Ask HN: How to restore cognition after years of trauma? I feel slow and dumb

20 years ago, had a highly profitable, sustainable business, with a sociopathic co-founder. Stole my money, my ideas, my contributions, my customers, and my reputation in the community. There were credible threats of violence. Fought and lost, over a period of years. Ostracized and shunned. A nightmare.

Started over, from scratch, in a solo venture. Optimistic. But the first random adversity just knocked me cold. My body physically refused to approach the work, answer the phone, or open email. I had just enough energy left, to hand off the existing customers to a colleague. Then I just collapsed. A violent physiological reaction to years of gutting through on willpower.

And that was that, for my high-powered career. Brain non-functioning. Give-a-d*mn, permanently busted. Felt like I lost 50 IQ points. Didn't care.

Over the next 10 years or so, I rebuilt most functions. Re-learned how to sleep, eat, exercise, self-regulate, make friends, build a community, pay bills, keep the house running.

But ... those basic life tasks took all my energy. I couldn't work. Couldn't earn money. My brain, seriously, did not function. Like Shortcake27 said, at least I wasn't letting anyone down. And I would have.

I lived frugally, slowly used up my IRA at a 10% penalty, and tried to figure out what to do. I didn't even have a name for what my problem was.

Long story short(er), 3 years ago, I began working with a Stanford-trained PhD trauma therapist. I'd been "trying to work" for years, to re-launch my business. But I kept doing the same tasks over and over, and forgetting I'd done them. That was the issue that brought me to therapy, along with going broke.

I'm now successfully re-launching the business. My cognition, memory, and work capacity have returned full throttle. It's an amazing feeling. Here's what I've learned.

(1) YES to what everyone else said, about restoring physical health. Sleep, nutrition, exercise, fresh air, regular schedule. Trauma lives in the body. Fixing it starts with caring for the physical body.

(2) No healing will begin, without ensuring PRESENT-DAY safety, emotional and physical. You can't fix past damage, if your body's still incurring present damage. Your body knows, what's safe and what isn't. If there's still some low-level abuse or disrespect kicking around in your life, progress will be hard.

This is challenging. It might mean letting go of some relationships that are comfortable but unhealthy. And then just keeping that space open for yourself, without letting other dramas rush in to fill the void. This was the hardest thing I had to do.

(3) Respect the body's instinct to self-isolate after trauma. Being alone is SAFE. Obviously it's not a long-term solution. But it can definitely be a great short-term solution. It lets the body return to homeostasis, on an animal level.

(4) Have faith that your cognition and mental function can rebuild themselves. I didn't. But my therapist did.

(5) Since trauma lives in the body, it's no different than a broken bone that wasn't set properly. The body's reactions to it are NORMAL, not shameful or weird. If your leg bone's not set right, you won't be able to walk. There's nothing wrong with that. It just IS. It needs surgical re-alignment. Same thing with your cognition. It works just fine when properly treated.

Anyway hope this helps. It would have given encouragement to my past self, to see a story like this. :)

Edited to say, I'm cheering for you, and for all on this thread in a similar situation.

https://www.stephanguyenet.com/nutrition-science-initiative-...

https://www.wired.com/story/how-a-dollar40-million-nutrition...

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/09/17/gary_taubes...