So embarrassing! What is wrong with me!

[Freeeezing]

Oh my gosh ..

So last week I pulled up to costa drive thru, ordered my coffee, went to next window to pay, then .. drove off!! Completely forgot my coffee 🤣☕

Today, I drove up to the SAME Costa drive thru, ordered my MCDONALD'S cheeseburger and coke (🙆🤷) only to be rightly told 'sorry, this is Costa?) SHIT. Then I drove off to McDonald's so I could order in the right place!

What the hec is going on!! What is wrong with me? I THINK I have just had a lot on my mind recently, and was preoccupied in my own head!

BUT...I'm starting to worry. Please tell me I'm not the only one doing stupid things like this? Or (and while this is a slightly humourous thread I am actually a little bit genuinely worried) should I be concerned??

Ps. Also, can I ever go back to this Costa? Sooo embarrassed 😳

How old are you? Could it be menopause related brain-fog?

Peri-menopause.

Opposite to PP, but could you be pregnant? I did stupid shit like this constantly in the first trimester, my brain was mush.

Busy Woman Brain Fog.

I'm 43. So, ok, yes, maybe perimenopause! (Phew, that sounds a bit less scary than all the possibilities I've been imaging! 😟)

Definitely not pregnant! (Sadly no action with DH for, well, waaaay too long!!)

Nah you don't need to be worried. The human brain begins age-related deterioration at 27. it accelerates around the time of midlife. What you lose in smarts you gain in wisdom and perspective.

If it's proper clinical cognitive decline you're looking at or even dementia, it doesn't start like that. If you were misnaming things or fogetting the names of your colleagues or driving to Costa and forgetting why you were there, that would be different.

Memorypause.

Since hitting 44 I've done more and more of this stuff.

Yesterday I arrived for my click and collect order at 8am. It was booked for 8pm.

On Sunday I made a paprika chicken bake and a nutmeg rice pudding. They turned out to be a nutmeg chicken bake and a paprika rice pudding. I do not recommend either.

27?? 😲Now I feel old !!

I haven't been forgetting names, and I didn't forget why I was there - just seemed to drive to Costa on automatic pilot instead of McDonald's! So wierd.

🤣🤣that made me smile! Glad I'm not the only one doing bonkers things!!

This made me smile. Soooo the kind of thing I'd do.

I'd say busy syndrome and poss menopause related. I can be very distracted when thinking about challenging matters when multi tasking

I remember a lecturer telling us: Your brain finishes its development and reaches its apex of cognitive ability at age 24/25. It then begins its gradual decline at age 27 / 28. So you are currently the cleverest you have ever, or will ever be. (We were a room of masters / PhD candidates, so early to mid 20s.)

It's always stuck in my mind.

Adhd?

I do this. My mind is thinking 100 things at once and am on autopilot for stuff too.

I don't doubt you're very busy, a lot on your mind and just not giving a lot of thought to the place you're driving into; you're doing it on autopilot.

When supermarkets where still giving cash back a couple of times I asked for the money just before I was about to pay and walked off without taking it. Fortunately, each time the cashier managed to get someone to grab me and tell me as I was striding swiftly away.

I also once put petrol in my car and couldn't remember my PIN, the same PIN I've had for years and years. Very awkward as I didn't have any cash on me. Thankfully remember it after standing there panicking for a bit.

These things happen when you're very busy.

One of the very few advantages to getting older though, is that you cease to care what people think of you and if you come across as a weird old lady from time to time, as I do, you can just shrug it off.

Thank you!! Makes me feel better 🙂🙃

(I have also done that with my PIN number! I had forgotten til reading your post! It was last year so I guess the cognitive decline has started sooner than this week for me!)

Could be related to menopause. I've become very forgetful in the last few years. I'm older than you and going through it. I've been shocked at how much I've changed. I've never been one to forget, but am doing so more & more.

Thanks, yes that's partly what's bothering me. I'm normally really on the ball. I have a stressful job and feel I've been not fully on the ball there either, but maybe (hopefully) just perimenopause :)

Stress would do this

Wait till you find your keys in the fridge.

Standing at the cashiers looking for my loyalty card, I realised i didn't know if I was in Superdrug or Boots. Nice cashier saw me staring at the 2 cards in complete confusion and whispered "you're in Superdrug". Didn't start laughing until I did. Seemingly it happens quite often - although they might have said that to be nice.

Handed my shoes in to get soled at a booth and even when they laughed and asked if wanted chips too I still didn't click I was at the burger booth next to cobblers.

And numerous other embarrassing stories that confirm stress sends my ADHD off the scale.

I’m the same OP…..

I headed off to the shop this morning with two handbags. One messenger type bag and one just over my shoulder. I only realised when I got to the till to pay 🙄

Oh op, it could be so much worse. I drove to McDonald's on my new-never-driven-it-before mobility scooter. Fucking thing does 13mph and I drove into a full size glass fence panel and it fell to the floor in one piece but it had that anti shatter tape on it. I left my insurance details etc but I haven't been back since and it has been 2 years.

I started HRT at 44 when in peri as brain fog was the worst symptom at the time. My job then was very analytical I just couldn’t function. It helped for a couple more years but it’s not been great.

OP I could have written your posts, word for word. Lost that sharp feeling and great memory I always prided myself on. It's really really disconcerting.

Could be menopause. could be other (also non-scary stuff) eg vitamin B12 deficiency. Why not get a check up / bloods done?

But you are most definitely not alone.