I’m missing about a decade’s worth of memories, and I may never get them back. Simply because I was depressed. The worse my depression got, the more it affected my ability to remember anything. I repeated myself often, I forgot arguments and conversations, I don’t remember things people told me I did or said. My initial thought was I’m just getting older but I was in my 20’s, I should’ve had the best memory, but now I’m in my early 30’s and all I can do is look back at photos.
To this day it is so fascinating that people can remember the year a song came out or what they did in the summer of 2012. Believe me when I say… I have not one clue what happened in the summer of 2012. I measure things by experiences as oppose to using actual time frames. For example, I remember buying my car in 2013 because it was a stressful/joyous experience. I know a few things depending on how important, special, or traumatizing the event was.
It wasn’t until recently, within the last year or two that my memory has drastically improved. What changed? I began going to therapy towards the end of 2018. Now I can remember dates and times, names, and conversations. I feel like a completely different person. I know I act different. These days I am way more outgoing, I don’t cry uncontrollably, I sleep better, able to focus, and I handle stress in a healthier way. Enough of that.. back to my memory block. If I’m being honest with myself, I won’t get those memories back, and I just have to live with that. The best I can do now is make more memories.

Before I realized I couldn’t remember anything, I never admitted I was depressed, maybe in the back of my mind I knew, but I didn’t know I was, I thought I’d gotten over the initial trigger that sent me into that downward spiral, I was doing so much better. I was dating, I was working, taking classes, being a functioning member of society. In retrospect however… The poor decision making, the inability to focus, lost/strained friendships, toxic romantic relationships, suicide attempts, and of course you can’t forget the self-loathing inner voice.. all signs that pointed to the fact that I was indeed suffering from depression and covering it up by constantly working. I was ALWAYS working. My ex-boyfriend exclaimed to me during an argument we were having, “How can you be so sure if you can’t remember shit?” and I questioned myself and everything around me, and I ended up doing some research:
According to www.sciencedirect.com they mentioned a 2013 study that had the following:

Highlights:
Neurogenesis may be reduced in depression, suggesting a possible impairment…
A significant negative relationship was found between depression symptoms and pattern separation..

… it is well established that depression is associated with reduced declarative memory performance and decreased hippocampal volume.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432813004920

To clarify some terms:
Neurogenesis is the formation of new neurons from the neural stem
Pattern Separation is a mechanism for encoding memories

Basically this study discovered people with depression could not identify objects on a screen that were identical or similar to an object they had seen previously.
For example if several objects are shown on a screen say a spoon, an orange, a horse, and a shoe. The the person is asked from a line up of objects which of the objects did they see, the person was unable to correctly identify the object. Now this is just an example not what actually happened in the study.

All in all finding this out has been such a relief but also an eye opener. I’m happy to know I’m not losing my mind but also saddened by the fact that I can’t undo any of it.