Does anyone feel their getting dumber the more depressed they get?

[sadanon3]

yes I can't remember anything anymore and i have zero creative drive (work in creative industry lol). when I think about it, it makes me even more depressed. Lovely.

 

[neverbeenbetter]

i went without showering for 8 months and didnt come out of my room for other people once, i think i only hade a few brief conversations with my mom. i started seeing tracers in my eyesight, im still a hikikomori but now i shower.

i wonder what kind of damage this has done to my brain.

 

[WhatPowerIs]

My mind feels foggier. There's some dark cloud surrounding it. I have trouble trying to place dates on certain events that have happened to me and so forth. I feel like I should get this checked out by a doctor.

 

[kiuya]

My mind feels foggier. There's some dark cloud surrounding it. I have trouble trying to place dates on certain events that have happened to me and so forth. I feel like I should get this checked out by a doctor.

I have the same issue. I can't really say when important life events happened, I can just say that it happened and if it was recently I can maybe recall few key details. My time perception is way off and I have trouble learning new skills.
I've also noticed that reading books has become harder for me, I forget what I read maybe 3 sentences ago.

 

[obafgkm]

i went without showering for 8 months and didnt come out of my room for other people once, i think i only hade a few brief conversations with my mom. i started seeing tracers in my eyesight, im still a hikikomori but now i shower.

i wonder what kind of damage this has done to my brain.

Brain damage sometimes leads to behavioral changes. Maybe that's why you changed from having no shower to having shower now.

 

[sadwife]

Yes, after I finished school I became really agoraphobic and didn't talk to many people. I felt like I couldn't do anything besides listen to music and stare at the wall. I was like that for years. I'm recently trying to challenge this, but I feel my brain has changed too much and I'm too far gone now.

 

[WhatPowerIs]

I have the same issue. I can't really say when important life events happened, I can just say that it happened and if it was recently I can maybe recall few key details. My time perception is way off and I have trouble learning new skills.
I've also noticed that reading books has become harder for me, I forget what I read maybe 3 sentences ago.

It's the same thing for me but with TV shows. I'll be watching one and after a few weeks it's like I never even watched it, it never lingers in the mind for too long. Key events maybe, a few scenes, but not the whole thing. I haven't read a book in a very long time.

 

[Hirokami]

As of late, I'm a lot more forgetful than I usually am, so there's that. Even simple words escape me at times. I can't even socialize or pick up on social cues as much. I'm not only dumber, but also more insufferable.

 

[kiuya]

It's the same thing for me but with TV shows. I'll be watching one and after a few weeks it's like I never even watched it, it never lingers in the mind for too long. Key events maybe, a few scenes, but not the whole thing. I haven't read a book in a very long time.

Yeah, exactly same issue with that as well . I can maybe tell the general plot or random things that got stuck on my brain, but after a month or two I basically could rewatch the show without remembering anything.

 

[outrider567]

It's the same thing for me but with TV shows. I'll be watching one and after a few weeks it's like I never even watched it, it never lingers in the mind for too long. Key events maybe, a few scenes, but not the whole thing. I haven't read a book in a very long time.

yeah same here, watch same episodes of shows constantly,or at least on in the background-----also was a music listening fanatic, but this year music doesn't exist at all

 

[Bandinho]

Same for me i'm feeling very dumb. Even when i speak i can't express my self properly.

 

[tilsleepcomes]

I deffo feel dumb and can't learn new things as my depression deepens. I have memory issues with it, too.

 

[WhatPowerIs]

yeah same here, watch same episodes of shows constantly,or at least on in the background-----also was a music listening fanatic, but this year music doesn't exist at all

I watched so many movies years ago, and in the following years I've been watching less and less. It's the same with music, I've been adding fewer and fewer tracks to my Liked Songs on Spotify.

Yeah, exactly same issue with that as well . I can maybe tell the general plot or random things that got stuck on my brain, but after a month or two I basically could rewatch the show without remembering anything.

I wish there was an easy fix for this but nothing in life comes easy, does it? I am tired...

 

[chocolatebar]

Intelligence is something so loosely defined, with conflicting views and a high degree of subjectivity, so it makes most discussions about it more difficult.

There's quite the consensus and some evidence about how the brain structure promotes the intelligence, but there are some nuances to it, because brain size doesn't exactly correlates to intelligence and the brain can, under some circumstances, recover from losses, with the remaining parts doing the work usually done by the lost ones.

Depression is observed to have an impact in the brain structure and can promote the death of some cells, as already mentioned, but what does it really mean to the person's experience? This is something we don't know yet. Perhaps, it can make the person lose some abilities, but, perhaps, it doesn't really make a difference, because some people with smaller brains than average can have abilities much higher than average. It's also worth mentioning that the brain isn't only responsible for the individual's intelligence, but much more, from motor control to making sense of sensorial input.

With that said, from my personal experience, I've been to the depths (still near the depths, unfortunately) and I don't perceive reduction in "raw processing power". On the other hand, I feel much more fragile in the sense that I find it really hard to think when under stress or anguish, to the point of failing in simple tasks.

 

[Sammie]

I definitely feel myself getting dumber or just, the more depressed, stressed & lost in life I get, the more foggy/cloudy things become. Then when my severe anxiety is added in, it becomes all hecktic/frantic/confusing & thoughts jumbled up & twisted. I Can't think straight or remember everything or much of anything. I agree that prolonged stress isn't good & is gonna cause me to wear out much sooner than I would w/out the stressors. I have been in a near constant panic attack state this entire year alone.

I know it's effecting my health negatively & seriously. Loosing a lot of weight, having more medical & health issues. I'm at the point where if things continue to get worse I won't be able to function at all (and things are getting worse each day it seems). Plus I've absolutely No support (not that I expect anyone to care), so naturally things are continuing to get worse. Hopefully I will be dead soon.

Exactly this, this is how I feel also. Such decline in health and I suffer so much depression and anxiety. Even though I do function with a job as well as taking classes, it's like I put on a "happy front" and look like I have it all together when inside and when I'm not working I am in shambles. And I'm in a constant cloud, it is getting so much more difficult to do daily tasks like budgeting/bill paying, household chores, self-care etc. I have such a hard time concentrating and managing my time and I have horrible coping skills that actually have the potential to kill me at any time...and sometimes I hope it will. But then my dog would be cooped in the house with my dead body until someone found me, possibly days later so then I fear sudden death for his sake. It's just such a dark and confusing state to be in. And I'm in therapy, we are trying to do it without meds but it is so difficult to work through things. And I almost feel myself pulling away from therapy. I'm so sorry you are in this space, I understand how it feels.

 

[StolenLife]

Yes, I remember being able to memorize and quote huge chunks of dialogue from movies and tv shows as a child before I was depressed. I also read a lot and had a wide variety of creative interests, such as drawing and learning languages. Nowdays I can barely concentrate on anything, can't draw anymore because I didn't have time to practice it in childhood, and can't even look in the general direction of a bookshelf without feeling tired. I can barely remember the plot of an episode or a movie after it ends. Perhaps the worst of all is the fact that I'm slurring words while I speak in Uni, it's like my mouth doesn't follow my brain, which makes me look like a weirdo. This started in high school when depression and suicidal thoughts first came and only increased over time, though it's probably more due to anxiety than anything else.

 

[makethepainstop]

Doing that now misplacing car keys......yep I have to agree.