Being back in Fight or Flight (FOF) is so frustrating I cannot explain enough how much I hate it. Not only is it physically exhausting, the cognitive toll it takes cannot be ignored. Here is what your brain struggles with when stuck in FOF:
- Logical reasoning
- Planning and organization
- Decision making
- Impulse control
- Memory formation
- Emotional regulation
My brain, which has been in FOF for over 20 years, officially hit its limit this year. I was struggling to remember words, facts I needed to plan for (like making a lactose-intolerant friend mac and cheese for dinner), I couldn’t follow complex processes (or sometimes simple ones), something that was natural to me before became the most difficult mindfuck of a task, I was again crying and panicking and slightly paranoid. I could go on. I really could.
Now that I’m back on the Risperidone, I am hoping the FOF will eventually fade away and my brain can begin to heal. Maybe I can do a slower taper in the future and finally leave this medication behind. At this point, I really have no idea what is going on in my brain, though, so it’s anyone’s guess if and how much I can recover from spending more than half of my life in a state of utter panic.
But then my husband wanted to play Magic: The Gathering, and then I realized: this was the way I was going to exercise my lagging brain.
If you are unfamiliar with Magic; it’s a complex game. To put it nicely. We started playing Commander Decks, which means there are about 100 cards in each one. Each card has particular qualities and abilities that you have to balance and combine to attack your opponents. You have to be cognizant of what is on the board, what’s in your hand, what is on your opponent’s board and in your opponent’s hand (you can also play with multiple opponents, meaning more creatures and cards to keep track of), you have to make vital decisions quickly, and there’s always a chaos of not knowing what card you are going to pull next.
There’s also vocabulary to learn, symbols of all kinds, and so many special abilities that the first game of Magic I observed I quickly realized I had absolutely no idea what was going on at all.
While I found the prospect of learning this game hugely daunting, especially with my brain barely managing everyday tasks, I knew it was going to be valuable to my recovery if I could at least try to learn.
Of course, the first thing you do when you pick up a new hobby is that you suck at it. I picked up cards that might as well have been written in another language for all I understood them and had to ask what they meant with a dozen follow up questions. I have asked my husband what “menace” means in this context more times than I care to admit. I’ve also forgotten I had advantages and additional strength for my creatures and attacked with diminished power.
But slowly, one card at a time, I started understanding just a little bit. My husband and I stayed up late because I was determined I was going to win my first game. At 10:30pm, I finally did. Was my husband playing at full power, no. But I also ended the game with him at -15 lifepoints after a thorough clobbering from all my pirates.
I love pirates. I was inspired in the card shop by the pirate captain, Admiral Brass. She was just like Uma from Descendants, but she also looked like she was old enough to be perimenopause and I respect a woman who can command a vessel with hot flashes.
Turns out, while playing is rather difficult, and I still have so much to learn, it’s really fun. While I’m learning, I hope my brain is healing and able to take on more and more complex tasks soon. While it would be nice to just learn how to play Magic, it would also be nice to think at full power again. Whatever that power might be now.
