xCycles of Depression vs. hope & Memory loss. Is this

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I seem to go through periods of about 2 to 3 months in which I gradually get more and more depressed, feel hopeless and pathetic and stop caring about everything. I mean REALLY depressed, I’ll obsessively envision killing myself and often lie around without leaving the house, I’ll just leach off my parents and not even try to get a job. And I’m 24 so I do not consider that in anyway acceptable. But it’s like any motivation or ability to care about myself just drains out.

Then I’ll go through 2 or 3 months of doing pretty well, take positive steps to improve my life, feel like I have a plan and I know where I’m going. I improve, excercise, make friends, go out...

… Then like clockwork a few months later my entire; personality collapses again and feel I lose all the progress I made.

When I “collapse” it’s also not just emotional, my actual memories and the things and I learned in my “up” time seems to fade away. I do not trust my memory because there seem to be these holes in it; it’s like every few months my brain hits the “reset” button and I lose at least some of the data. I seem to be relearninn the same lessons over and over because I cannot hold onto them in my memory. I am stuck in a loop.


Could this be an Asperger's thing?

kind of sounds like my life lately. I am fine for awhile, optimistic, happy, organizing things in my life, then it hits. My memory drops down to 2 seconds, literally. I feel oblivious to everything. Can't remember anything long enought to follow through on anything(even house work, talking to someone, etc. I feel so unmotivated, and have absoultely NO energy(emotional or physical). Alot of cognitive things are effected too. I can't remember simple words while trying to talk to someone. Many times, I can't even finish a statement becasue I can't remember a simple everyday word, and I come across as a mumbling idiot saying things that make no sence (kind of like aphasia) Then after about a few months, things start to look up again. For me, it seems to be seasonal. September/October, I start to slip(my son, 8, aspergers, slips in Decembers) Its been this way as long as I can remember. Then around February/March, things start to get better for me. My son seems to pull out of the regressions much quicker than I do. He usually gets back to "normal" within a couple months in stead of half a year.

This happens to me too. It's a relief to know it's not just me - my memory is apalling, to the stage where I seriously wondered if I had early Alzheimers. I thought good memory went with AS (or maybe that's a myth) perhaps it's the change in brain chemicals that cause depression that affect memory too, although mine doesn't improve very much when I'm not depressed. I have to write lists of everything that I've got to do etc and old memories are lost - I think I remember something from years ago then I'll talk to my sister or brothers and they'll say I remembered an event wrongly so I can't really trust my memories.

Have you tried using a lightbox? I've had one for a few years and it definitely helps with depression caused by lack of light in the winter (hasn't helped much with the memory though)

I don't think it's an AS thing, it sounds more like a mood disorder.

I think I saw something like this on wikipedia... like maybe cyclothymia or seasonal affective disorder or something like that.

Could be something like cyclothymia, also known as "soft bipolar disorder."

I cycle in a similar way only a bit more extreme. I experience depression starting in August (still agitated from the summer mania), more stable in September, then I slip into a typical depression with anhedonia, apathy, and hypersomnia, until the beginning of December (I pretty much sleep through it). Around early to mid-January I feel like you described. I feel more energetic, I cook more, I exercise, I go out more, I socialize, I go shopping, I wear makeup. Then in February I start to experience symptoms of mania. I get way less sleep and I don't feel tired. My thoughts diverge into multiple trains of thought. I start to hallucinate. There's chatter in my head. I'm very distractible, and I tend to act on impulse (often leads to debt). On bad days my speech is pressured and incoherent. Some days I feel okay and just a little euphoric. Other days I'm pulling my hair out trying to get the noise in my head to stop. I stabilize a little in March and April, although I'm still not sleeping much, and I start getting more manic in May and June. I crash in late June or very early July, and I might be stable for a couple weeks until the agitated depression comes....and we start the cycle all over again.

I do experience some holes in my memory from the mania. Sometimes I don't remember things I did when I was manic at all...then I get the credit card bills after I crash and wonder where they came from...

It's sort of interesting how my most stable months are September and March (spring and fall equinoxes), and I tend to shift from mania to depression in December and June (Summer and Winter Solstices). Sometimes I think I'd solve this problem by moving to the equator.

I'm actually looking into light and dark therapy. I used a lightbox this year in the winter, and my depression wasn't nearly as bad....but I have to be careful...to much light can make me manic.....

Thanks so much for the replies. Tell me, has anyone of you with this problem managed to live a relatively "normal" life?

I can't figure out how I can function unless I get rid of this. How would I hold a job, or even have meaningful relationships, when I drop of the face of the earth every few months?

Have you had any success dealing with these issues?

I lead a pretty "normal" life. I have a career. I own a home. I have a relationship (sort of). My work is pretty inconsistant, and I don't think my manager really cares. I make up for slacking off during my winter depression, by what I can accomplish during a mild hypomania. I take a couple weeks vacation time in the summer when I get so manic I can't function anymore...I usually crash within a week or two of being really manic.

As for the depression, usually I'm pretty useless. All I do is sleep and I'm really apathetic. For me it usually lasts 2-3 months. I find myself eating handfuls of uncooked pasta and mayonnaise out of a jar with a spoon. The past two winter depressions haven't been too bad though since I got my light box. I use it twice a day for 30 minutes to extend the amount of "daylight" I'm exposed to. Last winter I actually managed to cook myself dinner most of the time, and slept 9-10 hours a night as opposed to 14+ hours I usually do during the winter. My overall mood was better too. I had more motivation and I wasn't so emotionless and empty. I was still in a little funk. My house was still a little messy, and laundry would pile up.....but I didn't just sleep through the whole winter like a bear would.