Brain Interrupted

My brain is missing. Don't help.

Photo by Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash

Have any of you gone through a divorce? If yes, maybe you can relate.

If not, I’m going to expose one of those topics that no one talks about when you’re getting a divorce, and so you’re welcome for this insight for when you do get one. It’s called “Divorce Brain”, and it’s a doozy.

If you just read that last paragraph and were like “Should I get a divorce?”, the answer is “Probably; It’s awesome”, even though what I’m about to share is one of those weird “no one ever talks about that” things that is causing real struggle in my life.

I’m a big fan of divorce, especially for those women who are turning into Stretch Armstrong trying to hold it all together, knowing in their gut that once their arms and legs go out too far, they will eventually snap if they don’t let go. I mean this even for those women who are going to decide to get a divorce and then have a very hard year, maybe even more hard years ahead. Getting a divorce is still better than clinging on for dear life.

Here’s the problem though, when you finally get a divorce, your overworked brain will probably never ever work again.

Ever.

It might even disappear.

Even so, I am still a big huge fan of the big D. I let go of my marriage before I snapped, and all of my toy goo came oozing out of me. I might not be able to think straight because my brain is forever Gone Girl, but otherwise, I am whole.

Divorce brain. Not so dissimilar from Mommy brain or ADhD brain, divorce brain makes you forget things, lose interest in doing things that you normally do because you’re so fucking tired, and it tells you to do things like nap and watch TV instead of work. Worst thing of all, it makes you eat all the things. ALL THE THINGS.

The best part of divorce is knowing that at the end of it you are not going to be married to or live with a person who was making you unhappy / miserable / homicidal. It’s a hard road to travel, and my road was paved with rigatoni, ice cream, and for some reason scoops of peanut butter and fluff on a spoon. If you have not tried this delicacy, I insist that you do so immediately.

I went through months of stress eating, holing up in my apartment, letting my hair grow to a point where it was stupid puffy, and forgetting to do really basic things like purchase toilet paper. I couldn’t handle any serious content, and my reading was limited to the captions on Tik Tok videos.

Then, one day, I woke up from my divorce coma and I was like “What the fuck just happened?” and I got a haircut and a facial and started working again.

Even though some things have returned, my brain has not. I still cannot follow a train of thought for more than 30 seconds. Before I was divorced, I had periods of hyper focus. Periods of unrelenting myopic capacity to do just one thing. Now that I am on the other side of it my internal thought process is like:

*Kids, Lawyer, cat, dumplings, noodles, yoga, art, write, don’t write, read, eat, meatballs, doctors, am I dying?, where do I want to live, what’s your purpose?, pizza, fiber, menopause, The Last of Us, painting, laundry, Target run?, return everything to Target, shower*

It’s crazy making.

It’s still better than trying to hold it all together. It’s still better than living your life with the constant fear that your arm is going to snap and you are going to become 1980s toy goop puddle. Still better than gritting your teeth and holding it together for everyone else. Even though it’s better, you feel like something is always missing.

I miss my brain. I would like my brain to show up one day at my doorstep with a big bouquet of gorgeous handpicked wild flowers and a gluten free loaf of banana bread. I want her to look bashfully at her toes and say *Sorry about that mama. I was super burnt out. Can we start again?*. I will of course be a little pissed and hurt that she left when I needed her, but then I’ll realize, did I need her? I didn’t need her. I wanted her.

It would have been nice to have her, but I found a new way.

I found scoops of Fluffernutter between calls. I found I could borrow other people’s brains. I found rest. I found out that a lack of productivity actually is OK sometimes. I found that without a brain you stop caring about a lot of things that are a waste of time. Specifically, you stop caring about what anyone else thinks because you have no brain to process it.

That, my friends, is freedom.

When I got Divorce Brain, I also got "*I don’t give a fuck (IDGAFP)* perspective.

IDGAFP is chef’s kiss, ooh la la, magic beans and glitter unicorns levels of great. It’s waking up in the morning at 8am, not knowing what’s on your calendar and rushing to your first meeting. It’s saying *What am I going to do today?* and the answer is *Ted Lasso*. It’s saying what you think, when you think it, and not worrying if the person you say it to can handle it because you have completely lost your filter and that’s the greatest feeling in the world because you are worth being listened to and your feelings matter and your perspective is interesting and your brain is gone so you have no mechanism for processing fear or doubt. You can only process when it’s time for a Fluffernutter spoon, and that’s the only way to live my friends.

That is the only way to live.

Moral of the story, I can’t think of one.

Dumplings, tennis, kids, karaoke.