7d ago
53 and honestly not sure if I'm burning out or going mad or both. I've been a senior project manager for eleven years. I run meetings. I write reports. I am the person who keeps track of things. And lately I am sitting in my own team stand-ups and losing the thread of what I was saying mid-sentence. Last week I said "the thing, the document, you know the one" to my line manager. I am a grown adult professional woman. I wanted to disappear through the floor. The thing is I genuinely cannot work out if this is perimenopause brain fog or just... burnout from three years of relentless pressure. Maybe both? Do they even feel different? Because right now it just feels like someone has replaced my brain with warm porridge. I've started doing something a bit weird which is eating an actual proper lunch with protein in it, eggs or chicken or whatever, instead of grabbing a sad desk biscuit at 3pm and wondering why I can't form a sentence by four o'clock. Too early to say if it's doing anything but I feel slightly less desperate by the afternoon, maybe. I want to go to my GP but I don't know how to explain it without sounding vague. Like, "I used to be sharp and now I'm not" doesn't feel like enough. Has anyone actually had a useful conversation with their GP about the cognitive stuff specifically? What did you say? What questions worked? x