I echo what JustMeJen said above. I too had memory issues long before I was diagnosed bipolar, but it got worse over the years and hormones made things even worse before I went through menopause.

Now I have trouble with word finding and short term memory. Some of it's due to meds, the rest of it.....well, who knows, could be brain damage from repeated bipolar episodes, could be just the cognitive changes a lot of late-middle-aged people go through. But I've learned to just roll with it and not demand from my memory that which it cannot supply.