My cognitive function is definitely affected during cycles... When I'm hypo I'm the most eloquent person who gets accused of swallowing a dictionary, manic... my racing thoughts make sentence structuring and word recall a challenge. I often lose my train of thought very easily which is obviously terrible during conversation... Also I could either find basic math a challenge or suddenly be adept at it, it's a toss of the coin.

When I'm depressed I have no such cognitive issues.

Only time outside of an episode I had cognitive issues to the point of impairment, was while on Lithium. I had memory issues, (long term, working memory and short term), dimminshed vocabulary, and just generally felt dumber than a rock. I swear their were days I could feel brain cells shrivel up and die while my IQ points steadily dropped. [emoji33]

I haven't felt that bad since quitting lithium, I can put up with a few weeks/months a year of what happens to me these days.

It's more frustrating than debilitating, so with a little change in my perception I can turn it into a DBT exercise if I try hard and prepare enough.

TLDR:

From my experience;

Bipolar + Meds = Affects Cognitive function.