this crazy blonde is missing time, anyone experience this?

Hello Everyone,
My name is Amos, I was diagnosed as bipolar type 1 last year. I refused meds. They scared me more than my condition. Well to cut to the chase here, my neighbor told me yesterday he hated my home town. I said "when did you go to Oak Ridge?" He told me he picked me up and brought me home, and thus began my trying to put together this puzzle. Has anyone else experienced this? It scared me to death and I have made a mental health appointment. Thanks for listening, I am dying to hear if anyone else has experienced anything like this.

Thanks Amos

Hello Amos: I believe this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral.

I have not had the kind of experience you had. And I'm not a mental health professional. So I can't offer anything in the way of mental health advice or diagnosis. (Mental health diagnosis isn't something we do here on PC anyway.) Based on what you wrote, though, this sounds to me like it might possibly be a dissociative experience. There's a forum, here on PC, dedicated to the subject of dissociative disorders. Here's a link:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/dissociative-disorders/

There is also a forum dedicated to the subject of bipolar disorder of course. Here's a link to that one too just in case you haven't already found it:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/bipolar/

And then here are links to 5 articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on the subject of living with bipolar disorder plus 1 on the subject of dissociation:

In-Depth: Living with Bipolar Disorder

The Biggest Lesson I've Learned in Managing My Bipolar Disorder

10 Small Steps You Can Take Today to Improve Bipolar Disorder

https://psychcentral.com/lib/buildin...olar-disorder/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/self-he...olar-disorder/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-ps...-dissociation/

I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

BPII here.
My dissociative experiences come from my c-PTSD.
I think some people may experience dissociation from BPI; maybe others will comment.


WC

To answer your question, yes, I experience that. I'm recently dx so I would listen to those with a longer history. I guess I'm going to have to look at dissociation disorder. I've not hear of it.

There are periods throughout my life I can't account for. The biggest one (you'll see if you go back and see any of my posts) is the question about my youngest daughter's paternity. I honestly don't remember another man in my life at the time. I was searated from H at the time and was seeing someone else. I found out I was pregnant shortly after I got back with H. Based on ultrasound I thought he was the father. When she, through, 23 and me that H was not her father she obviously confronted me. I found the other man's info. She contacted him, did a DNA test, and it wasn't him. I absolutely don't remember anyone else.

This isn't the only time but I wanted to share so you knew you weren't alone

Thank you so much

It was my understanding that this sort of gap can also come from depression. I know I have such gaps - and did have before the ECT. I haven’t done any research beyond a conversation with my therapist however, so I hope more members chime in on this.

That's good to know beause the references to the other disorder were scary. I'm sure it was for the original poster.

If it is part of the BP though mine is during full blown manic (not hypo) or psychosis events. That's when my gaps have occured. My T said she didn't know if it was part of BP. Ihave it on my list to discuss with Pdoc next time or traumatic event because I'm wondering if I was raped in my above example. Psychosis or rape seem to be the two most logical explanations in this scenario.

I miss time a lot. Unless someone else brings it up I'm completely clueless. It's like I only live in the here and now, I can't recall most things like I remember in a general way but can't recall actual events. I know I went to disney with my family but I can't remember what we did.

This is rare to me, but there are more than a couple times that I have lost significant periods of memories. I will not go into detail here, but there were a couple times that scared me. Lately I have actually been remembering segements of memory that were lost to me for close to fourty years. This is a good sign.

When I was first diagnosed four years ago I was manic/borderline psychotic. The first 3mths were a blur.
I lose time every single episode I have. Even though I don’t often succeed I really do try to stay well.

I experienced what are often called "bipolar blackouts" or "manic blackouts". Google these terms to learn more. I don't even remember perhaps four or even five of my hospitalizations, or more than flashes of them. Severe depression can also be so cognitively imparing that time seems to disappear, especially if the time was spent inactive to an almost paralyzing degree. As for depressions, though I can't speak for everyone's experience, I have the ability to easily forget, in a sense or to a great degree, the pain or numbness of those states when stability returns. Mixed episodes or frightening psychosis, on the other hand, is a different story for me. Or if I don't remember some of it, I believe the trauma of some have had negative effects on me later.

I, too, have had a couple dissociative amnesia periods, but mine were extremely brief ( minutes).

I have had similar experiences. There are entire periods of time where I can recall only flashes or glimpses of what happened. I only remember small parts of my senior year of high school. I can’t remember what one of my parents’ homes looked like. There are people that I totally forget until my husband brings them up and tells me about them — and Even then I have only the fuzziest recollection of them. I think that a lot of it has to do with periods of depression or mania. I’m not certain about that, but it seems to be the best explanation.