I lost my name recall during the COVID years. I can hardly remember anybody's name anymore. Both people in real life and celebrities and such. I used to be able to name any face I've seen. Now it's just, "that guy".
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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I slightly wonder how hard it is to find individuals who have not contracted COVID even once. I think all the people I know got it at one point or another.
Considering it can be asymptomatic and all the vaccines, even I won't say I didn't get it at some point and I've had no confirmed COVID,
As far as I know, my young kid and I have never caught it. My husband caught it at a birthday party the three of us all attended. We were in close proximity with my husband the three day before he finally tested positive andy kiddo and I tested multiple times and never tested positive.
Part of me wants to believe my kiddo and I are just incredibly lucky and never caught it, but more likely we are just asymptomatic carriers.
I haven't ever got it. The one time I thought I did, because I had cold like symptoms and lost my sense of smell and taste, it wasn't even an illness; it was just my seasonal allergies acting hella weird.
I guess I won the brain damage lottery because cilantro no longer tastes soapy to me
Ah damnit, I got the version that makes my soap taste all cilantro'y.
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I'm pretty sure I've never regained my sense of smell. My 2 year old will poop and I typically can't tell unless I visually confirm because he's walking weird... I also can't tell if something in our fridge has spoiled.
My wife uses my dulled sense of smell as a litmus test. If I can actually smell something it must mean it's horrifically rancid...
Same here, although it was so gradual it took me years to notice. Also I can smell some things even if they're relatively subtle, but only for a second or two. Then nothing at all.
I know that human sense of smell gets used to constant sensation and ignores it. Apparently, mine just does it super quickly. I learned to trust my instincts, because usually the ability to smell something goes away before I notice it consciously and I can't just smell it again.
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I have a running theory that symptoms like this have a lot to account for the complete decline of critical thinking and common sense. Like everything seems to have gone way downhill ever since COVID.
My running theory is that during covid they imposed restrictions, and no body respected them.
People who didn't care about restrictions figured out that they could do whatever they want without consequences.
People who respected restrictions witness first hand who a big chunk of the population was completely selfish, irresponsible, and faced no consequences for it.
That broke the social contract. Society is broken since, we just don't trust each other or the system anymore.
That's an interesting theory. I am still curious to see if any long term effects are encountered from very young kids not seeing people's faces, by and large, for about two years or so. There was a lot of talk about that, just not sure if it will amount to anything noteworthy
That broke the social contract. Society is broken since, we just don't trust each other or the system anymore.
I also think that this is due (at least in the US) to who we reelected and how it feels like you’re getting screwed everywhere you turn.
If only grifters are winning? Why the hell should I be decent anymore? Nobody cares!
I don’t personally abide by this nor do I agree that it’s the right attitude but it does seem to be the way a lot of folks are acting.
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The thing is I think social media and the rise of "AI" has also had a major impact. Quarantine led people to being online waaay more.
We had a lot of weird all at once.
Lots of death and isolation. Economy all screwed up with a flood of cash to try to keep things level. Trump's sore loser behavior validated just the worst behavior (it is always there, but usually leaders moderates it when it rears its ugly head, Trump fanned the flames instead). Putin continued his aggression against Ukraine, except this time Ukraine held its ground.
Every big event didn't require COVID, just a bunch of long burning issues bubbling up at once.
no no it all started with this damn gorilla
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I feel like my brain never fully recovered after COVID, and now im just slightly dumber.
I tell my wife that COVID rewired my brain. My memory is shot, I don't enjoy things the way I used to and while I have eventually gotten my anxiety to a manageable level, it's still way higher than precovid. I unfortunately suffered 4 COVID infections over a 2.5yr span, and yes, I was vaxxed. I think I got a little more scrambled than most.
Yo, same. Like, down to the number of infections, timespan, and being vaxxed. Anxiety spiked hard, memory is much worse, and my energy levels are just shot.
Thankfully Spravato treatments have me pretty much anxiety free again, but its been six years of hell with panic attacks and being unwilling to do normal things due to the anxiety.
Being able to recognize my anxiety triggers, and realizing that if I don't address it immediately, I'll just go into panic mode has helped me a lot. I am off daily anxiety meds now, but I still need the occasional Xanax when it breaks through.
I know long COVID has been described as typically a 1.5-2 year length, but I have permanently been affected. I've mentioned it in other posts before, but I have considered going to Portland to try a session of therapy through psychedelics since some testing shows that it tears down and renews neural pathways, almost like a reset switch.
I have deadass considered just taking like 10g of shrooms to see if it would rewire my brain and potentially fix some of the BS that COVID caused. I used to do heroic doses (+15 hits) of LSD in my youth, so it’s not like the trip would be unfamiliar.
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Covid set off my menopause. So I have Covid brain and menopause brain. I've had to quit my job.
Same.
Feels like I can't afford to get that much dumber again, next time I'm infected.
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It’s wild how different the symptoms and effects of covid can be. I know people who have been asymptomatic, a few died, or have had major long-term health issues. Even the regular cases of it vary from a light cold to a bad flu.
A virus that really highlights how different genetics and overall heath affect each person who gets infected.
No matter how many times you’ve had COVID, it’s not too late to start wearing a mask indoors in public. N95s work really well, I’ve been attending college while masking and haven’t got sick with a single thing.
Yeah, but have you considered that I won't look cool in a mask? And that I want people to think I'm cool? That's really important to me.
(/s)
I think the most disturbing thing are the small details that only you really notice, and makes you wonder what else has changed that you don't notice because your brain adjusted to it? It's like the brain fog or memory, or even the classic loss of smell. You know something's off, but it's a vague feeling and the more time passes the more your current condition seems normal, even though you know you were different once.
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I wish there was an active community for nootropics or something similar there's a lot of neuropharmacology papers I want to share
just post them in some science or health community, depending on how close it gets to people's everyday-lifes
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As the article says, they lack pre covid data. I'd then question how they determine "abnormal behaviour"?
I guess losing ability to smell is a sign of brain damage. And eventually things get rewired with redundant, less important or new connections if possible, resulting in different scan results.
Because they compared them to the brains of healthy people, which while they have variation, have enough similarity to establish a baseline and recognize abnormality.
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Makes you wonder about other viruses, no?
Can’t wonder. Had COVID.
This guy long covids!
There are plenty of “harmless” viruses that we figured out later had horrible long term effects. Epstein-Barr/mono is probably one of them. Evidence is leaning towards it being the cause of Multiple Sclerosis.
It will be interesting to see what the results of future vaccinations for a lot of these turn out to solve.
This is seen with Lyme disease as well. Currently our doctors best medical advice is "don't overexert" and "deal with brain fog by exercise, and eating healthy"
Thank you modern medicine.
Lost my sense of smell for a while. It gradually returned and some things tasted funny for some time.
Bigger problem was that I started dozing off if anything got boring. Half an hour drive to work became risky and on some days i needed ways to cause myself paint to stay focused. It lasted for 1,5 years.
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I got COVID pretty badly and for a month or two after I just felt like I had no gas in my tank - I'd try to vacuum the house, for example, and I couldn't get through it in one go. I thought "Oh, this is that fatigue they've been talking about." But then that sort of wore off and I no longer lacked the energy to do stuff like that, except I just couldn't bring myself to do those things. I'd be sitting there thinking "I really need to vacuum," but it was like an insurmountable hurdle to go to the closet and get the vacuum out. Once I did, I could do the house without issue.
One of my employees had COVID about the same time as me, and we were talking about it when we were both back. Damned if she didn't start describing the same sort of psychological fatigue-like thing. I was dumbfounded.
It lasted like another couple months and slowly went away, but man it was a bitch.
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This tissue loss could result from reduced oxygen supply or severe immune system inflammation during the infection. Conversely, a few studies reported localized increases in gray matter volume.
Cystic fibrosis also shows an increase in gray matter in several areas of the brain, by a pretty considerable amount too. The hypothesis with CF is that it’s due to hypoxia, I wonder if this the same or similar phenomena.
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