[SweetSunshine]

Found this the other day and showed it to my t today. He approved of it. So I thought I might share with all of you here. Thought it might be helpful to those of you who are trying to track your mood swings like I am and who are trying to learn more about what is going on with self. Hope this helps. Good luck

http://www.dbsalliance.org/bookstore...iag.html#chart

[SerenitysWave]

<font color="purple">Thank you posting this! </font>

[SweetSunshine]

No Prob Bob!!!!!LOL

Thanks Ive seen this and am a member of that support group. even though I am a member of that group I use a different chart that has less to worry about and is simplier and easier to use. It is found on page 155 in the book Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger, PhD and Christine A Padesky, PhD and published by The Gulford Press - Worksheet 10.1: Mind Over Mood Depression Inventory (it has 19 questions that you circle a 0 for not at all, 1 for sometimes, 2 for frequently, and 3 for most of the time.)

1. Sad or depressed mood.

2. Feeling Guilty.

3. irritable mood

4. less interest or pleasure in usual activities.

5. Withdraw from or avoid people.

6. find it harder then usual to do things.

7. See myself as worthless (I added the words have no value because I kept confusing self worth with self exteme)

8. Trouble concentrating.

9. Difficulty making decisions.

10. Suicidal thoughts.

11. Recurrent thoughts of death

12. Spend time thinking about a suicide plan (since I know I will never carry out or plan suicidal plans I changed this one to self injury thoughts and actions.)

13. low self esteme.

14. See the future as hopeless.

15. Self critical thoughts

16. Tiredness or loss of energy.

17. Significant weight loss or decrease in appitite (do not include weight loss from diet plan)

18 Change in sleep pattern - difficulty sleeping or sleeping more or less than usual.

19 Decreased sexual desire.

then you add up the score which will land between 0 and 57. The higher the score the more depressed you were that week.

I do mine every morning as a way to check in with myself. When my numbers increase I know that I need to keep checking in with myself and taking plenty of time to keep in touch with my body and relaxation techniques.

This book also has an anxiety inventory simular to this depression inventory that I use daily.

[SweetSunshine]

Myself~
This is very good also! I like the simpler list too. I think though for bipolar people the other is a bit more useful because it will help track the mania/hypomania moods better along with the deression. And for us this is so key as far as our medications go. But what a great input you gave here. Thanks so much!

Hugz~
Bethy

[Lexicon78]

Although I don't have bipolar disorder, I could really use this type of info.

It's funny, sometimes I can relate very well to the stuff in this forum even though my diagnosis is depression and borderline personality disorder...odd I think.

your welcome Bethy