Saturday 23 June 2012

Thinking about thought...

(On a day when I found a new variant on brain fog: spooning hot chocolate powder into my teapot.)

I'm told I think too much, a proposition to which I've given considerable thought.  Yes, you can overdose on thought, but I'd rather that risk than what I'm sure is the more common condition: having it as a deficiency disease.

Thinking is in part a new game now I have CFS.
We'll leave the "who is doing the watching when I'm watching myself watching myself?", I think.  "I" gets to be a very complicated term, for all its typographical simplicity.

Is my thinking and thought-processing affected?
Most decidedly, but not as a general dulling of intellect, or even with a broad level of cognitive function tracking, almost reporting, the current fatigue.

I find it's my almost reflexive activities that get hit most.  The things that would normally get done with only the lightest touch of forebrain control.  For example, aking breakfast:  coffee can end up sprinkled on the cornflakes.  Milk can be got out, and put away without being used. Toast buttered, and then buttered again on the second side.
Sequencing goes wrong, on the simplest of things.  Not constantly, but  that very unpredictability makes for a trap.
Suddenly I'm more clumsy, more stupid, more forgetful than I used to be.
Paying careful attention to the little things to cut down the risk of risk silly things happening is possible, mostly.  At decided energy cost.
And getting angry at any mistakes also drains, and needs to be avoided.

But sharp thought, sitting down and thinking thought, that's still there if there's enough energy to do it, and my body isn't screaming to go into shut-down mode.
There, in lap-top terms, the CFS hasn't damaged the hardware or the software.  The need to go into standby mode is triggered by (dire) battery levels.
Which is in one sense reassuring.
It's "only" no energy, not brain damage.
Day-to-day, without careful management it might not be so easy to spot the difference as judged by the effects.  Bad decisions get made when tired.
Not least about whether one is dangerously tired and not thinking well.

(I think this says what I want to: I'll look at it again tomorrow.)

edit: it seems to.  I'd add as brainfog examples hitting unintended keys on the computer, especially on things like drop-down menus.  Not good on cash machines (ATM's).


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