Sometimes people who have a cold or allergy symptoms say they feel like they are in a fog. But for me, it’s been more like a fuzz, and I’ve felt it even without even being sick. For many years, I teased myself that I must have peach fuzz growing on my brain! The worst thing was, I couldn’t figure out what was causing it.
Peach fuzz is the delicate nap, barely there, that covers the peach. And that’s just what I felt. It was like a barely there interference that wouldn’t let me comprehend the whole of what I was doing as clearly as I wanted.
I remember a friend years ago describing a feeling of being in a fog all the time. A doctor gave her a “little pill” (an antidepressant) that pulled her out of the fog and she talked about how wonderful it was. I was tempted to ask my doctor for a “little pill,” but I didn’t because somehow I knew that wasn’t my problem. But what was it?
I considered the possibility of something like Attention Deficit Disorder, or perhaps I was just too engrossed in my own world to be observant of things around me. But when my strabismus got so bad that I struggled to find a clear focus, it was obvious that the fuzz was really fuzz — but in my vision, not my brain!
At first, it was just a hint of double vision as my eyes couldn’t quite get the images lined up right. But as I grew older, it became increasingly harder to get a clear focus, and even harder to maintain that focus to read for very long.
Peach fuzz…. Well, at least now I know where the fuzz is coming from!
Photo Credit: J David Eisenberg
