Fiona, 43. Something happened in a meeting on Thursday that I keep turning over in my head. I was mid-sentence, talking to my manager about a project I genuinely know inside out, and the word just... wasn't there. Not a complicated word. A completely ordinary word I've used a thousand times. I stood there smiling like an idiot for what felt like about forty minutes while my brain rifled through empty drawers. Eventually I said "the thing, you know, the" and waved my hand and moved on and nobody said anything but I wanted to dissolve. I've been sharp my whole career. That's the bit that frightens me. It's not that I'm having a bad day here and there, it's that I'm starting to wonder if people are noticing a version of me that I don't recognise. Afternoons are the worst. By half two I'm basically decorative. I've started keeping a little bag of things at my desk, cashew nuts, a hard boiled egg if I've been organised, oatcakes, because I read somewhere that the blood sugar crash can make the fog worse and honestly anything is worth trying at this point. Some days it does seem to help a bit? Hard to tell. Also trying to be stricter about when I look at my phone before bed. I know that sounds basic. But I've had three or four weeks of getting to sleep before eleven and I think, maybe, the mornings are fractionally better. Not fixed. Fractionally. I've got a GP appointment coming up and I want to actually describe this properly rather than just saying "I'm tired" and walking out with nothing. Does anyone have any sense of how to explain the cognitive stuff in a way that lands? Like, what language works? Because I feel like if I say brain fog I'll get a leaflet about mindfulness and that will be the end of it. x