When you’re on a combination of psychiatric medications, and/or
on a high dose of one or more of them, you could find it hard to concentrate,
hard to function as you very well do remember you used to (in what seems like
another life). This situation is likely if you’ve recently been hospitalized in
a psychiatric unit.
Even
if it turns out that for some reason you’ll be taking powerful neuroleptics
“for the duration” (and most people can go down to maintenance dosages sooner
or later), you have the psychologic of habituation on your
side. Yes, you will gradually become accustomed to your “new brain” and
perceive your world more nearly in the way that you did before you were
medicated. It is just like getting used to a new pair of eyeglasses, only it
will take much more time, especially because it is highly likely that you and
your prescriber will be making many adjustments in what medicine (which
uses a number of military words) calls your “regimen.”
Meanwhile,
you have the problem of getting used to memory and perception problems.
Perception not just in terms of your sensory apparatus but your tendency to
misunderstand where people are coming from.
The
blog will give you such solutions as I have found. Having lived with ongoing
brain fog during the acute years of a brain injury gave me special purchase on
finding answers, even more so than through living with neuroleptics alone.
When you are newly out of the hospital, or have been going through a
rough patch, it seems that everyone expects you to pull yourself up out from it
and to “get back to being yourself” rapidly. Just say, No. What you need to do
every week is just a smidgen more than you got done the week before. “I did
what I could,” should be your motto. The way I had put it during the many years
when I was acutely ill was, “All I can do is the best I can do,” meaning that I
couldn’t push myself past trying as hard as I was able under all the
circumstances. Don’t be your own harshest critic. Instead, you need to love yourself
more than anyone else (except perhaps your mother) loves you.
Your Good Day Today
You
have had at least one accomplishment today! Praise yourself each day, when you
know that you are in a brain fog, for having done more today than you were able
to do last week. Showering, having made it to your health practitioner’s
office, or setting out your own medications and having taken them then are all
activities that you should celebrate when you know that you could not have done
them the week before.
Write
in your planner how glad you are and exactly what it was that you were able to
do today.
Organizing Your Life
Write
down on the front side of a sheet (you’ll eventually use many sheets) of paper,
that you’ve put into a dedicated binder such as your planner, each stray thought that occurs to you. This
could be something that you want to get done. It could be something that you
want to ask someone, perhaps your doctor. It could be an item for a
grocery-shopping list. It could be a couple of lines of a poem that you are
creating. Anything. The rule is that you should never write
on the back of a sheet.
(Only
appointments should you treat differently. You should put an appointment on the
calendar pages of your planner, not on the running list. Otherwise, you
wouldn’t be likely to have any reminder of an appointment. More on appointments
follows after the next two paragraphs.)
When
you are in the mood to do some divide-and-conquer work, take out a scissors, a
pen or pencil, and the transparent tape like Scotch-brand tape. Only do
one sheet on a given day. Read what you have written. Every place where the
subject changes, draw a dividing line. Cut the sheet on each dividing line.
Tape each subject-portion on a new sheet of its dedicated own. If you’re up to
it, decide what idea unites the subject-portion (grocery-shopping list, for
example) and label the sheet at the top of the page.
If
you’re up to it, when you make a new note and it relates to one of the subjects
on a dedicated sheet that you have created, you can place it right where it
“belongs.” But do not be concerned about doing this. You’ll eventually be in
the mood to do some dividing-and-conquering.
Now, as to those appointments, the best method
is to hang some sort of chalkboard or whiteboard or bulletin board, what I call
“a signal board,” on the inside of your front door. Every weekend, take the
time to look at your calendar and write the appointments that you have for the
coming week on the notice-board that you’ve hung on your door. This will give
you a thrill of taking care of yourself. You will be reminded every time you go
outside of what you have coming up.
The alternative
is to have someone else look at your calendar in your planner and take the
responsibility for reminding you. This could be a family member or other
housemate. This works, but both of you will resent it. Try to switch gradually
to the notice-board method.
Renew Your Ability to Concentrate
Here
are three ways to exercise your ability to focus.
First,
look at a photograph of your favorite family member. Really look. Notice as many
of the details as you can:
·
the colors of the hair, the clothing, the eyes if you can
discern it, maybe the nails are polished, and the skin tone
·
the facial expression. Does the expression of the eyes match the
expression of the mouth?
·
the direction of gaze. If there are a group of people, at whom
is he or she looking?
·
the colors and decoration of any frame or border.
Put the
photograph out of sight. Try to write down what you saw.
Second,
think of a poem or song that you really enjoy. Check the exact words, perhaps
online. Memorize it–the easiest way is to write it out with your non-dominant
hand. Your handwriting will be funny, but the words will be strongly impressed
in your mind.
Finally,
obtain (borrow from the public library?) a math textbook used by
eleven-to-twelve-year-old children in your country. For a period of ten days to
two weeks, work through the examples in one section–no fair using a smart phone
or calculator or other machine.
Exercise
your brain in novel thoughts, just like you move your body in so many unique
ways during the course of a day.
(C)
Copyright Deborahmichelle Sanders 2018. All rights reserved.
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