Cognitive disfunction

I walked into a small dark office to talk with the man who specializes in QEEG readings. There were so many things he said that I couldn’t even begin to understand. He talked about the Alpha and Beta and Theta, about wavelengths, and about specific portions of the brain. There were several pages of colorful printouts for all of these things and he would point to different images of my brain to explain to me scientifically what’s happening with my brain. For the most part I was lost, just trying not to cry from being overwhelmed with information I can’t compute. I used to be intelligent. If I was interested in learning about something or needed to know anything, I simply learned it. If I wanted to do something, I simply did it. If I put my mind to anything I accomplished it with flying colors.

But not now. I can’t make sense of new information. I can’t remember things. I’m losing my mind. I’m an intellectual acutely aware of the fact that I’m losing my mind.

Eventually the man pointed to a blue image of my brain, said some more words that I didn’t understand followed by, “which tells us you’re unable to process information.” Then another image, words, “which tells us you’re unable to retain information.” Then another image, words, “which is what we typically see in people with ADD who have issues focusing.” Yet another image, more words, “this correlates with severe depression.”

I smiled, thanked him for his time, and left. When I got to my car I sat there trying to take it all in. For a long time now, and increasingly so the past five months, I’ve felt like I’m losing my mind. On one hand, here’s the scientific proof that I am and maybe doctors can use this information to fix my brain. On the other hand, here’s definitive proof that I am. What if there is no fix and I continue to decline? How dumb can I get? Tonight I took a dog bowl and dog brush out to the barn, only to get there and discover I had with me a dog bowl and the TV remote. Not an “oops, picked up the wrong item” but I legitimately couldn’t figure out what each item was for when I picked the remote up.

I am an intellectual who can’t think.