I HAVE seen many people sharing how the pandemic was a “blur” or a distant memory. It’s as if people group the Pandemic years into one collective memory. The first COVID-19 case was recorded in 2020 in Guyana, and restrictions only started to relax at the beginning of 2022. It’s been almost four years since the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic and yet, sometimes it feels as if it only lasted for four days. This is a clear sign that COVID-19 was indeed a traumatic ordeal for many, and we’re still coping with the effects.

I thought I was alone until I discussed it with some colleagues who shared the same sentiments. It seems like a distant memory and sometimes, I even forget that we had a global pandemic until I see someone wear a mask or see the word “COVID”. I wanted to highlight this issue and how your current symptoms may be linked to the pandemic. National Health Institute described “Brain Fog” as the loss of memory and lack of concentration—all a range of neurocognitive symptoms.

Brain fog can be caused psychologically through stress, a lack of sleep or experiencing trauma. It can also be caused by health issues such as hormonal imbalance or the COVID-19 virus itself.
So, not only can we be affected by the Brain Fog through the trauma associated with the pandemic, but it can also be directly linked to the virus itself. So, perhaps your memory loss or a distant memory of the pandemic and daily life may be brain fog. With my understanding of psychology, the memory of human beings is often associated with emotions or significance. So, perhaps our “blur” may result from our not having much emotional associations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The truth is, this can be a reality for many people. Our brain is usually hardwired to remember the emotional connections we had to certain situations and if we can hardly remember the pandemic, it simply means that we did not have many emotional responses to it. Some people were simply living through it. Nothing more, nothing less.
There can also be an opposite explanation where persons had very traumatic experiences during the pandemic, and they refuse to hold onto those memories.

We must admit that it was a very traumatising time for a lot of people, so perhaps their brain was sensory overloaded, or it is a trauma response to what they left during that time.
Many ongoing studies still seek to highlight this issue of having a “blur” after the pandemic. I am sure they’ll provide further insights on this matter, but I am sure that there will always be a common denominator: the pandemic’s negative effects on us. If, by chance, you have increasing symptoms of memory loss or loss of focus, I would advise you to seek professional help from a medical doctor or psychiatrist.