Brain Fog, Widow Brain, and Additional Info On What Trauma Does to a Brain
After the last couple weeks of blogs discussing how the brain functions and how trauma affects it neurologically, I wanted to write about something a bit more specific before moving on to another topic as it was another thing that I had to learn about: Brain Fog.
Brain Fog is not discussed very often and many people do not even know what it is, yet it can have a profound impact on someone’s ability to function in daily life. It can affect memory, communication, decision-making, and emotional regulation in ways that can be incredibly disruptive.
For many people, brain fog is temporary. But when it occurs alongside trauma, grief, or neurological stress, it can become far more serious and affect nearly every part of a person’s life. Recovery can take months or even years. At this point, although it can be difficult to separate those symptoms from my mental health diagnoses, along with the current stress in my personal life, since the symptoms can be so similar.
For me, brain fog became one of the most frustrating and difficult experience I have lived with, personally. After Dustin passed, there were six months that basically feel like a blackout. I remember certain events or pieces of it that were more important, but not much. Even after that period, there are conversations and events I have no recollection of. Four years later, it has improved tremendously, but I believe I am still recovering as I am working through EDMR in therapy. Every person recovers at their own pace and it’s based on a number of factors.
After Dustin died, my brain simply stopped functioning the way it had for decades, even though it took quite a while to realize. Conversations, decisions, and even entire stretches of time feel fragmented when I try to look back. My concept of time is so off. Months ago feel like years, and years like months. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but it is incredibly frustrating at times.
However, what I understand now is that my brain was responding to trauma. And considering the circumstances, it was pretty normal.
“During those first weeks I walked about in a fog we call widow-brain. My mind put everything in a blur perhaps to protect me from a harsh truth.”
– A Widow’s Might
Before Everything Changed
Before Dustin’s death, I had already been diagnosed with several mental health conditions, as I have been open about in past blogs — PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder, and severe anxiety.
Despite those diagnoses, I maintained a very successful career. I worked in corporate finance for years, including leadership roles that required constant decision-making, communication, and problem solving. And I was good at it! On the outside, my professional life appeared stable and productive.
Privately, however, things were more complicated. But I was miserable. For years, I was drinking alcohol every single night after work. I was also using drugs and pills. Like many people struggling with addiction, I was still functioning professionally. I never used or drank before work and showed up regularly and did a good job (even though I was usually hungover and sick, I kept it hidden well apparently). I have always been a person that has kept a job and had to work since a young age. I knew how to perform well, even under those circumstances — I had been doing it for years. Most people around me had no idea somehow — otherwise I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was. They don’t take kindly to that behavior in a corporate setting. But in a way, I was in a brain fog for years through my alcoholism.
As I discuss often, I had nine months of recovery time when Dustin left us. I had stopped drinking and using drugs. However, the brain does not immediately return to normal when someone becomes sober. Recovery from addiction involves neurological changes, and the brain can take time to stabilize while it adjusts to functioning without substances — something I will discuss more in a future blog about addiction and the brain.
For that reason, to add to it, my brain was already in the process of trying to recover when the most traumatic thing in my life happened. The complexity is difficult to explain. However, almost everything about my life and myself as a person changed. I had no control over it. It just happened.
My communication changed.
My reactions changed.
My emotional regulation changed.
My ability to process information felt drastically different.
How people reacted to me in general became more negative, which had never been an issue before. Much of that was because of these changes that I had not yet learned how to navigate.
Within four years of Dustin’s death, I lost four jobs. I had never lost a job before. I couldn’t stand to go home alone for a long time, so I stayed busy working long hours or spending time at the recovery hall. At night, after the last meeting of the day, I would go to the casino near my house, not because I liked to gamble (I would barely spend any money), but just because I didn’t want to go home, and it was close to my house.
Eventually I learned something that helped explain what I was experiencing. What I experienced has a name — a specific type of brain fog. It is often referred to as widow brain.
What Is Brain Fog?
Brain fog is a term commonly used to describe a collection of cognitive symptoms that affect how the brain processes information.
Common symptoms include:
• difficulty concentrating
• short-term memory problems
• trouble finding words during conversations
• slower processing of information
• mental fatigue
• difficulty organizing thoughts or tasks
• feeling mentally “cloudy” or overwhelmed
Sounds pretty similar to the mental health conditions I have explained so far, huh? If you have them, you probably understand to an extent.
Brain fog is often the result of neurological stress. In earlier blogs we discussed how areas of the brain such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex respond to stress and trauma. When those systems are under prolonged strain, the brain may temporarily shift its focus toward survival and emotional processing rather than complex thinking.
As a result, memory, concentration, and communication can all become more difficult. For some people, brain fog caused by short-term stress that may last only days or weeks. However, when brain fog is connected to trauma or grief, it can last months or even longer depending on the circumstances.
For people experiencing it, brain fog can feel frightening — especially when you don’t yet understand why your brain suddenly seems different. For a long time, I believed the cognitive issues I experienced were simply lingering brain fog. Now, with a later diagnosis of ADHD, I assume it is a combination of both, but still wonder how each is contributing to these symptoms.
“I cannot have a complete thought from start to finish. I forget the words as I am opening my mouth to say them and they vanish never to be remembered.”
– Michelle Quimby
What Causes Brain Fog
The following things are the most common reasons people get brain fog:
- Stress and Trauma
- One of the most common causes
- Amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus is all affected (threat detection, decision-making focus, memory issues)
- High levels of cortisol (the body’s main stress hormone)
- Sleep Deprevation
- The brain does much of its repair and memory consolidation during sleep.
- Due to this, it leads to slower processing, poor concentration, irritability, and memory problems
- Even one night can cause brain fog
- Mental Health Conditions (when not treated properly)
- Several Mental Health Conditions can cause a form of brain fog for reasons described in prior blogs
- Grief
- Substance Use & Recovery
- The brain is rebalancing neurotransmitters
- This brain fog can take months or even years to clear fully
- Physical Health Conditions
- Medical conditions can also cause brain fog: autoimmune diseases, thyroid disorders, hormonal changes, infections, long COVID, chronic inflammation (just a few examples)
- These conditions affect the brain through immune response, inflammation, or hormone imbalance.
- Cognitive Overload (Burnout)
Brain Fog vs. Widow Brain
Widow brain is a term often used to describe the cognitive and emotional fog that can occur after the loss of a spouse or partner. While it is not a formal clinical diagnosis, it is widely recognized by people who have experienced profound grief.
Widow brain can include the same symptoms as brain fog — memory problems, difficulty concentrating, confusion, and emotional instability — but it is typically triggered by the trauma of losing someone deeply connected to your life. These types of losses are normally more impactful so the recovery period can be extended, especially depending on how you had handled it since.
When someone loses a life partner, the brain can interpret that loss as a major threat to safety and stability. The shock of that loss can activate the brain’s stress response and release large amounts of cortisol (the body’s primary stress hormone released during fight-or-flight responses to help respond to danger). Elevated cortisol can interfere with memory formation and cognitive processing.
In cases where someone physically discovers their loved one after death, the shock is normally even more severe. The brain can enter a state of acute trauma, and memories from that period may become fragmented, or difficult to recall later. In many ways, widow brain can be understood as trauma-induced brain fog amplified by grief.
Challenges Widow Brain Caused
The consequences of widow brain were not just internal. They showed up in my career, my relationships, and my ability to navigate everyday life.
I had just been hired as the new Assistant Controller two weeks prior to Dustin’s death. Despite the shock and grief, I tried extremely hard to make the job work. I only took a week off after his death, believing pushing forward was the best option. In reality, my brain was struggling far more than I wanted to admit. I worked long hours and tried to keep up with responsibilities, but my ability to process information had changed, and I was no longer performing at the level myself or my employer would have expected.
During a performance review, I asked what I could be doing better because I genuinely wanted to improve. Instead of discussing my work, I was essentially told that I needed to hide my grief and not be emotional at work after a manager once saw a tear in my office one day (I tried really hard to hide it). Not long after losing someone I loved, it felt very insulting. My response was quick and emotional. I responded by saying, “How would you feel if you found your wife dead?” That was not a response they appreciated.
From that point forward, things deteriorated quickly. HR became involved, and eventually I was let go from the position. I understood why in that particular situation, and the company did provide a very generous severance package, even though I had only been there approximately six months at that point.
Over the following four years my professional life became unstable in ways I had never experienced or would have even imagined before. I lost several jobs — in all cases it was less than six months and I was let go shortly after the discovery of my mental health issues. The companies provided severance. One even gave a couple letters of recommendation. That doesn’t normally happen unless someone has been with a company for over a year and is laid off.
The explanation was either that I simply was not a good fit or that they preferred to hire someone who did not require training (which is obviously unreasonable). Thinking the corporate environment might be the problem, I attempted working in the nonprofit sector, taking an 80% pay cut hoping I would at least be happy. Unfortunately, that role also ended after about sixty days with the same explanation, and I had similar feelings about it.
The pattern became clear. I had developed a new way of processing information, communicating, and learning that I was still navigating. In my final role, I really started to understand it, and I tried hard to explain it to my manager. I just needed to be trained in a different way. I needed to communicate in a different way.
But in a corporate setting, the expectation is often that you act like a robot and have a smile on your face every day. That, however, is not reality. At least not for a lot of people; the number growing every day.
By that point I had convinced myself that I was broken. This is when Justin changed my life with his words and support. After that I quickly had an idea and a path I did not think would ever be possible — and Serene Efficiency became an LLC within the month. The progress I have made since then has proven to myself that I am more than competent.
I am simply different now.
Widow brain and trauma also strained several relationships with close friends and some family members. Looking back now, part of that strain came from misunderstanding. Many people did not understand what I was experiencing neurologically, and I did not yet have the tools to regulate my emotions or explain what was happening in my brain. Truthfully, I did not understand it either — but I knew I could not control it. And it hurt how much I was judged.
“The greater the love, the greater the grief.
– Unknown
How I Learned to Work With My Brain
Over time, learning about how trauma affects the brain has helped me begin adapting.
I started developing systems to manage memory challenges and cognitive overload — writing things down more frequently, organizing tasks differently, and adjusting how I communicate when I need time to process information.
For most of my life my brain had been one of my greatest strengths, so learning to work with it differently required humility, persistence, and patience with myself. And that still does not come easily at times. But understanding the science behind what had happened made it possible to adjust rather than feel defeated by it.
“Besides missing my husband and all the pain that comes with losing him, I also miss my brain.”
– Anonymous
Where I Am Now
Even today I still notice some of the effects fairly often, whether it be brain fog or a side effect from a mental health diagnosis. I still experience some term memory loss. However, I understand that it is not just the trauma, it is a symptom of many things. So, the difference now is understanding.
Understanding how the brain responds to trauma changes the entire conversation. What once felt like personal failure now makes sense as a neurological response to profound loss. And that understanding is one of the reasons I care so deeply about helping others understand how the brain works.
Because when we understand the brain, we become far more capable of responding to ourselves — and to others — with empathy rather than judgment. And sometimes, understanding the brain is the first step toward finding your way back to yourself.
I believe I am going to switch topics a bit for the next entry.
Thank you for reading, hope to see you next week!
Resources
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) – https://www.nimh.nih.gov
• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) – https://nida.nih.gov
• American Psychological Association – https://www.apa.org
• Cleveland Clinic – Brain Fog Overview – https://my.clevelandclinic.org
• Van der Kolk, B. – The Body Keeps the Score
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