Holes in memory

Does anyone else have trouble with their memory as a symptom of their BP? It's not that I can't remember where I set my keys or anything (plenty of that, though - remembering to put things on the calendar sometimes, or telling someone I'll do something and then totally forgetting to put it down somewhere that I'll see/remember it). It's more like long stretches of time that just feel like holes. I know I was there, and I know generally what happened. I can sort of recall things when I see pictures, but sometimes that even seems like I can't recall it.

Examples:
I don't recall the first year or so (actually, almost 2 years) after each of my kids were born. I have faint recollections of being miserable (PPD) and tired all the time. But I don't have many memories of doing anything. And I know we did stuff, I just can't access those memories without the aid of pictures or something. My kids are 5 and 9, so not too long ago

It took me a long time to remember how long my husband and I dated before we got married; I know now because I counted it so many times, but I only have a few specific memories of that time. This is only about 12-13 years ago.

I can remember a lot of college, but much of it seems a little hazy. I recently found a journal I wrote for awhile when I studied abroad. I remember getting the journal as a gift before I left, but as I was reading it I don't remember writing it. I remember writing in it in general, but don't remember writing what was there - I can't even recall traveling to some of the places I talked about...like I'm reading something from a random book.

I remember a lot of high school and junior high, but only bits and pieces from elementary school. I can probably count on both hands the number of specific memories I have from the 5 years in my elementary school grades 2-6. From before that (we moved between 1st & 2nd grade), I can't remember much of anything that doesn't have a picture with it or isn't a story we've told over and over in the family.

I'm in my mid-thirties, for reference. I don't feel like I'm a lifetime away from when these memories were made. I just can't figure out why so much feels like a total blank. Does anyone else feel like this, and from a young age? I remember feeling like I couldn't remember my childhood already in my early 20s. I don't know that I was really aware of the phenomenon one way or the other before that, so don't know if it was a recognizable issue earlier than that.

I have what you describe! It actually sounds like I wrote your post! I have very few memories of my life, even recently. I don't know if it's a combination of reasons (cuz I have trauma in my childhood and I'm a recovering alcoholic, plus the BP and meds). I have wondered why this has happened too. I hold my photos very dear to me, and now I know why. They can tell stories that i can't. I find it frustrating and very sad that I am like this.

Yeah, there are entire weeks missing. Mostly during depressive episodes. Parts of the first two years after my psychotic episode are gone, too.

It's so frustrating, isn't it?

I wonder if anyone out there has had this experience, but has had success with being able to access those memories at some point? I guess I'm not sure whether there's some internal block that make accessing the memories challenging, or whether I was so checked out or whatever that I never really made the memories in the first place?

I have one year missing due to childhood trauma, and more recently been suffering random holes, some tiny, some gaping, all caused by lithium.


Not even pictures help, I've had to re-watch movies because they were erased, and it was honestly just like the first time. Nothing looked, sounded or felt familiar. No memory jogging whatsoever.

A complete blank.


On a brighter note, people have not been completely erased as I had previously thought. One person, I eventually remembered his name after a month or so, the other, I remember how we met, and I eventually remembered his wife, but I still dunno wtf he is and I avoid bumping into him.


I'm not even 31 yet, so I empathize, but at least I know meds caused it, my new memories post lithium are filed and archived just fine.

YES!! I only remember like 25% of my life, maybe not even, especially about 2012 the strangest things happened, and a lot of my memory went, and I ended up a COMPLETELY different person than I used to be, although the bits and pieces of life I do remember are vivid.

I think I wrote your post! I have gaps right through my life, even to the point where I can look at photo's or be told a story about things that have happened and it is like I am being told them for the first time. There are so many things that I have learned that I have forgotten, and many things that I have previously learned, yet have forgotten and have to relearn. I am terrible at retaining information, often feeling like a complete idiot when it comes to trivia and world events, no pub quiz's for me! Honestly, its embarrassing and I will not play games that call for any sort of general knowledge.

I also forget things on a daily basis, and end up 'spinning' on the spot. I will go to get the car keys, and half way there will forget what I was going to do. When really bad as it tends to relate to anxiety levels, I can be driving and forget where I was going, or how to get somewhere that I have been a hundred times before.

Yep. I think I have just gone crazy. Wanna join me. I can't tell you the way though...

I've forgotten

I can't remember much of my life to be honest Probably due to swings in my Bipolar and/or all the past meds and trauma. Bleh!

*sigh*

Wow, I don't know what to say!! YES!! The most immediate happened during my latest hospitalization! I lost 3 days. I told everyone who would listen, asked them to explain it to me..was it medication, what happened...they said I "disassociated". I don't care what they call it, it's frightening!

I have other memory losses, large gaps of time. I associate them with trauma, or later in my life, alcohol. But the hospital one scared me the most. I have no memory of waking up after 7 days in a psych hospital, being taken to a car, driven to the airport, going through he airport/security/changing flights, sitting next to my escort and apparently talking her through some relationship issues she was having...driving to another hospital, checking in and the entire first day there. If it was medication, I could understand, but they told me I was unmedicated.

Take care.

I keep thinking it must be something more than just the BP, but maybe it's not. Maybe that's just the wiring...

I can relate. I don't know why, cause-wise, though in general I tend to go with the "no single cause" school of thought on most things. This would definitely be among them.

You wondered if they were retrievable, forever inaccessible or never really formed in the first place. I'd say yes. To all. Some may come back on their own, or with help. I think that everyone has lost memories that will never come to them. But before thinking that too tragic, realize that the alternative is remembering ever single second of one's existence. That'd be freaky. I think too, as you suggest, that sometimes one is not "present" enough to have formed memories.

It is a VERY frequent situation for me not to remember. It can be as recent as 10 seconds ago to decades ago. Major things, minor things, doesn't matter. I'll spare you the 15 million examples... (Seeing how I can't remember most of them... )

Probably the one that shook me up the most though was a trip to the ER. Had been woken by the worst pain of my life. I came out with a VERY few hazy whispers of memory. Even those felt unreal. A number of "should have been very memorable" things happened. I remembered none of them. Within about 3 days, with prompting, I was able to very vaguely recall a couple minor things. The majors never came back and it was almost 3 years ago now. BF filled me in on the events of the night a few days afterwards.

There was a funny thing though... A few weeks later, I was at a follow up appt. and the Dr. said, "Well, let's take a look at your x-rays." My jaw fell open and I exclaimed loudly, "I HAD X-RAYS???!!!" She looked at me like I was from Mars. LOL. Yeah, BF forgot to mention that part...
I chalk it all up to the level of pain being so bad as to cause dissociation (and the memory never having been formed as a result.)

Yep, all this sounds totally familiar. Entire chunks of my life that I can't recall, confusion, and even denial of events that other people remember and I don't. I'm glad I'm not the only one who experiences that.

Always figured it was me. I can't recall people I've met before either, people will come up and start talking to me about the past and I have no idea who they are. Names, forget names I can't remember the people.

I am forgetting a lot of stuff short-term but I think it is more due to my taking Depakote than it is anything else. It is frustrating and funny all at the same time. But a nice side effect is that my mind sort of slows down and I'm not as hypomanic as I usually am. When I was hypomanic, I didn't miss a thing.....but that was sort of a problem because I was a jerk too.

I don't know if it is the bipolar or the meds or what, but I have brain farts like crazy. I'll set something down and forget where it is literally ten seconds later. I forget what I am trying to say as I am saying it. If I don't have my appoiment cards pinned to the message board that I have above my computer, I wouldn't remember when they were. I was cooking hot dogs on the stove, forgot they were there, and fell asleep. When I got up they were incinerated. I am just glad that I didn't burn my house down.