The Fog

Fog. When we hear that word we understand we will have difficulty navigating through it. Things will seem unclear.

Working with people that are dealing with the pain of loss and grief I use the term foggy brain… a lot. Because that is what we are experiencing. 

We can’t seem to focus on anything for too long. We struggle with doing activities that under normal situations would be easy. We forgot…a lot.  We can’t seem to finish a conversation or task. We may injure ourselves. We may lose things. We are tired all the time because you can’t sleep.  Or maybe we just want to sleep all the time. When we experience this we tend to be hard on ourselves. We think we are losing our minds. We believe something is wrong with us.

 There is something wrong. We are grieving. But it is normal and natural.

With the death of my mom recently, I too was experiencing “The Fog”.

I was struggling to move, to see, to think.

Physically, I felt weighted down.  It felt like I was trying to push through fog so thick I could barely move. Sometimes, I felt like I was moving in slow motion.

Mentally, I could not focus for any length of time. It was as if I had no control over my thoughts.  Sometimes, I couldn’t finish a conversation or even a sentence. Other times, I couldn’t find words. There were times I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking about. My brain just seemed to go blank.

I could see a clearing in the distance and I wanted to move toward it but I just couldn’t. I wasn’t capable of navigating the journey to the clearing.

Because I know this is grief, I gave myself permission to be in this space and not fight it. You see in the past, that is exactly what I would have done. I would not allow myself to feel the pain and be uncomfortable. This would result in me not healing from the grief. I would stuff it down and move forward. Jump back into life or at least that is what I thought. Turns out I was avoiding the process of healing.

When you avoid dealing with the pain of loss it will manifest in some other way.

Grief, like other emotions comes with energy. That energy has to go somewhere.  If we don’t deal with it in a healthy way it can wind up hurting us. Oh we may think we are “fine”, but it eventually begins to interfere with our life in some way.

For example, I used to throw myself into work. Doesn’t sound too bad right?

And it wasn’t at first. I had a job where I could work 24/7 and there would still be more to do. I thought I was being productive. I was at work, but not in my personal life. My relationships were affected greatly because I wasn’t putting any time into them. 

What do you do to avoid the pain?

Are you working a lot as well? Or maybe you turn to exercising, shopping, TV binging, social media, food, sex, alcohol or drugs.  It may start off innocently enough but as it continues to numb your pain, you continue to do it until something breaks.

And it will. If it hasn’t already 

We may break physically. We become overweight, underweight, sick, exhausted, or we are constantly injuring ourselves.  

We may break emotionally. We hurt people, or ourselves. We are anxious, angry, we isolate or we continue to make bad choices. Maybe we are just going through the motions and missing out on what life can offer us.

What can we do differently?

1.    Acknowledge it.

I recognized that I was experiencing grief. I named it. I called it out. Instead of ignoring it or pretending it wasn’t happening. I laughed at myself when I would forget things.

2.    Talk about it.

I would let people know I had foggy brain.  It is not an excuse; it is reality.

3.    Don’t rush it.

Each loss and each person is different. Don’t put pressure on yourself to “perform or “fake it”.  Give yourself the time you need.

4.    Practice Self Care.

I gave myself permission to sit in the fog. If I needed to just sit with a cup of tea, read, sleep, or not work out, I allowed myself to be ok with it. I didn’t put expectations on myself or beat myself up. 

So if you are dealing with the pain of a loss and are struggling physically, mentally, or both know that you are normal. This is a part of the grieving process.  Allow yourself to work through it. The fog will lift.

Loss is part of life and so if grief. The better equipped we are to deal with it, the better we heal from it.