I would have said for a long time that I felt like a person with brain damage.
Even when most of my physical symptoms diminished to the point of not controlling my life, I still had this fractured brain.
I used to be pretty smart. I used to have a good memory. Even when I was keeping track of five kids' school and work schedules, when I was running meetings and writing newsletters for my homeschool support group, when I was scheduling departments and writing a newsletter in my church, and running my website, writing articles and shepherding 50 writers, and moderating two forums, I rarely needed to keep lists.
I had it all in my head. And I rarely got it wrong. Rarely forgot anything from the important to the really trivial.
That was all BC. Before CFS. Before the Big One that knocked me out of the running a few years back.
Brain was a bag of jello for a long time.
In the past year that has changed dramatically. Especially in the last six months.
I am elated to find that I can write, and write, and write. For hours at a time, some days.
But the ol' elevator still is missing the top floors. I can feel it.
When I try to take on too many numbers and statistics, I can feel the thing shrivel. When I try to understand too many new concepts at once I can almost hear the door to that information slam shut in my face, and hear the key turning in the lock.
My brain is still telling me at times, and for my own good I believe, that there are some rooms in my mental house that just don't have solid footing yet and if I persist after the warning, I will fall through.
So I take a deep breath, and I lay back, or if necessary, escape from the room where too much is going on, and try to rest in the hope that this too will pass. That the time will come when I have access to all the parts of my brain again.
It is simply, still under re-construction.