Big hug around you, because I understand completely. I have always breezed through books, able to capture many words in just a blink. Before Covid, I could look at a room for example, draw it out completely, every detail. Not draw it fancy or anything, just could remember details. Or I could think back to something and see every detail and draw it out down to the junk on the countertop.

Then, one day, many months after one of my Covid infections, I couldn't draw a heart shape. I couldn't figure out what it would look like to draw something in my living room. Words on a page in a book word difficult for my eyes and brain to capture. Reading became slow when I had been a speed reader.

So, at that point, whether I had the energy or not, I made myself get drawing books. I picked flowers so I had a specific focus. I also pushed myself to read anything and everything. I knew any reading was going to take me forever, and I let myself be okay with that. I absolutely hated picking up a how-to drawing book, when I already was able to draw well and create.
I pushed and pushed to do just a quarter of a page or assignment in the books. Even if I wasn't comprehending what I was reading, I made myself. I don't push with any other long-Covid symptoms, because I don't want to crash. But with this, knowing that this disease makes me tired, exhausted, frustrated, sick, it wasn't going to take reading and creating from me. I am going to die trying at getting back my reading and drawing and creating, even on a small scale. Plus, I can learn to read again and art and create from bed if I need to.

I have been pushing through, doing this in the wintertime mostly while there is tons of snow and nothing else to do. It has been 3 years since starting to do that, and now I can read a book well, not as quickly and not with the photographic memory. Computer screens are still a huge challenge. My brain and eyes don't cooperate there.

The drawing and making myself read and learn specific things is turning out quite interesting. Although it is a struggle to get my brain to start at a lesson, I can draw whatever it is on the first try without erasing. It looks exactly like what I see that I am trying to learn. So, something in my brain has clicked regarding that, but the effort it takes to do it and start it creates a crash. I feel like I have lost so much of myself, but in a few very tiny, tiny ways, I am stronger than I ever was. (Anyone else feel that way too?)

It is all such an bizarre experience. Just the fact that we are needing to gather in places such as this and share these stories of what we are experiencing is so strange. Who would ever have imagined we would have a life like this? I appreciate that you all are out there to share and I am not alone. Thank you. 🙂