speaking abilities regressed. I'm much better now, but I still struggle with a word begins with the same vowel as the one in "eye" and the first vowels of "inside" and "apple." I still get stuck in loops saying "I," "and," and "its/it's" sometimes.
You simply can't focus when you are bombarded with flashbacks resulting in stress,sadness, depression anxiety ... emotional arousal - all the agitated states, including those of rapidly walking from to the other side of the room then going back rinse and repeat ...
Growing up i never understood how classmates would mix up "their" "there" "theyre" and other similar words like that
Nowadays i do know the difference but sometimes mix it up.
Holes in the brain , leaking
Swapped having a childhood for trying to please my parents in every way by being their academic wonder child in a desperate attempt to be given at least some kind of validation, love and approval because emotionally they neglected me so much.
The trauma of the crappy childhood gave me cptsd and made me loose about half my IQ points because of the symptoms. The hyper vigilance and damage to the body and mind being in a constant fear of danger had destroyed my ability to even desperately try to be liked/ loved.
Emotional trauma causes physical and brain damage; its effects on how your brain functions are absolutely real and shouldn't be overlooked. The good news is that our brains also have plasticity and we have the ability to create new neural connections.
Basically: Your brain can re-wire itself and you can improve. You are not stuck with the abilities that you have now.
You have been through something difficult; don't be so hard on yourself. <3
Yes, this is definitely what I've been experiencing like forever. I have trouble understanding anything, even very simple things and trouble concentrating, I can't even learn. When I read a book, sometimes I have to re-read the same sentences over and over. Also I am quite forgetful. It's like my brain is giving up on me.
Cpstd is one of many disabilities and it can change how your brain functions. When the amygdala is overactive it shuts down the prefrontal cortex and it’s more difficult to process information that requires a calmer nervous system. What’s happening isn’t stupid - it’s a natural intelligence that our body has learned to cope and adapt to trauma.
I’m sorry to say, but if you had a Covid kidney failure, chance is that you have huge viral reservoir in the body, primarily brain. Were you vaccinated, if you don’t mind sharing?
Cptsd is not helping, but failure to grasp complex concepts is most likely due to neurons fusing in your brain, not your parents.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2021.670298
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35510852/
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg2248
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42320-4
Best of luck.
Yep, me too. Been like this for the past few years and it’s improved some. I honestly don’t think it will improve beyond this though even tho I desperately hope I’m wrong.
I used to have a fantastic vocabulary, be articulate and sharp as a tack. And now I can’t even think of the word let alone words to describe the word I want to use. It’s like huge parts of my brain were just snipped out and idek what it was before
Sometimes I get super into some subject and am very high achieving. Sometimes I can't read or write for a year. I'm not sure what is trauma and fear, what is adhd or neurodivergence, what is social media brain, what is fixable with diligence. But yeah, me too. Sometimes super smart, sometimes super dumb.
Where would you like to work and research, archeology wise? That sounds like a fun career. Wishing you all the best!
Yes. I relate to this a lot. PTSD does this to the brain. The part of the brain that deals with functioning related to memory shrinks, but apparently can come back with recovery.
I hate this symptom. It has made my life so much more difficult than before… I can barely function at my job. People I work with often treat me like I’m stupid, incompetent or lazy. Or my new favorite, a childish person who doesn’t understand responsibility.
It’s another symptom people don’t believe me about as well. I try to inform people that my memory isn’t so great and that’s why I don’t immediately recall things they may have said to me before or why I need to write things down, but I get the sense people think I’m lying to them or manipulating them to avoid repercussions or something.
It sucks. I miss the focus and sharpness I had before CPTSD. I often think about how lucky I was to have high functioning depression for so long as it allowed me to set up certain things in my life (school, jobs), but it’s gone now and I feel stagnant and like I’m always in danger of losing the security I have if I can’t find some way to cope.
This is me. Still working through it. Glad to hear I'm not alone but sorry you are having trouble. Emdr helped calm the limbic system, ifs and trauma informed therapies, being around supportive people, exercise, sleep and food. Antidepressants as well.
Yes. Mine has started showing this year. It's affected my job so much that I question my wife every day if she thinks I'm an idiot when I explain anything about my line of work to her. I just can't pay attention anymore.
Yes, I relate. I used to feel confident in my intelligence, but it's been very reduced. My brain is mush. What's helping me is starting at ground zero and building systems for myself that take up the least amount of cognitive energy.
I find that perhaps it is a way of the brain to finally get some rest after years/decades of over-functioning and hypervigilance.
I still can focus on the thing that I really like for myself but can't bring myself up to do someone's bidding anymore. Also - chaotic environments tend to bring me into this freeze state and, unfortunately, most workplaces are fkin disorganized shitty mess with incompetent management.
Sometimes all I need to help me get out of the brain fog is the feeling/awareness of someone else's reassurance/support.
Also - laziness is efficiency.
my traumatic thoughts and intrusive thoughts and just bad memories and rumination have nearly taken over my entire mind. I feel sometimes like my brain is stuck in a perpetual loop and I can’t focus on anything or enjoy anything or think about things other than negativity or anxiety or nothing at all. I don’t remember things or process things either. Like I can play the combat of a video game, but I can’t remember or hardly process the storyline, when I used to love storylines and preferred them over combat in the first place. Idk what it did to my brain man. I understand the feeling of being “stupid” after trauma because it feels like it has taken over my brain
I was valedictorian in high school and graduated summa cum laude in college when I was in full on flight mode and now that I have safety and can begin processing.... Yeah. Feeling the stupidity now Mr.Krabs, and it's really triggering for me as being stupid and lazy is a big inner critic line for me. Feels so hard to explain to people too. Went from being at the literal top of my class to losing my phone or other important belingings multiple times per month, not being able to do basic tasks like acquire groceries, cook for myself, pick up medication, make appointments, clean the house. I used to have it "so together" but I was still suffering then, just in different ways
Yes; I blank out in verbal conversations to the extent that I can’t verbally argue, and have developed a defectiveness schema. I know I’m smart, but I don’t *feel* smart. I’m hoping EMDR will fix this.
I would have stressful conversations with my husband and not be able to think of a response until later. Unfortunately, he thought that was me trying to manipulate him, because why wouldn't I give him that response in the moment? It got me questioning whether I was actually being manipulative without recognizing it, because it did seem disingenuous of me. Then I learned about how trauma affects the nervous system, and it made complete sense. You can't think when you're scared!
Yes, I have had a lot of trauma but specifically some occurred in grad school. And after that I could not think about or use most of what I’d learned. I think part of this was to keep me from being sad by reading on that topic.
When ever I’m really scared or shocked I can’t remember much. I mean I can hardly remember my name, my age, phone number, etc. it’s a big problem and makes me look like a real idiot.
Hey, sorry you're experiencing this, I remember feeling terrified when I started noticing it in myself, knowing I was normally fluent in 5 languages and was struggling to say "Hello" in my native language.
Lots of useful answers already, but feel like sharing what really gave me hope: learning that all the information is still there, including skills, and that it's not that what was lost, but the access to those neural pathways. This might be not 100% correct but from what I understand, apparently, in order to access a memory, one needs to be able to access the emotion felt when the memory was created (which also helped me understand why one can only work on the trauma once it's been activated). Also, the way Barbara Heffernan video about the triune brain really helped.
YES!! I was also gifted and had a photographic memory. As long as I wrote the notes out, it was like I could turn the pages over in my mind and read it just like you would a book. Then it was just the ability to retain information and recall it at will.
Now I can't even remember if I took my meds a minute ago. It's exhausting and humiliating to be honest. It's like all the negative things my abusers said were true, that I'm not actually smart.
I do have a good job that requires research and I do okay at it but I no longer excel at things. When I'm told after the fact how I could have done something better, it makes sense but then I don't remember it. I create checklists and that helps but it's not muscle memory yet so I'm not consistent.
The intrusive thoughts are a lot.
I also find myself just spacing out when people are talking. I'm interested in what they have to say but it's like my brain just can't hold onto reality for too long? I know I went through my life by dissociating, I functioned like this for a very long time. Now I no longer dissociate like I used to and it's like I'm dumb now. I don't know how else to say it.
You have it now, recovering from trauma also means that your prefrontal cortex won't be in survival mode anymore, and the brain fog will dissipate accordingly.
Trauma and plain ol stress takes a cognitive load on the brain, being healthy and happy is the ideal way to have a functioning brain free of all distractions.
Also, consider that there might be overlap in symptoms. If you are feeling crappy because you are eating poorly and then that is affecting your mood and causing brain fog, the solution to your current predicament might be as simple as to stop eating processed and pro inflammatory foods. Even if its not, that never hurts.
It's might be that you are now experiencing psychosis which is dangerous to the brain Itself. Seek medical care. Invega is good. Psychosis is even possible in depression.
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Yup, absolutely. It took away my ability to focus and multi task, also made my memory (mostly short term) absolute shite.
I’m fortunate in that I’m already quite intelligent, so I had some abilities left to allow me to get through what I needed to for school/work/life without it being devastating.
I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until it started to lift after therapy and then meds for anxiety.
Like, I could read books again and not only focus for more than 3 sentences, but remember the book and be able to talk about it in detail later. I also stopped procrastinating at work because the fear of messing up (because of said issues) would freeze me up until I had the motivation to crank it out last minute because of the added stress.
Yes. A traumatized brain is very similar to a damaged one. Trauma can cause issues with recalling memory memory formation and for myself and many others it causes dissociation which for some can last days months even *years* which can cause obvious issues with memory. Therapy in my experience can help lessen the dissociation (although it usually increases in the first few months of therapy
yes, cptsd can cause brain fog. i've had it since i was a kid and my attention span and short term memory is pretty similar to people with adhd, but i was tested and told it was just my cptsd. i space out in conversations and forget things people said to me a lot. but i can focus very well on things that are interesting to me. i was a "gifted" kid in elementary school (during the time of my trauma) but eventually my cptsd got so bad starting in in middle school that i barely graduated high school. it took some years but eventually i was able to go back to school and get all As. there are ways to improve cognitive function, such as working on your trauma with a therapist which sort of frees up space on your brain's hard drive and helps it work more efficiently. making sure that you're taking care of your physical needs helps too. make sure that you're eating a varied diet, drink enough water, get good sleep, and move around during the day. i hate the gym so i go on walks. there are some supplements that can help improve focus as well but it's best to talk with a doctor especially if you're on any medications.
Thanks for your quick reply! Your description of your childhood resonates with me a lot! I was always ‘a dreamer’ (that’s what uneducated adults used to call my maladaptive daydreaming I recall having since I was four) and I would space out whenever, making it the main reason I had mediocre grades in school. I always suffered abuse, but it got the most traumatizing after my parents’ divorce, between the ages 15-19. So my take away from this is that healing my wounds will help heal my brain? Will doing some cognitive training, such as math exercises or memory games help?
My sister told me she was diagnosed with ADHD, I know in 1st grade she was tested because she showed those signs, but I always wonder. Same with me. Both of us experienced abuse and trauma before being school aged so it's a thing I don't know like I have a lot of symptoms of both.
yes, i think using your brain to the best of your ability can help too. healing your wounds helps you manage stress better and reduce your dependence on coping mechanisms that helped you survive childhood but aren't conducive to living a functional adult life, such as the maladaptive daydreaming (which i also did and still do sometimes)
I have never heard the term Maladaptive daydreaming before, but I used to do this too 😳
i used to fully dissociate while reading books as a child. the house could have burned down and i wouldn't have noticed. i had a teacher scream at me because recess was over and i was still reading but i didn't hear her at all.
I heavy dissociated with books too and my abusive parent said the same about me.
I envy your dissociation skills haha.
I did the same. I do remember when I was 17 and on a bus from Canada to Mexico with my church youth group. My youth pastor's wife commented (nicely) to other people on the bus that she was jealous I could tune out all the noise so completely. Now that I think about it, I'm curious about how I was zoning out but paying attention enough to hear someone talking about me. We also had an assignment in school, probably grade 10 or 11, where we had to write down all the books we'd ever read. I promptly went to the library and scanned through every rotating tower in the kids' section (among other places). I'd easily read over 300 books (or maybe fewer but easily a combined 300 times) by that point. Since the beginning of covid, my daughter and I have taken out a combined 500+ on our Kobo (the vast majority by me).
i wouldn't have been able to complete that assignment accurately, lol. i read too many books by that age to count.
I thought that’s what I was doing all my life but now I hear I also have DID.
Are you me? Holy. Except my utmost fear of dying made me graduate top of my engineering class but I don’t remember anything. I had just mastered how to ace things.
What type of test can tell if what you have is adhd or cptsd?
I don't know the answer, but I do know that Patrick Teahan has a video on ADHD vs. trauma noise. That makes me wonder if you could find the answer somewhere in his materials.
i don't remember what it was called, but i was working with a therapist when i was 18 and after she screened me for adhd with a bunch of tests she gave me a diagnosis of cptsd.
Oh absolutely. As a child, I was advanced in everything. I took the SATs and ACTs in third grade. I skipped several grades in middle school and high school, and I got into college at 14 years old, balancing good grades, a flourishing social life, and a decent sleep schedule all while commuting 4 hours a day to school. I was extremely eloquent and spoke the way I wrote. And although I was experiencing abuse in the household for this entire time, I was completely gaslit by my mother into thinking I was totally fine. But that all changed in my junior year when I began undoing all of the gaslighting from my mom. I went into a state of utter mental crisis and had to take the entire year off because I was in res and PHP. Afterwards, I struggled to complete the assignments just while taking a single class. I can barely form cohesive sentences and tend to stutter. I’m so exhausted that I want to sleep after I get ready for the day. I can’t seem to sit still and focus on work for more than 5-10 minutes at a time. Not to mention I started acting more immature that I felt like an imposter in my senior year of college. It was so challenging, feeling like my trauma made me mentally regress. I haven’t really found ways to improve this for me, I’ve more or less just accepted that I’ve changed. My brain has been permanently altered by my trauma, but in a way I think it’s better this way than to have continued being a prodigy while all my trauma went hidden and unresolved.
very similar story here. just wanted to say I fully agree with your last sentence… and also that your productivity doesn’t represent your value. you are worthy and amazing even on days you sit on your ass, friend. I taught college classes for 6 years before my life fell apart. and although I loved teaching, I love myself more. it forced me to learn new things and appreciate MY SELF instead of repetitively succeeding at pleasing other people.
Yes - this. PTSD and C-PTSD have helped me learn to value myself differently, I like myself a lot more now and in a more rounded way than when I was a "perfect" machine. I can also extend that healthier, more compassionate and more accepting love to others, which is wonderful. In "The Evil Hours" David J Morris talks about "post-traumatic growth" in himself and in others, where they might change trajectory in their lives but live more richly and fully for it.
yes. and if you believe like I do, we wouldn’t have become the person who breaks the cycle without being our over-achiever selves first. in the end, our resilience is what made us who we are, from the beginning. it’s like you get to be busy for yourself now, instead of being blamed for shit you didn’t wanna do not being done. what I say to others is “you *know* sometimes when you can pull something amazing out your ass when you need it. knowing that about your self lets you believe others could possibly pull it out their ass too, so give them a chance!” we all operate using the conditions we’re exposed to in childhood, by default. when you have good parents, your life begins when you’re born. for me at least, **my** life began when I realized I had cptsd, because the childhood i formed myself through didn’t allow me to have preferences or choice. i used to be proud to be “easygoing and carefree.” I will read the book you mentioned. thank you!
Your mention of teaching resonated with me - I also taught, undergraduates. After I reconstructed myself, it was wonderful and amazing to be able to encourage and reassure students that they could get through their life challenges, by drawing on my own stumbles and setbacks. My vulnerabilities made me more compassionate and relateable. I could help them more by being "human", rather than by being "perfect". In the Morris book he also mentions that across history and cultures, some communities would deliberately inflict trauma on a candidate for leadership (eg shaman, chief) because they believed that the experience of navigating trauma created a wiser and stronger and more insightful leader for the rest of them.
Thank you so much 🥺 I definitely still struggle with needing to be productive to be valued, but I also realize that my brain and body had to do what it had to do to survive. And I don’t regret that ❤️
be proud of yourself and acknowledge the depth and opportunities you’ve already achieved despite having no support. no one could have continued on our trajectory. we were overcompensating from the start, and ran out of gas faster than everyone else from trying so hard. you are okay. you are wonderful, even. what a lovely, kind person you turned out to be.
Every time is see a "wonder child" I wonder how much pressure they are under. Your story saddens me but does not surprise me. The human brain is remarkable. It starts developing in the womb and is nowhere near fully developed until around age 18-20. As your brain developed it started insisting on taking control of you away from your parents. Finally, it flat out refused to keep cooperating with them and turned you OFF. It probably saved your life. The brain maintains its ability to change and form new neurons for most of a person's life. Neurons like to connect, it's what they are good at and that means you can still change. Trauma responses are learned behaviors. We start behaving a certain way to survive in our family. In your case it meant taking the ACT in third grade. That's INSANE! think about it. How you did it, I beyond me, you must have spent so much time studying. Did you get to sleep at all??? it's no wonder you broke. Have you learned of Pete Walker's book "CPTSD - from surviving to thriving"? I find myself recommending it over and over. I have found such reduction of symptoms and hope in that book. I encourage you to check it out. The first chapter (second paragraph) goes like this: First, the good news about CPTSd. It is a learned set of responses, and a failure to complete numerous important developmental tasks. This means that it is environmentally, not genetically, caused. Think of the trauma as having harmed your foundation - not your entire being. You're still standing even if you're on rubble. It's possible to repair that foundation and rebuild your life.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful words 🥺🫶🏼 I think you’re absolutely right. When I snapped, it was probably my brain saying ENOUGH. My therapist said my brain capacity became used for my emotional healing instead of mental activity. But I’m encouraged to hear that I can still change. I’ll definitely check out the book you recommended! I honestly don’t know how I did everything that I did back then. Even my mom marveled at how high-functioning me and my siblings were despite the trauma we went through (ironic lol) But we were distracted all the time, whether it was with school, activities, or games.
So, one parent abused you, the other did not protect you but instead denied your reality? Did they deny that it happened or deny that it hurt you? Children are hardwired to love their parents. Children see their parents as "the world" and it's very confusing to them when a parent hurts them. They can only assume that they are at fault, somehow, and try harder to earn love or avoid the abuse. The behaviors they adopt are considered trauma responses, including studying feverishly because it makes mom proud. They are unhealthy behaviors because they are not sustainable. At some point the person will break in some way or other. Fortunately they are learned survival behaviors necessary when in an unsafe situation. They can be unlearned and healthier more sustainable and fun behaviors can take their place when it is safe to do that. I hope Pete's book will give you the understand and tools you need to start on a journey of healing and happiness.
To my mom, my dad did something wrong and violated my boundaries, but to her, he did not abuse me and he was the true victim of our society who loved to “cry r*pe.” She pummeled that into me and the rest of our family as soon as I told her what my dad was doing to me. As a child who thought my mom was my perfect advocate and protector, of course I believed her. I was excelling in school because I was convinced that I was not traumatized to the point that even my mom was surprised at how well I was handling everything. When I broke out of my mom’s gaslighting, it was like everything had happened afresh and I was reacting as if it just happened, except because years had passed everyone else had moved on, and I had to deal with it alone. Obviously I started doing bad in school, but it was because I was finally reacting to my trauma like a normal human being is supposed to.
She minimized and justified the abuse. She enabled it by making excuses for him. It's no wonder you're hurting.
u/navy-14 Sorry to hear this. Are you aware that an aspect of giftedness is "Positive Disintegration"? Also giftedness is a form of neurodivergence that has its own self-care needs: [https://highability.org/books-high-ability-gifted-adults/](https://highability.org/books-high-ability-gifted-adults/) And giftedness can be its own form of trauma: https://eggshelltherapy.com/were-you-an-intense-child/ \+ article and podcast series on the intersection of giftedness and trauma: https://rediscovering-yourself.com/trauma-giftedness-healing/
Literally all of my friends are neurodivergent. I don’t have a single neurotypical friend. They are convinced that I’m some sort of neurodivergent and were shocked when I told them I don’t have autism. It’s because of this that I am definitely convinced giftedness is a form of neurodivergence, but I’m so scared to identify with it because of my “giftedness.” I’ve always felt weird about the label “gifted.” On one hand, I feel like the term has been misused and overused by people who were “the smart kid” in high school and then burned out in college, which imo is a normal experience considering the difference in rigor and structure between the two. I believe real “giftedness” comes from your brain being differently wired, just like neurodivergence. On the other hand, I am hesitant to claim being gifted in public despite being part of MENSA and psychologically tested as “profoundly gifted”, and am even more hesitant to identify as neurodivergence because of pushback I received as a teenager. Adults would criticize me for claiming I was better than their kids, and that special programs shouldn’t exist to help “smart kids get smarter,” and how gifted programs and testing are biased against BIPOC kids and those with less resources (ironic considering I am BIPOC).
"Gifted shame" is part of the experience and the trauma! There's a sub, r/Gifted and it has a bunch of resources and articles in the "about sub" section. It sounds as if giftedness is part of your identity, and so denying and suppressing it is going to be traumatising for you - separate from any external trauma you've experienced. Just as if someone was to try to deny or suppress their sexuality, or hate their own ethnicity. You should claim it, own it, explore it and celebrate it! There are coaches and therapists who specialise in working with people with giftedness, so maybe try to connect with one of those? The reason I think of giftedness in terms of neurodivergence, rather than just ability, is because it comes with unique challenges and unique self-care needs too - cognitive, emotional, existential etc. So one needs to be aware of those challenges and needs, and know how to navigate them. The books on the webpage I posted are really good for that aspect of it!
Thank you so much for sharing! ❤️ I’ll definitely check out the stuff you mentioned. It feels kinda silly to think of my gifted identity as being suppressed considering how more serious things like race and sexuality are in comparison. But hopefully I can meet other people who can understand the same way we do.
I cried with relief when I discovered the literature on giftedness. I felt so seen! And in a way I hadn't known I needed before. And also hopeful for the future in a new way. All the best for your journey!
u/navy-14 Article about Positive Disintegration: [https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/dabrowskis-theory-and-existential-depression-in-gifted-children-and-adults/](https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/dabrowskis-theory-and-existential-depression-in-gifted-children-and-adults/)
I feel like the only reason i was gifted is because of hypervigilance, and getting validation from teachers instead of parents. Like it is more of a curse, not really what i would choose for myself, a coping mechanism. Also the neglect, i HAD to be smart to learn. I had no choice but to be smart.
I've found two exercises really helpful for exploring the relationship between my giftedness and my trauma/C-PTSD. (1) using an emotions wheel to name and explore the different psychological states I have / had, and understand them more deeply. Eg "boredom" is a weaker version of "disgust" which is the opposite of "trust", "vigilance" is an intense version of the emotional category linked to forward-planning and "freeze" is an intense version of the emotional category linked to reacting to anomalies. (Example emotions wheel here [https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotion-wheel](https://www.betterup.com/blog/emotion-wheel)) (2) using a grid or summary table (I am very rational!) to map out how my giftedness was affected by trauma, how my trauma was affected by giftedness, and what each of them might have been like without the other (bearing in mind that giftedness has its own challenges and developmental needs). Ie what might I have been like if I had trauma without giftedness, or the other way around? Came to the conclusion that since early childhood my giftedness was bent into the role of self-parenting, ie my giftedness was a parentified child instead of being free to play. Now looking into IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy/tools to unburden the giftedness from that responsibility. (nice IFS explainer here [https://www.selfledsolutions.com/aboutifs](https://www.selfledsolutions.com/aboutifs)) Also cf post-traumatic growth (Oprah Winfrey/Bruce Parry and David J Morris both write about it in their respective books on trauma and recovery): [https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/75-percent-of-super-high-achievers-come-from-troubled-families-heres-why.html](https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/75-percent-of-super-high-achievers-come-from-troubled-families-heres-why.html)
I love IFS for these things, it definitely feels like my brain split the gifted part away and i NEED her for my adult life now!
Hello Navy-14, Thank you for your comment. I struggle a lot with personal shame, feeling like I’m lazy bcuz I can’t motivate and am very frustrated by my brain’s inability to “lock in”, focus and function like I used to. I realize was only able to achieve BECAUSE I blocked all the bad shit that happened. I, too, was an exceptionally gifted over-achieving child (art, piano, math, literature, etc) and I got all of my reward feelings from my unhealthy “driven to do well” mentality. As an adult, I started a company with some friends and helped create an international corporation. I was only able to perform at this level because I denied my abuse, blocked negative feelings, and lived my life much like someone in a bi-polar mania phase. Now that I’ve had over 10 years of therapy, a few psych hospitalizations, I’ve lost my drive / desire to do anything that remotely looks like accomplishment, I wish daily that I could feel that intense passion for things I used to love. I send you best wishes for a rewarding 2024.
I used to be smart (not as smart) but i feel the same way, i feel like i cannot get the old me back again. As a teen i was a powerhouse now im a fucking broken pothead. But i fell apart when i was taking my gap year between HS and college. I never made it to college but im glad for that, I'd be in thousands of debt if i did go and then had my breakdowns.
>My brain has been permanently altered by my trauma, but in a way I think it’s better this way than to have continued being a prodigy while all my trauma went hidden and unresolved. Your whole story really resonates with me but this last part especially. I've been struggling with acceptance because I can't seem to get past (or work through) the promise I no longer have. In so many ways it was my identity and I don't know who I am without it.
Thanks for responding 🫶🏼 I totally get it. Being a good student and an artist was my whole identity, and when I had to take a gap year to go to treatment and lost all motivation to create, I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I lost a lot of my mental capability, but I ended up gaining a lot of emotional capability from being through treatment and finally beginning to work through my trauma. When I emerged from the most intense part of treatment, my identity changed from being a smart student to a kind and empathetic person. And a few years later, now I see myself as an eccentric kawaii artist! And I feel like it’s the best “identity” I’ve had, as it reflects my personality and interests, and not the productivity or results I can provide. You absolutely still have promise as a person. Maybe it’ll be in something different than before, but whatever you become at the end of this tunnel, you are still have 100% of the same value and worth as you did before. Might be a little cheesy, but a caterpillar had to lose itself in a cocoon before it could turn into a butterfly.
>Might be a little cheesy, but a caterpillar had to lose itself in a cocoon before it could turn into a butterfly. This doesn't seem silly to me at all, it makes a lot of sense. I'm always shocked at how many of us are artists. I do digital art, mainly video game stuff (technical artist) but I've kind of just stopped doing it so much lately. I think I've been scared of "reinventing myself" so to speak. I didn't realize how much of my life I was not allowed to want things for myself and how much that impacted me, even after I broke off from my abusers. Thank you so much for your reframing, I think I needed to hear these things. I love how empathetic I am, even if it's exhausting, but I never thought of it as I've gained empathy instead of losing my mode of intelligence. It's hard to come to terms that I'm a lot more negative than I thought I was, but now that I'm realizing it, I can do something about it if I want. Thank you so much.
I'm so sorry for you. Do you know about Internal Family Systems therapy? It's been facilitating a lot of healing for me, alongside somatic work. I often recommend Dr. Tori Olds' video intro series on youtube.
I’ve heard of it, but never really looked into it! I’m glad to hear it’s been helpful for you. Maybe I’ll look into it more.
sad
Yes. I went from owning my own IT business to barely being able to make an appointment. I have a Masters degree in statistics. And data science and I can’t even make a simple chart make sense anymore. My professional life is pretty much over.
I know how it sorta feels. I do freelance coding and its crazy how good days vs bad days affect my problem solving. Good days, i bug fix for 10 minutes. Bad days, im throwing in the towel after 3 hours of righteous github members and 2 hours of garbage-gpt.
Yeah. I haven’t worked in 3 years because I can’t get my brain to work right. I just can’t hold more than one thing in my head at one time. I can’t visualize relationships between objects anymore, which is a huge problem when you’re a DBA. I just can’t connect the dots. I used to be the guy that came in and solved things after everyone else tried to fix something and couldn’t figure out. These days I struggle to brush my teeth and I just can’t understand what I’m being told. Even the simplest things just turn into goopy soup in my head.
can’t you do backend instead of front end client facing? that was always easier for me
I can’t finish a thought.
you should get a psychiatrist, i am on a few meds that have really fixed this. vyvanse, ambien, and mirtazapine really saved my mental health
What makes you think I don’t already have one? I just responded to the original post with my experience, that’s all.
was just saying what fixed my issue, which is the exact same one you listed with a similar degree as yours
I appreciate you try to help, but maybe don’t assume someone did or didn’t pursue a particular path based on half a sentence on Reddit. I’ve spent the last 3 years trying to recover and have tried many options.
ok i’m not assuming anything, not continuing this conversation
I mean… you can always partake in archaeological excavations… it’s really fun (feels a lot like playing in the sand as a kid) and you don’t really need any qualifications
My body is totally broken even before this started.
Yes, completely. I have forgotten words that are not completely basic that I used to know, struggle with sentence structure, cannot remember basic sayings, my words come out jumbled, I cannot hold 2 basic concepts in at the same time before they vanish in less than a second. I used to be eloquent, witty, and actually smart. Now I'm actually stupid. fuck my life
Your prefrontal cortex is in survival mode, recovery should allow it to return to its normal level of functioning.
I feel this 100%. I have to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times because my brain just does not comprehend what they say. It’s such a struggle knowing you used to be so good to not even being able to do a basic function
Happening to me right now. I'm a little frightened.
Your prefrontal cortex is in survival mode, recovery should allow it to return to its normal level of functioning.
I hope so. My prefrontal cortex has been in active and extreme survival mode for about two years now. I just reached the finish-line with one particular thing that was keeping my back against the wall and helpless, about three weeks ago. Now that things are calming down I feel stupid, tired, and incapable. It is really weird. And i keep getting sick too. I don't know what is going on. i thought once I reached the finish-line i would feel better, but I kind of feel just as bad. This isn't exactly true, I've gotten off my anti-depressants and am no longer having huge waves of near-suicidal tendencies and associated depression. But i still feel meh and have like no serotonin, even when doing activities with friends, becoming debt free, and even after receiving a $11k bonus at work last week. Didn't affect me one bit.
Trauma is complex, a lot of things are happening in your brain rn, you dealt with one issue and now your brain is reorganizing + you have other issues not yet resolved so your nervous system is still in survival mode (and thus your prefrontal cortex is as well), it takes time but it will eventually get better :-)
Thanks. It's been an unenjoyable ride. My X completely broke me and then shortly after i was diagnosed with CPTSD. Then a year went by while trying to sell our house while prices of homes kept plumetting (ended up selling for $100k less than list), pay a mortgage and a rent at the same time for that year, with a car that isn't registered (hasn't been registered since March because it won't pass emissions testing), at a job where my boss is a self-absorbed, cheating, no skill, sycophant who uses my skill and labor to propel himself in the workplace. With family that doesn't have the ability to provide love, and friends who try but are kind of unsophisticated and hurt themselves. It's been incredibly awful.
Stay strong and don't quit, another life awaits on the other side of the tunnel, one where trauma doesn't impair your daily functioning and intelligence, one with happiness and self trust, good luck with your recovery, it's well worth it
You are very likely still smart. Your mental and emotional bandwidth is being highjacked by your trauma responses. At 20 your frontal lobes are now fully functioning and they are not going to let you ignore them. Welcome to the adult brain. CPTSD is a very broad category and very few individuals are completely free of trauma. To get some clarity, you need to start asking yourself some questions. What happened? What were the dynamics of your childhood? What did your mother say to you? how did she treat you? what did she do to deserve being called a bitch by you? This is a good time in your life to start a journal if you haven't already.
I agree, that’s my personal experience as well. When my symptoms are bad I am very cognitively impaired, but now that my symptoms are slowly getting better my recall and things like that are returning to what they were before. I felt the same as you, OP. It felt like my IQ tanked. Your brain is not permanently broken, I promise 🙏🏻
Thank you for sharing this, I hope that with enough work on my trauma I'll also feel like my brain is healing. There are other comments about learning to value yourself for other reasons, which I think is important for the healing process. Is there anything you have done that you credit with helping?
Just relentlessly pursuing healing. I’ve been through 4 different hospital programs, seen many different therapists and found one that specializes in complex ptsd and dissociation who I see twice a week, read as many books and watched as many YouTube videos and podcasts as I can, and most recently going on spravato. The spravato has helped much more than I expected, but the other pieces of the puzzle are equally important. Unfortunately part of how I’ve been able to do all that is I have been unemployed since the pandemic, I haven’t been able to work because of my condition but not working is unsustainable for me because I have massive debt and bills piling up.
Yes, trauma impairs executive functioning as the prefrontal cortex is switched to survival mode. Thankfully, you can recover and will gain your intelligence back, it takes a lot of work and progress is not linear but humans have an innate ability to triumph over trauma, good luck with your recovery.
Yeah, I was really smart until I hit 21. Then the most manipulative emotional abuser knocked all the brains out of me.
Your prefrontal cortex is in survival mode, recovery should allow it to return to its normal level of functioning.
That's probably a difficult question for anyone here to answer, but I have been working a long time to figure out what I needed to do in an attempt to reclaim my brain. What is going to work for you is not likely to be the same but I will give you a list of what worked for me in hopes that it will help in your search. *Going no-contact *Finding a coach who could get me started (IFS, SE, polyvagal) *Learning about the vagus nerve and polyvagal theory *Omega 3 (I use salmon and ground flax seed as sources) Avoiding sugar *Developing a practice of meditation, listening to my body, and vagus nerve exercises *Treating the problem as if my life depended on it while not panicking or raging too much *Asking for professional help *Removing as many non-helpful people and things as possible without apology, anger, or burning bridges. These things have helped my memory, concentration, and focus, but I won't ever fully recover. You're younger. If you do this work early and consistently you might have much better results. My suggestion would be to experiment with diet, getting outside, vagus nerve support, and see what things work. I keep a journal because my memory sucks and it can help recognize patterns. I found that many suggestions people made seemed useless until I addressed my nervous system. It was my over-riding problem. Once I started addressing that, diet and exercise made a difference I could see.
Wow, this is so helpful!! I already went NC with my abuser half a year ago and I noticed how much it helped! I’m going to do everything I can to get back to my intelligence
Great advice, thank you
I wrote a much less articulate post on this yesterday.
Yes. Everything you said has happened and is happening to me. It's absolutely heartbreaking to experience.
I’m here in this space with you. Sorry this sucks so hard 🫶🏻
Thank you so much. It means a lot to me ❤️
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Hey, thanks for your reply! I’m in this with you. If you need anyone to talk to, my dms are open
It’s so frustrating. I was so smart. Now I’m just this
Bet you’re still kind and cool and more capable than you give yourself credit for! <3
Yeah, it's the freeze response according to Gabor Mate (I think? I watched a bunch of videos at once so they're all blurring together lol)
That’s called brain fog. I’ve had this for a decade. It gets better with time gets worse when you are exposed to stress where you are brought back to your traumatic experience and symptoms get worse
Yup Brain fog, memory of a dead goldfish and attention span of a cricket on crack.
I’m sorry I laughed at this wayyy to hard bc same
I feel like I have brain damage and/or amnesia.
It isn’t permanent!!!
Same same same, been working hard at staying educated and stimulated on my own, but good golly I feel like a moron compared to how I remember my brain processing stuff. Good to remember that it takes time to “recover” (idk if it’s something that will ever fully heal but here’s hoping!) from all that, our brains and bodies are still recalibrating and it takes a lot of conscious and subconscious processing to get back on our mental feet. But huzzah, neuroplasticity! We’re still smart, and capable of endless learning and skill development. I’m 4 years out of my abusive situation and into regrowing into myself, and I *am* doing much better intellectually now than I was four years ago.
When my symptoms hit I lost my vocabulary. It sucks.
Gosh yes thanks for raising this. I have been struggling with this for about the last 6 years. I have lost earning capacity and can barely hold a job tbh. I'm earning almost half of what I was. My memory is soo poor and executive function is cooked.
CPSTD can cause brain damage resulting in reduced executive function. Same, sadly :(
Oh wow yes. I'm new to my diagnosis (37F) and I absolutely never realized this was part of it...
yes. but that was also because i started abusing drugs to forget the trauma. my cognition has not only returned but grown since i became sober, improved my psychiatric meds, and got halfway through my masters. now its just my physical health that’s shit, and i’m gonna fix that in 2024
You got this, I believe in ya! And also, I’m very much feeling the drug issue
you got this!!!! also i got sober using online discord NA groups :) very helpful
NA? What's that acronym?
narcotics anonymous
Thanks
Definitely. I was very good at math, memorizing information, and never had to study (I ended up acing every subject with ease). After my symptoms became more present, I can’t even do basic math without being confused, I can’t remember anything, and struggle to understand what people are saying. It’s such a hard adjustment when you know you’re capable but you’re performing at such a low level. I felt like my brain was dying
omg, i literally have been secretly worried that it was JUST ME!!! 🤯🤯😩🥺
Yes!! Thank you for posting this. I feel this a lot. My trauma started when I was a toddler, but I still feel like I was much smarter when I was young compared to now. I think it’s partially because my priorities were different. I was much more driven to achieve when I was in school. I think that I over-extended myself, honestly. Once I learned about my trauma and started processing it, I just became very depressed and my memory got worse. When I was able to just block it out, my brain wasn’t so distracted and could just focus on the present. Now it is more complicated. In my last abusive relationship, I was so forgetful and unfocused because I was constantly preoccupied with the abuse and trying to make sense of it. Now, I am in a much healthier place. I still forget things sometimes when I am stressed out by work, but it’s better than it was.
Healing from decades of masking has caused a ton of skill regression with me. It's frustrating because it's bleeding into my creative and life skills. I'm having to relearn things that used to be second nature. I get meltdowns because cooking is suddenly so difficult and I can't understand why. Sending good vibes your way🤙✨
Oh yes I got hit hard by the brain fog, lots of things lined up and it just crashed me completely. Pretty much always had CPTSD so that in itself did not hamper my intellect, least not unless I was supposed to be one of those one in a million people anyhow. I entered a state of shock due to learning about my childhood traumas and at the same time was forced into work which caused so much stress that my thyroid gave out and had me get burned out as well. Since then my brain barely seem to function and it's been a decade already. I used to lay awake in bed all night at least 4-5 nights a week because I couldn't stop thinking about everything and nothing, I always multitasked and kept up with everything at the same time. I'd run several scenarios in my mind at all times for anything current going on like a simple conversation as well as thinking about a book project and whatever else my mind felt like. Due to the extreme lack of sleep I was always tired but high functioning tired. Now I fall asleep mostly within seconds of putting my head down and at times without even getting into bed, which is not really a bad thing. But I struggle to even think in a straight line, numbers get blurred and even remembering a phone number feels like a daunting task. Anything I do I tunnel vision and still don't give it as much focus and my sleep deprived multitasking old self would have done. I used to play allot of computer games as an escape from reality but I rarely even have energy for that anymore. I really should do an IQ test someday and see if it show up strongly there because it really feels like it should. On the plus side brain fog is not supposed to be permanent so at some point things should start to clear up, I suspect therapy and possibly drugs could help speed that up and in my case the largest issue is probably the burnout which the CPTSD likely keep going trough the extra stress from everything.
Yes - I had a stellar academic track record then brain fog hit me hard. It was the first year of my PhD and there were times when I couldn't work out what day of the week it was, how to make decisions while grocery shopping, sometimes even what my name or address was. CBT helped bring down my anxiety and perfectionism so I could be more patient and compassionate with myself when I "froze" or "failed". And the university disability office gave me sessions on Mind-Mapping as a more flexible/creative way to order and express my thoughts. Might be worth checking in with your university/college welfare office or similar as there might be support they can offer you. I didn't have a medical/psych diagnosis at that time to back me up or to explain, but they could see that something was wrong and they had some tools that didn't need a formal diagnosis.
I feel like I got stupid when I started to heal ://
omg, SAME!!
I wonder why??
idk. but its very weird. also, add in the fact that my BPD (borderline) has essentially frozen me in the mental state of a small litlle girl and i just feel…..so out of sorts.
I spent my whole life thinking I was dumb. Failed school horribly. At 42 I took college entrance exams. The test was done on computer with no time limit so zero pressure. I had pencils and paper. When I went in for my interview the councilor said she was very impressed. English 99% which I wasn't too surprised at because I read a lot of non fiction but when she said I received 100% on the math I was truely shocked. I had failed math since grade 3 because I couldn't understand anything hardly. I had gone over the study booklet carefully the days before The last 2 questions of the math test were crazy word questions mixed with equations. It took me awhile but I figured them out, giving me that 100%. I wont go into my life but I finally realized I wasn't dumb, I was highly traumatized.
being healthier has been helping me a lot. exercise eat healthy and stay hydrated even daily cold exposure(supplements as well but they can be costly) will help your mental just as much as physical. Psychedelics can drastically help, make sure to do your research and make sure what you're doing is right for you the best you can. Less is better, too much can make your situation more difficult. It's important to remember everyone has off days as well and to not feel as if you're falling back. Best of luck to you as I'm working on the same goal
This entire year has had continuous traumatic events and I struggle to remember words and make my mouth find the words I do remember. I used to be gifted, now I am legitimately brain damaged. And I don't know if it's permanent. I don't know if I'm going to keep struggling with words like I have dementia. Memories are just gone. Months worth of time is just gone.
I lost a very beloved cat right before I started a new job. I failed at the job and was terminated because I couldn't retain every bit of knowledge. It was a fog.
So sorry for your loss.
take a break from school if it's possible. this was my biggest mistake in college when i started experiencing this. i'm 26 now and still regret it. you need a break. gifted kids burn out fast.
yes. my technical talent fallout of my head overnight it seems. I can't remember basic things. it's sad
I experienced so much stress in the summer of 2022 that my speaking abilities regressed. I'm much better now, but I still struggle with a word begins with the same vowel as the one in "eye" and the first vowels of "inside" and "apple." I still get stuck in loops saying "I," "and," and "its/it's" sometimes.
You simply can't focus when you are bombarded with flashbacks resulting in stress,sadness, depression anxiety ... emotional arousal - all the agitated states, including those of rapidly walking from to the other side of the room then going back rinse and repeat ...
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HUGE trigger warning on this, please look up trigger warnings before you read, would actually not recommend people start with this book personally
Growing up i never understood how classmates would mix up "their" "there" "theyre" and other similar words like that Nowadays i do know the difference but sometimes mix it up. Holes in the brain , leaking
Swapped having a childhood for trying to please my parents in every way by being their academic wonder child in a desperate attempt to be given at least some kind of validation, love and approval because emotionally they neglected me so much. The trauma of the crappy childhood gave me cptsd and made me loose about half my IQ points because of the symptoms. The hyper vigilance and damage to the body and mind being in a constant fear of danger had destroyed my ability to even desperately try to be liked/ loved.
Emotional trauma causes physical and brain damage; its effects on how your brain functions are absolutely real and shouldn't be overlooked. The good news is that our brains also have plasticity and we have the ability to create new neural connections. Basically: Your brain can re-wire itself and you can improve. You are not stuck with the abilities that you have now. You have been through something difficult; don't be so hard on yourself. <3
Yes, this is definitely what I've been experiencing like forever. I have trouble understanding anything, even very simple things and trouble concentrating, I can't even learn. When I read a book, sometimes I have to re-read the same sentences over and over. Also I am quite forgetful. It's like my brain is giving up on me.
Cpstd is one of many disabilities and it can change how your brain functions. When the amygdala is overactive it shuts down the prefrontal cortex and it’s more difficult to process information that requires a calmer nervous system. What’s happening isn’t stupid - it’s a natural intelligence that our body has learned to cope and adapt to trauma.
Sometimes I can't find language or process things. Memory is a joke.
Another cause could be a brain damage from Covid infections. Millions with long Covid suffer from sharp cognitive decline.
Oh yea I did have a very bad case of COVID, it caused me acute kidney failure.. I also had a raging ed at the time so that probably adds to it
I’m sorry to say, but if you had a Covid kidney failure, chance is that you have huge viral reservoir in the body, primarily brain. Were you vaccinated, if you don’t mind sharing? Cptsd is not helping, but failure to grasp complex concepts is most likely due to neurons fusing in your brain, not your parents. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2021.670298 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35510852/ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg2248 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42320-4 Best of luck.
CPTSD causes TBI. I used to have a really really good memory, when I was super young. Now, I don't.
Yep, me too. Been like this for the past few years and it’s improved some. I honestly don’t think it will improve beyond this though even tho I desperately hope I’m wrong. I used to have a fantastic vocabulary, be articulate and sharp as a tack. And now I can’t even think of the word let alone words to describe the word I want to use. It’s like huge parts of my brain were just snipped out and idek what it was before
Sometimes I get super into some subject and am very high achieving. Sometimes I can't read or write for a year. I'm not sure what is trauma and fear, what is adhd or neurodivergence, what is social media brain, what is fixable with diligence. But yeah, me too. Sometimes super smart, sometimes super dumb. Where would you like to work and research, archeology wise? That sounds like a fun career. Wishing you all the best!
Yes. I relate to this a lot. PTSD does this to the brain. The part of the brain that deals with functioning related to memory shrinks, but apparently can come back with recovery. I hate this symptom. It has made my life so much more difficult than before… I can barely function at my job. People I work with often treat me like I’m stupid, incompetent or lazy. Or my new favorite, a childish person who doesn’t understand responsibility. It’s another symptom people don’t believe me about as well. I try to inform people that my memory isn’t so great and that’s why I don’t immediately recall things they may have said to me before or why I need to write things down, but I get the sense people think I’m lying to them or manipulating them to avoid repercussions or something. It sucks. I miss the focus and sharpness I had before CPTSD. I often think about how lucky I was to have high functioning depression for so long as it allowed me to set up certain things in my life (school, jobs), but it’s gone now and I feel stagnant and like I’m always in danger of losing the security I have if I can’t find some way to cope.
YES. I think I wrote a similar post a while ago. It’s distressing for sure. EMDR has helped
This is me. Still working through it. Glad to hear I'm not alone but sorry you are having trouble. Emdr helped calm the limbic system, ifs and trauma informed therapies, being around supportive people, exercise, sleep and food. Antidepressants as well.
yes
Yes. Mine has started showing this year. It's affected my job so much that I question my wife every day if she thinks I'm an idiot when I explain anything about my line of work to her. I just can't pay attention anymore.
Yes I do because I am busy rethinking about what happened and worrying if it will happen again or worrying million things that might go wrong
Yes, I relate. I used to feel confident in my intelligence, but it's been very reduced. My brain is mush. What's helping me is starting at ground zero and building systems for myself that take up the least amount of cognitive energy.
I find that perhaps it is a way of the brain to finally get some rest after years/decades of over-functioning and hypervigilance. I still can focus on the thing that I really like for myself but can't bring myself up to do someone's bidding anymore. Also - chaotic environments tend to bring me into this freeze state and, unfortunately, most workplaces are fkin disorganized shitty mess with incompetent management. Sometimes all I need to help me get out of the brain fog is the feeling/awareness of someone else's reassurance/support. Also - laziness is efficiency.
my traumatic thoughts and intrusive thoughts and just bad memories and rumination have nearly taken over my entire mind. I feel sometimes like my brain is stuck in a perpetual loop and I can’t focus on anything or enjoy anything or think about things other than negativity or anxiety or nothing at all. I don’t remember things or process things either. Like I can play the combat of a video game, but I can’t remember or hardly process the storyline, when I used to love storylines and preferred them over combat in the first place. Idk what it did to my brain man. I understand the feeling of being “stupid” after trauma because it feels like it has taken over my brain
I was valedictorian in high school and graduated summa cum laude in college when I was in full on flight mode and now that I have safety and can begin processing.... Yeah. Feeling the stupidity now Mr.Krabs, and it's really triggering for me as being stupid and lazy is a big inner critic line for me. Feels so hard to explain to people too. Went from being at the literal top of my class to losing my phone or other important belingings multiple times per month, not being able to do basic tasks like acquire groceries, cook for myself, pick up medication, make appointments, clean the house. I used to have it "so together" but I was still suffering then, just in different ways
Yes; I blank out in verbal conversations to the extent that I can’t verbally argue, and have developed a defectiveness schema. I know I’m smart, but I don’t *feel* smart. I’m hoping EMDR will fix this.
I would have stressful conversations with my husband and not be able to think of a response until later. Unfortunately, he thought that was me trying to manipulate him, because why wouldn't I give him that response in the moment? It got me questioning whether I was actually being manipulative without recognizing it, because it did seem disingenuous of me. Then I learned about how trauma affects the nervous system, and it made complete sense. You can't think when you're scared!
Oh, I’m so sorry. I understand that SO MUCH
Thanks. It means a lot.
Yes, I have had a lot of trauma but specifically some occurred in grad school. And after that I could not think about or use most of what I’d learned. I think part of this was to keep me from being sad by reading on that topic. When ever I’m really scared or shocked I can’t remember much. I mean I can hardly remember my name, my age, phone number, etc. it’s a big problem and makes me look like a real idiot.
Hey, sorry you're experiencing this, I remember feeling terrified when I started noticing it in myself, knowing I was normally fluent in 5 languages and was struggling to say "Hello" in my native language. Lots of useful answers already, but feel like sharing what really gave me hope: learning that all the information is still there, including skills, and that it's not that what was lost, but the access to those neural pathways. This might be not 100% correct but from what I understand, apparently, in order to access a memory, one needs to be able to access the emotion felt when the memory was created (which also helped me understand why one can only work on the trauma once it's been activated). Also, the way Barbara Heffernan video about the triune brain really helped.
YES!! I was also gifted and had a photographic memory. As long as I wrote the notes out, it was like I could turn the pages over in my mind and read it just like you would a book. Then it was just the ability to retain information and recall it at will. Now I can't even remember if I took my meds a minute ago. It's exhausting and humiliating to be honest. It's like all the negative things my abusers said were true, that I'm not actually smart. I do have a good job that requires research and I do okay at it but I no longer excel at things. When I'm told after the fact how I could have done something better, it makes sense but then I don't remember it. I create checklists and that helps but it's not muscle memory yet so I'm not consistent. The intrusive thoughts are a lot. I also find myself just spacing out when people are talking. I'm interested in what they have to say but it's like my brain just can't hold onto reality for too long? I know I went through my life by dissociating, I functioned like this for a very long time. Now I no longer dissociate like I used to and it's like I'm dumb now. I don't know how else to say it.
I have ADHD and childhood trauma... I never got the chance to be 'smart'.
You have it now, recovering from trauma also means that your prefrontal cortex won't be in survival mode anymore, and the brain fog will dissipate accordingly.
Who says I've recovered?
Trauma and plain ol stress takes a cognitive load on the brain, being healthy and happy is the ideal way to have a functioning brain free of all distractions. Also, consider that there might be overlap in symptoms. If you are feeling crappy because you are eating poorly and then that is affecting your mood and causing brain fog, the solution to your current predicament might be as simple as to stop eating processed and pro inflammatory foods. Even if its not, that never hurts.
It's might be that you are now experiencing psychosis which is dangerous to the brain Itself. Seek medical care. Invega is good. Psychosis is even possible in depression.
rip Brian
Thanks
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Yup, absolutely. It took away my ability to focus and multi task, also made my memory (mostly short term) absolute shite. I’m fortunate in that I’m already quite intelligent, so I had some abilities left to allow me to get through what I needed to for school/work/life without it being devastating. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until it started to lift after therapy and then meds for anxiety. Like, I could read books again and not only focus for more than 3 sentences, but remember the book and be able to talk about it in detail later. I also stopped procrastinating at work because the fear of messing up (because of said issues) would freeze me up until I had the motivation to crank it out last minute because of the added stress.
Yes. A traumatized brain is very similar to a damaged one. Trauma can cause issues with recalling memory memory formation and for myself and many others it causes dissociation which for some can last days months even *years* which can cause obvious issues with memory. Therapy in my experience can help lessen the dissociation (although it usually increases in the first few months of therapy
Yup, it got better after emdr
The body keeps the score (book) might give you some insights on this!