If you've had a serious episode of depression or mania, do you remember that portion of your life clearly?

Question

I spent the better part of 3 years during and after my freshman year of college severely depressed and experimenting with different medications with my doctor. I remember things that happened during that time, but not as clearly as things from before the depression. It may have been the meds, but I think it was the depression. Anyone else?

Turned out I'm bipolar, but I deal almost exclusively with depression and mixed episodes.

Answer 1

My period with depression was much shorter, three months, but it was deep. I too took some mediction for a month of it, but I started to find my way out without it.

As for what I remember, I had been a habitual marijuana user for years prior to my depression, and I remember that period of my life much more clearly than when I was depressed. I only am able to rekindle memories of those times with smells, thus far. For instance, I don't know why, but I was obsessed with the abrasiveness of apricot scrub, almost to the point of a masochistic interest. When ever I smell it now I am drawn into that place.

I could see how a leng period of depression could start to warp your memories of events prior. I wouldn't doubt the meds play a part of it, though, especially the experimenting that you had to do.

Answer 2

Definitely the meds - medication while you are suporessing or allowing your mind to deal with your depression has a tendency to push real events further in the back of your mind. Many of those events are the reasons for the depression and are set to 'help' you - but a lot of your history, emotions, feelings, facts are shut away too. As you start to deal with the depression and may relinquish so much of the drugs, you will find that pieces of your memory will surface and it will take you a moment to understand and put those pieces in their proper places. I suffer with a little bit of bipolar and anxiety. I have scars on my legs and arms where I have obsessed by picking. I remember doing the act, but the 'reason' for the 'doing is no longer clear. Every now and then some anxiety will surface and I will remember picking and I will 'see' as if a vision or dream, some pieces of my emotional life or actual events of my life surface and it is hard for me to place those...sometimes I think it was a dream. What I have done to help myself is write these down, date them and talk to my sister about some of them that really bother me. Often, she has helped me to relate the event and place and why I picked and the 'dream' has a setting, time, etc. for me and then I can relate the anxiety or depressed act. Medication is good for us - it helps us generally be able to function - but over an extended period it can be harmful if you are not working toward getting off of it. I take Cymbalta - relatively mild I guess - but when I miss two-three days - my finance' feels it. My mind conjures up the past where our mistakes and highly charged emotions lie -and I don't like that area and some of it was confusing to me - but I'm learning to deal.

We're going to get better - I am sure of it.

Answer 3

Well i think it's probably a bit of both. meds probably played asmall part in it. but when u go through something like depression it's not exactly pleasant and your mind unconciously doesn't want to remember it so it pushes it so far below the surface that's it's almost not remembered but of course it is, it's jus 2 painful for you to visit that. I'm 17 and when i was 14 i became very depressed and tried to kill my self and various other times, but i don't ever think about and i try to forget that any of it ever even happened but when i do think about certain events it's pretty unclear and i wasn't on medication. I hope this helps if you've got any questions email me.

Answer 4

yes. when i was 15 until about 16 1/2 i would have random depression modes. and i remember them all what caused them and all.

when i was about 17 i had a bout with depression that landed me in a hospital on a 72 hour hold. i was put on prozac and that lasted about a 2 weeks. the only thing i remember during that time is that i had no emotions. if i felt sad i couldn't cry. if i felt happy inside... you really couldn't tell from the outside. it was like i was a zombie.

they tried to diagnose me with bi polar disorder, but my mother wasn't having it. she didn't want me labled and stuck on medications for the rest of my life.

my mother got me a therapist. who really helped me without any medication at all. it took some time, but it all worked out. and without another drop of meds or a lable that would follow me around for life, and possibly become a crutch for me.

i still get stressed and depressed from time to time. but when i feel this way, i just go back to the things that helped me get out over it back then. all the things my therapist had me doing when i was 16, 17 to deal with my emotions (except meds) are still workingh well at 27.

Answer 5

I was incorrectly diagnosed as bipolar and forced to leave the military. They based this on one time when i was highly stressed and later down (probably cos they put me on depressants) I have not have had any periods since and feel fine. Some doctors just want to put you on meds for no reason

Answer 6

Yes. I remember my depressions and for lack of a diagnosis 'odd periods' of my life very clearly.


EDIT: Of course, I don't take medication. I tried Prozac once for about 6 months and went completely crazy before I quit taking it. I do remember it well though.

Answer 7

great question.

i've been through both on and off for years. when depressed, i have great difficulty remembering the good times. it makes it hard to believe there are any good times in store in the future. when i do remember happiness, i think i must have been deluding myself or in denial about how horrible life is.

when manic, i vaguely remember the depressions, almost as if they happened to someone else. i believe life is wonderful and anything's possible. the sky's the limit.

i've been on different meds for years and in my case, i've never had to take any psych meds that made me drowsy or high or out of it. i've known people who had to take neurotin and were extremely spaced out. one of my friends was so spaced out on it that she couldn't keep track of how much she'd taken and when...she ended up overdosing, acidentally i believe, and dying. God bless linda.