Reliability of Bad Memories with BP I?

Hi,

I’ve had lots of bad memories of risky things that if true would make it highly unlikely that I would have survived my teens and early adulthood. In addition I suffer from a lot of guilty flashbacks of being the perpetrator of cruelty.

Does Bipolar Disorder distort memories? My psychiatrist says memory is happening all the time e.g. looking at the carpet.

Thanks / dhammapal.

Hi I dont know about medically but I personally have trouble with my memories. I was abused as a child and sometimes I sit there wondering if a memory actually happened or if I dreamt or hallucinated it. Everytime I go on on a episode I feel like someone puts my memories in a washing machine and they comeout even more muddled up than before. I also feel like because I have so many hallucinations that reality for me is never stable and like I am unhinged from normality and often when I am actually doing something I feel like I am walking through a dream and then afterwords wonder if I did that or not (have had friends confirm sometimes). My guess is if you experience lot of hallucinations that your grasp of reality becomes altered because to you reality is just a state of mind. I don't know if these are symptoms or just effects or nothing at all but yes I have trouble remembering what is real or not HTH.

I have had similar problems, but it's generally distortion of time caused by that same "dream like" sensation described above. I had to fill out a form for re-admission to school and said I'd been on lithium for three months-- it had been three weeks. I actually thought about it before I wrote it, and knew it had been three months, when it had not. It helps me to keep a pocket calendar, but it's not easy keeping it organized and truthful (whatever that is) because of unreliable memories and times when I have so many ideas that I have to write them all over the calendar. Also, people think you're lying sometimes, which is hurtful, but they don't understand, and that's that.

I have a number of memories that my doctors tell me are actually just psychotic thoughts and people close to me tell me they never happened. I don't think my doctor has ever really told me if I am bipolar 1 or 2 though. It helped me a great deal to write them all down because I kind of had to sort out what I thought actually happened and how it happened. I wrote almost 50 pages (typed in WORD on my computer) and then had my therapist and doctor and pastor read it. I worked on it off and on for about 6 months. My therapist told me they were psychotic thoughts and my pastor told me they never happened. I have been on haldol for psychotic thoughts since I was diagnosed BP about 2 years ago. I am 43 now. Now that they are all written down I rarely think about them any more and I have not had any new bad memories surfacing while I am on my meds.