As part of my rehab since diagnosis 6 months ago, which included physio, occupational therapy etc I also was given a series of sessions with a psychologist, which I enjoyed as it helped me get over the initial impact of suddenly being relient on others for simple day to day functions.
Now I am about 60% physically functional, I am noticing my brain isn't as sharp as it was just 6 months ago.
Where I am noticing it is in traffic where I am not responding as quickly to normal driving situations such as braking etc, and my language skills have also suddenly taken a dive whereby I am having trouble with not only spelling, but with foreign language where I used to be fairly fluent but now have trouble holding any sort of conversations.
I am 65 and it is as if I have suddenly turned 85, with my having slowed down both physically and mentally and now I am even mumbling out loud.
Has any one else noticed a change in their mental well-being?
My Mental and cognitve ability is atrocious post GBS, and I'm only 29!
Ok, I exaggerate a bit but I have definitely noticed a decline in my mental ability. Things I commonly notice:
1) Poor memory - quite often at work someone will ask me what I got up to on the weekend, and I literally have a blank memory for a few moments where I cannot for the lift of me remember what I did only yesterday. This is often magnified when I've done something out of the ordinary. I can remember that I did something but cannot remember what. It's hard to explain but quite weird
2) Speech difficulty - this was one of my early symptoms and still trips me up now. I quite often say the wrong word, mispronounce words etc. I think this is only noticeable to me, as other people don't say anything, but I find I have to pause and think and then re-say the sentence. It happens enough that I notice it. Maybe once per week at least. Yesterday I mixed up the words about and around to say abound, and another I remember doing is pronouncing the word both as ''boff'. Same pronunciation as words like froth.
Come to think of it, usually my mistakes are themselves correct in other contexts, as for example both can be pronounced like it is in froth, and abound is a word too. Brain just struggles with getting it right now.
Plus generally I feel that my stress and anxiety is increased and my coping mechanisms decreased. Oh the joy!