12 Jun
So my GP asked me last month whether I thought it was stress or hormones and honestly I just stared at her. Because how do I know? I've been managing a team for six years, I've handled restructures, I've done 7am calls with the US office. I am not someone who forgets words. And yet last Tuesday I sat in a meeting and the phrase I needed, something I use literally every week, just... wasn't there. I ended up saying "the thing where we check the numbers" like a toddler. My colleague finished the sentence for me. She was kind about it. I wanted to cry in the car park. I genuinely cannot tell if this is burnout (quite possible, it's been a brutal couple of years) or whether something hormonal is shifting. My periods have been a bit erratic since last spring but I always assumed I had ages yet. 44 feels young for peri doesn't it? Or maybe that's just what I told myself. What I've started doing, and it's not a system or anything, just survival, is writing everything down before I go into any meeting. Not just the agenda. The actual words I might need. The names of projects. Phrases I might reach for. It sounds mad but it's stopped me blanking twice this week. I'm going back to the GP next month and I want to go prepared this time. Has anyone actually listed out their cognitive slips for their doctor, like specific examples? I'm wondering whether to write it down properly, dates and what happened, so it doesn't just sound like "I'm tired and a bit vague". Because it's not vague to me. It's very specific and it's frightening.