Sometimes but its hard to know reality from delusional. Like maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought to start with

I felt that way when I was taking Lithium. It also screwed with my vision so it was hard for me to read and write. But with tegretol I feel fine. Sorry you feel that way!

I can relate. I feel that I've been "dumbed down" as well since being diagnosed. It sucks, but I'd rather that than be totally off the wall I guess. I think it didn't help that I isolated a lot during a long depression, so that I didn't have much social interaction or anything to focus on really. Ah, such is life...

I feel like I have a heavy blanket over my head all the time......... my brain really does seem to have gone walkabout and its all due to the meds...........

I feel less creative. When I'm in a "mood" I can write poems, comedy, etc. Yet being on meds seems to have stripped that creativity away. I feel okay, but maybe because I'm not thinking. Is that they key to the world? Quit thinking?

I don't think that I have been 'dumbed down' by medications. I do feel that I have lost chunks of time while I was over medicated and dealing with the onset of this disorder. I have a memory lapse of many things during my first hospitalization and the two years after that. I consider it a blessing in diguise. There are many things that I don't want to remember and they are forever lost. I am thankful that some of my worst memories are fuzzy and unrecognizable to me.

Totally dumbed down here. I used to be able to read and write/type. I can't spell anymore and that is if I can even think of the words I want to say. I ramble on and on like a nut and I repeat myself and I can hear myself doing it and I can't seem to stop myself! I know I don't think any place close to as well as I used to.

#7 thats about how I feel

I'm with #7 on this one as well. I ramble forever and keep rambling because I know I was trying to say something and if I keep rambling, maybe I will remember what I originally wanted to say (thus making 30 sec turn into 3 min).
That sucks.
What sucks worse is that now, on top of that, I totally space out in the middle of rambling or someone else talking and then I have NO clue what is going on.
At least before I knew I had a point about something, regardless if I knew what the point was.
Now I just try and keep my mouth shut when I get even a WEE bit tired as it gets worse then (like now).
Can't keep my mouth shut.

Oh and my memory is SHOT, yes.

when im up manic its like being drunk. cause when i come down i hate myself for everything i did and sometimes competely (like being blacked out) dont remember stuff.

the wrost was when i was on lamictal cause id have crazy dreams every night and literally couldnt differentiate between what was real and what i had dreamt.

There's that phase where it felt like I was a glove puppet.Controlled by some external force.
Then after, the pain of trying to read and stuff.
I had to persevere and exercise my head like I exercise the body.Takes time like everything does but the progress is not linear.It can get better overnight.
Then you notice that others around us aren't so perfect in those areas too.

I most certainly understand where you are coming from.. It's like I have an answer or words dancing around my head but i cannot find or say them.. This was never how i was. On lithium and seroquel, and this happended since taking them. It is so very frustrating and adds to the pain this beeper prob causes... Hopefully the fog will one day soon fade. (says with her fingers crossed). x

Yes I feel like the anti-psychotic has dumbed me way down in many ways.
Jaggged up my memory, sexual function, and pure thinking asbility.
Sucks, but what is the other options?

It's hard to say, because that was already happening to me, before I was diagnosed and treated!!
I was on Seroquel for over a year, as it was the best thing for making me sleep. But I was sick of the weight gain and asked to be taken off of it.
As I was being weaned off of it and then put on generic Thorazine and generic Xanax, I had a period of about a month where I was almost as clear headed as in my pre-Bipolar days!!! I thought I had found the answer to all my comprehension and memory problems and decided that it was the Seroquel that had made me 'stoopid!!'
But alas, my 'smarts' disappeared again, and now I can't keep a thought in my head and half the time forget what I'm saying, in the middle of a sentence.
So now I don't know what to think. Well, I CAN'T think, rather! LOLOL!!!
It's frustrating, embarrassing, and depressing!!!!