[TheNextOne]

Hi Everyone,

I came to these forums wondering how many others were familiar with the problem that I'm about to explain and what others have done to remedy the situation, if possible.

More and more it seems over the last couple of years my cognitive abilities have not been as sharp as they used to be. This isn't a substantial effect, it's rather minor yet incredibly frustrating and bothersome. Essentially, I feel like I have a sort of vague "brain fog" a lot of the time, I make stupid mistakes very easily and constantly, I miscalculate things far too often to be acceptable and my memory isn't quite as sharp as it was a couple of years back. Despite all of this I'm only 24 and, as many of you may know, adults are supposed to reach their cognitive peak at approx 25 (perhaps just after), which indicates my mind should only be getting better and better. Regardless, I feel like my brain was much more clear when I was 17 or so.

As I love to draw analogies I'll use one to clarify the situation. If my mind were a car, it's kind of like trying to speed along a highway while having your foot slightly depressing the brakes. While you probably wont stop entirely, the car's performance will become laboured and clearly not indicative of its full potential. It could also be analogised to revving a car that is stuck in 3rd gear, you're just not going to get what you want.

I sometimes wonder whether my brain has always been this way and I was merely too ignorant to notice so earlier. Nevertheless, it does seem like my mental performance has declined and it's becoming exceedingly frustrating to suffer from mental blocks and make mistakes so often, I would rather have the "full potential" of my brain (so to speak) than to only be able to utilise it to a limited extent.

Furthering this, I can often read a sentence, re-read it and read it again, but it feels like my eyes move faster than my brain i.e. I see the words, but I just can't comprehend them (not difficult material, my brain just won't start moving). I would attach this kind of behaviour to ADHD due to my poor attention span, but I am able to concentrate when I want to, yet I can't force my brain to focus directly and preclude its somewhat "erratic" and muddled behaviour.

As I am moving into a PhD in comp sci I would really prefer to have my full intellectual abilities available to me, as I can't afford to have these problems. I need my mind to be able to focus like a concentrated beam, absorb everything I view and then work. Instead I'm dealing with something tantamount to a mental child in my head, frivolous, erratic, unfocused and vague.

Sorry for the long post, not sure how familiar anyone is with this type of thing, but I'm sure it will sound familiar to some, just wondering what people think. Thanks.

[LovelaceF]

Have you asked your doctor about trying a stimulant medication? Do you drink coffee?

[TheNextOne]

Originally Posted by LovelaceF

Have you asked your doctor about trying a stimulant medication? Do you drink coffee?

I actually drink several cups of coffee a day, anywhere from 3-6 and multiple cups of tea too. But because that can theoretically overstimulate my adrenals and wear me out, I have tried drinking no coffee on some days and it doesn't get any better. I do have a general fatigue as well many days though, often leads to weird problems such as being tired in the daytime then becoming more active from 8pm onwards, leading me to start writing papers/doing work often at 11pm-6 am.
I haven't considered taking a stimulant med, I just know that red bull, V, coffee, tea, etc don't make a whole lot of difference.

[Maven]

I feel I'm very much like you described. I have thought of it, in my case, of "becoming like my mother." I don't know if she's always been this way; well, to a degree, she has, but we see our parents differently as children, and as teenagers, and as young adults, and older adults. But my mom is not that intelligent. I don't mean to sound harsh, but she doesn't get many concepts, even some simple ones. She can't pronounce words that she "should" be able to say. I mean, she calls Kmart "Kmark" and Walmart "Walmark." She calls petite "peteek." She can pronounce "eat" but always seem to put a "k" at the end of some words that end in "t".

I just turned 45 less than two weeks ago, and I just feel like I'm much less intelligent than I used to be. I can admit that most of it is probably because I haven't used what I learned, and I also get easily frustrated. My pdoc said I have ADD.

I read things without absorbing them, as you described. My eyes fly over the words, but I'll be halfway down the page before realizing I have no idea what I just read. Sometimes it's because my mind wanders, and sometimes, I might describe it as the "brain fog" you mentioned.

I long to learn things, but don't have the patience. Plus, even with the few things I taught myself (like javascript and PHP), I'm back to Square 1 because I haven't used it and don't remember the first thing. I feel like it's a waste of time to even try to learn something. I think I'm going to get back into web design and use these languages, but then I never do. I know it's good exercise for the brain for me to try to learn, anyway, but I get tired of having to relearn everything.

I feel like getting older is putting me out of the running for anything I want to do. Our society loves the young, but as you get older, opportunities are few.

[TheNextOne]

Originally Posted by Maven

I feel I'm very much like you described. I have thought of it, in my case, of "becoming like my mother." I don't know if she's always been this way; well, to a degree, she has, but we see our parents differently as children, and as teenagers, and as young adults, and older adults. But my mom is not that intelligent. I don't mean to sound harsh, but she doesn't get many concepts, even some simple ones. She can't pronounce words that she "should" be able to say. I mean, she calls Kmart "Kmark" and Walmart "Walmark." She calls petite "peteek." She can pronounce "eat" but always seem to put a "k" at the end of some words that end in "t".

I think most of us do end up becoming more intelligent than our parents and there is always that awkward point where we surpass them and notice it. Neither of my parents finished high school, whereas I have a bachelors, masters and a research qualification and am now starting a PhD, so I'm kind of stuck by myself intellectually in terms of my family as I can't be guided by either of my parents in that department.

Originally Posted by Maven

I just turned 45 less than two weeks ago, and I just feel like I'm much less intelligent than I used to be. I can admit that most of it is probably because I haven't used what I learned, and I also get easily frustrated. My pdoc said I have ADD.

I've often wondered whether my intellectual malaise could be a result of me not spending as much time learning/engaging my brain as I should be, although I have been in education every year of my life since I was about 5 years old.

Originally Posted by Maven

I read things without absorbing them, as you described. My eyes fly over the words, but I'll be halfway down the page before realizing I have no idea what I just read. Sometimes it's because my mind wanders, and sometimes, I might describe it as the "brain fog" you mentioned.

I know that all too well and it really causes problems when you're required to learn something or have time constraints. My reading WPM is probably around 100 or so because I can't stick to reading quickly and force myself to understand every word, often having to re-read sentences. I am capable of reading at 800-900 WPM, but I can't keep it up because my brain just cuts out most of the time.

Originally Posted by Maven

I long to learn things, but don't have the patience.

In other words, you want to learn, but you consider the commitment too great and weigh up whether it's worth spending that much time on one single thing. Consequently, you procrastinate and end up doing pretty much nothing instead, at least that's how it works in my case.

Originally Posted by Maven

I feel like getting older is putting me out of the running for anything I want to do. Our society loves the young, but as you get older, opportunities are few.

That depends on how much experience you have in a given field and how much you're willing to apply yourself in a given vocation. One of the things I noticed in my bachelors (where I saw a fair few people over 30) was that the young students were always reckless, frivolous and most had little dedication or drive, whereas the older individuals always had more determination coupled with an eagerness to learn.