I used to think “brain fog” was just a cute phrase people tossed around when they didn’t sleep well. I had no idea it could feel like losing pieces of yourself in real time.

When my home was contaminated with mold, my body was the first thing to falter — fatigue, headaches, dizziness — but it was the changes in my brain that scared me the most. I didn’t know mold could do that. I didn’t know environmental toxins could hijack your thinking, your memory, your emotions, your sense of self.

Today I want to talk about what mold exposure does to the brain — not from a distant, clinical perspective, but from the view of a woman who lived through the confusion, the fear, and the slow, painful realization that her home was rewriting her mental health.

What It Actually Feels Like When Mold Affects Your Brain

People hear “mold exposure” and picture coughing or allergies. They don’t picture someone forgetting their own address, crying in the kitchen for no reason, or staring at a sentence five times before it makes sense.

Here’s what it felt like for me:

• Memory lapses — not just misplaced keys, but losing track of conversations mid-sentence.
• Brain fog — a thick, heavy mental haze that made everything feel ten steps harder.
• Anxiety out of nowhere — a kind of buzzing under my skin I couldn’t explain.
• Slowed thinking — as if my brain was processing life in molasses.
• Emotional volatility — crying easily, getting overwhelmed quickly.
• Difficulty making decisions — even small ones felt impossible.

Looking back, I know now that these weren’t personality changes. They were neuroinflammatory changes.

Why Mold Impacts the Brain So Strongly

Mold doesn’t just irritate your sinuses. It can release tiny particles and toxins that your immune system reacts to — and when inflammation becomes chronic, the brain gets caught in the crossfire.

Mold exposure can dysregulate:

• the limbic system (emotional responses)
• the prefrontal cortex (planning and focus)
• the autonomic nervous system (fight-or-flight vs. rest-and-digest)

No wonder so many people think they’re “losing it” before they realize their house is making them sick.

The Moment I Realized My Brain Wasn’t “Just Tired”

There was one morning that still sticks in my mind. I was pouring cereal for my daughter, and suddenly I froze because I couldn’t remember how to spell her name. A name I had said, written, sung, whispered thousands of times.

That was the moment I knew something was deeply wrong — and it wasn’t stress or burnout. It was my environment.

And when I later discovered how mold was affecting my children’s behavior and development, that’s when the grief set in. If you haven’t read that story, I share it here: What Mold Did to My Kids: Behavioral and Developmental Changes I’ll Never Ignore Again .

The Brain Symptoms People Rarely Connect to Mold

Here are the ones that surprised me the most once I started learning:

• Word-finding difficulties — knowing the word, but not being able to reach it.
• Sound and light sensitivity — everyday environments feeling overwhelming.
• Panic sensations without a trigger
• Difficulty following conversations
• Feeling detached or dissociated

I used to think I was becoming “overly emotional” or “not coping well.” Now I know my brain was inflamed — an actual physiological response, not a character flaw.

How My Brain Began Healing After Leaving the Mold

It wasn’t instant. It wasn’t pretty. And it wasn’t linear.

But within weeks of removing myself from the contaminated areas and addressing the moisture problems in our home, I began noticing small improvements:

• clearer thinking in the mornings
• less emotional reactivity
• better memory recall
• less internal “buzzing” and anxiety

Healing required both environmental changes and gentle lifestyle shifts. If you’re starting from scratch and need help cleaning mold the right way, I wrote a step-by-step guide: How to Clean Mold the Right Way (And the Wrong Ways That Made Me Sicker) .

How You Know Mold Might Be Affecting Your Brain

You don’t need every symptom on the list. You don’t need visible mold on a wall. You don’t need to be “sick enough” for a doctor to take you seriously.

What matters most is this:

Do your symptoms improve when you leave the environment?

That was the biggest clue for me — and for so many others who have walked this path.

With you in this,
Ava

If you’re new here and want to understand how my own journey through mold exposure and environmental illness began, you can read more about it on my About page here.