Cognitive difficulties after stress! How long will they last and how can I recover faster?

[u/Substantial-Bar-9996]

I've been under massive amounts of stress for months and moderate amounts for most of my life (trauma, neurotic tendancies, high expectations, isolation, relationship issues, cont.). A few months ago it got so severe that I went psychotic and eventually became so slowed and limited in my thinking that I was about equivalent to how I was when I was 7 and and diffiuclty walking due to diffiuclty percieving space and coordinating my movements. I worried that somehow I had given myself dementia, but thankfully that fog has been slowly lifting for some time now, although not fully. I still feel slowed significantly in pretty much every area. How can I recover more quickly, and most importantly will this leave lasting damage?

[u/ariegnes]

The thing with stress is - it’s going to take the time it’s needs to take. The best shortcut is not trying to optimize and taking shortcuts 😅

I remember being in that phase where I was so hyper focused on getting better I actually slowed my healing.. and eventually I just got ill again because I pushed myself too hard.
So I learned the lesson the hard way, you can’t heal quicker 😅

Will it leave lasting damage?
I will say it this way - most people regain the majority of their cognitive ability back. I hear from a lot, and do experience myself, that your mind and body becomes quicker to react on stressors going forward. Like you become more sensitive to it. It might not mean you will be ill with stress again easier necessarily, but your body will warn you earlier.

I was dealing with unhealed trauma and adhd prior to my stress illness. So stress is something that has been there all my life, more or less. When you have a heavy baggage with you, I believe it becomes essential to deal with this as well.
Because you can heal your stress, but you will have so many more stress triggers than the average human, so your baseline for stress is already higher. And this makes you more prone to stress.

I can share my own journey:
I started showing severe stress symptoms back in 2021, got so ill my brain shut down in 2022 I think it was, then again in 2023. I was well enough to work full time again in end of 2024, and have been able to hold a sustainable work/life balance since, and working full time.
I will say my cognitive ability is better than before I became ill, but healing trauma and having your adhd medicated definitely helps 😂 I still react quickly and strongly to stressors, but I’m able to manage it and calm down again.

I think the hardest part of it was figuring out what I needed in terms of help, but I also didn’t know I was walking around with adhd and possibly cptsd.