No dopamine changes a person. Did you know that when Robin Williams commited suicide he was suffering from Lewy body dementia? Lewy body dementia is associated with the the depletion of dopamine in the brain. Without dopamine you lose all pleasure and motivation in life. I have lived this. It is a terrible existence and so many people are living it right now.
I know people say it takes time for wellbutrin to work, but having lived in a heavy fog for almost a year and a half, I could feel a difference the morning I took the first pill. Instead of everything being foggy, empty and heavy, my head my light. And instead of fog, it was pitch black, all around. But there was a difference, a pretty immediate one. And there's no way a placebo effect could have lifted my covid brain fog. I don't quite understand the mechanics of dopamine, only that I wasn't making it, or at least not any amount that made any difference. So my body was so deficient, or whatever, that it immediately felt a chemical shift.
The further I get from the initial brain fog lift, the more I think about the past year and a half and I don't even know how to explain it. I had been out of my body for over a year. Nothing felt real. Everything felt like a dream, and consequences were never even a thought in my mind. BECAUSE NOTHING FELT REAL. I felt like a part of me had died. When I got hormonal I would grieve for that person, and on the rare occasion I felt a little crazy, that felt the closest to the old Deanna that I could find. I lost my emotions, but I kept my crazy. I always found irony in that.
Sometimes I could recognize the depersonalization for what it was and I would tell myself "ok, you may not feel like me, but logically you know that you are." One night I looked at Gage and I recognized him, but I couldn't recognize myself. I had this feeling of, "Who am I? Where did I go?" I felt like I had only existed for 14 months.
I lost all my natural empathy and common sense. I could come off cold and uncaring without meaning to. I have always taken such good care of my teeth. Well, covid brain Deanna would always remember to brush her teeth at night, but I often had a scratchy throat and sometimes couldn't stop obsessively swallowing in order to scratch it. So I would often go to sleep with a piece of peppermint in my mouth. After I brushed my teeth. Wow, thanks a lot, careless idiot Deanna. I went 36 years without a cavity and now I'm a little worried- well, actually I can't say worried because this new and improved Deanna still doesn't seem to really care about much at all. Anyway, I just hope that I haven't done too much damage to my teeth. I know it is more than one cavity. And one of those seems to be a root cavity, so I don't know what they have to do for that. I can't believe I did something like that, because it doesn't feel like me that lived the last year. I know it was me, but I want to blame it on someone else because it doesn't feel like I was piloting this body. I was in the backseat with a portion of my brain turned off.
I don't know where this part of me went. I remember when I first realized that a room in my brain had been locked. The lights had been turned off. I was ok for a few months because I thought my brain was just healing and needed time. But then after being unable to experience physical feelings or adrenaline rushes, it made me feel less and less human. I had lost the best part of myself. My brain had always been my favorite thing about my self, and suddenly the part that made me me, was gone. I could no longer do the very things I enjoyed, like daydreaming, creating, and reading. I missed me. Most of the time this sentiment was lost on covid me, but it did creep up hormonally. It wouldn't let me forget that I wasn't the same. This new me was a shadow. An imposter. And covid me agreed. She knew she wasn't the part of that was supposed to be leading this body.
Ugh......I wish I knew how to explain it.
I can see that some things aren't fixed, and studies do prove that covid causes the brain to shrink. So I may always have to deal with memory problems and mixing up my words. That is ok because we laugh about it. I have exchanged so many words, most of them not even related in the slightest. Like, the new cat in the yard, Weasel. I say Melvin instead, and I have no clue why. I just go with it. It will be Melvin to me.
I have to write everything down because I will forget, and it is hard for me to remember strings of numbers of lists of words. Fortunately throughout my brain fog I remained my ability to be amazing at word games.
Time is still a weird thing to me. I don't know how to explain that either. Every day is just every day. Time is irrelevant.
I can read, but I still can't remain interested to finish a book. But the thought that at least I can focus to read is uplifting. And I'm on my 19 day streak on Duolingo. Yo bebo una taza de cafe con leche sin azucar. Yo quiero leo un libro y escribo mucho. El bano es aqui. Adios!
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