[LettinG0]

I know that "charting my moods" is an essential part of my self-care as a citizen of this BP world. However, I totally suck at it. I don't seem to be able to identify my moods or emotions in any meaningful way. I'm not sure if it is because I just feel so empty/dead inside all the time or if I just avoid it. Pathetic, huh? Does anyone else struggle with identifying moods daily or am I the only one?

[newtothis31]

How do you do it? Do you make yourself write it down or have you tried a phone app?

[Secretum]

I've tried mood charting so many times, several different systems. Never could get into it. I rely on my posts on this forum and the entries in my diary to inform me of how my mood has been.

[LettinG0]

Originally Posted by newtothis31

How do you do it? Do you make yourself write it down or have you tried a phone app?

I don't have a smart phone so I do it by hand....

[Nammu]

I have a hard time with this too, it's so subjective and I spent so many years denying my feelings that I now have a hard time knowing what they are.

[bbTofu]

as someone mentioned, posting in the forum might help. . .

I've opened a thread where I post everyday or whenever I feel like.
My post isn't purposely addressing moods and emotions but I can certainly deduce by the atmosphere of the post the feelings and the general mood I've had during the time writing or even during that day according to what has been described in the post. see ?

I've found it very helpful.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I HATE doing it and have never succeeded at it in the past. Because I'm always mixed and always have dysphoric mania it is really hard to know what to mark. But my psychiatrist has been asking for several months so I've been doing it for the last 2 1/2 weeks. I'm using a phone app called iMoodJournal (which works on android and iPhone, just sounds iPhone-ish). Since I'm in the midst of a nasty episode it's been interesting. The program has these fancy graphs that are great on the phone but don't download that I can see and when I contacted the company about that they never responded so I have to get the data sent to me, shift it to google sheets and make a chart using the spreadsheet. This takes about a minute now that I finally figured it out (it took a while to do that because I've not used a spreadsheet for something like that since college 20 years ago).

Right now all it shows are that my moods are way up and way down, all the time. I can make entries as many times per day as I want and they inevitably show mixed, mixed, mixed.

I will do this though because the only thing I hate more than mood charting is being asked to rate things on a 1-10 scale. When they do that they are just asking severity of whatever is going on and since I may be happening to feel depression that isn't as severe as the manias at the moment I'm asked I can be totally inaccurate. It really annoys me. (And then the hospital uses 1-10 scale another way entirely so that it is even more complicated than it started out which was plenty complicated.) So my theory is if I do the mood charting for a while maybe it will stop people from asking me to put things on that awful 1-10 scale. (I did have to kind of modify the scale iMood gives to meet my own needs but it even lets you change the labels of the various points although I've been too lazy to do that and it doesn't matter since the graph that goes to the dr with me is in number form).

It's still not my favorite thing by any means but I am used to it now which is a good thing.

[wiretwister]

Originally Posted by LettinG0

I know that "charting my moods" is an essential part of my self-care as a citizen of this BP world. However, I totally suck at it. I don't seem to be able to identify my moods or emotions in any meaningful way. I'm not sure if it is because I just feel so empty/dead inside all the time or if I just avoid it. Pathetic, huh? Does anyone else struggle with identifying moods daily or am I the only one?

I have no idea how to do that... but I need to learn...

[Brophy]

I used to try and chart my mood every single day and multiple times during the day, honestly it got to be too much for me. Now I just write down my thoughts in a block journal every morning. I find that for the most part I can gauge my moods effectively during the day, as long as I'm not too manic.

[Woolly Bugger]

I think the visual element of mood charting would be key to understanding one's own brand of bipolarity. I plan to start doing it on June 1st. The graphing part should be easy, but I'm not sure what scale to use. I'm looking forward to doing it, and I really have to thank the forum for giving me the idea. My doctor has never suggested it.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

The iMoodJournal I talked about above is really good. I had trouble finding something that let me document frequently (because that's necessary for me) but was on more than a 5 point scale which was too restrictive. It lets you add tags to each entry although I'm not completely sure what good they do: I think when there is more data is shows you but I'm not using that much now. It reminds you 3 times a day (you can turn that off) and has a 10 point scale. It exports to dropbox so you don't lose data and then you can email the data to yourself to turn into a spreadsheet (it comes as one, you just have to move a column to be set up for your chart and then depending what kind of chart you want you may have to click a few options). It did cost $2.00 but it was worth it. It's made something very painful for me in the past painless. I don't want to do this forever but for now it is clearly showing what I'm experiencing (although you'd have to have me explain how I am using the scale to understand that but I tried I think 4 or 5 programs and that was true for all of them) right now.

I see my dr at a very large hospital and they have everyone who comes in do a little computerized assessment before every visit. The reminder always comes on Wednesday night and I do it then so I don't forget. By Monday when I see my pdoc things have always shifted and so the data isn't very accurate. So the mood charting is I think a way to see why things don't match up although I'm pretty sure it's the 5 days between and my increased mania at night and I see her in late afternoon when it's at least incrementally better.

It was handy to email the charts to her the other day even though she would have gotten them on the holiday and so never saw them. But I tried and when I email again tomorrow she can look back for the prior email.

[cashart10]

I'm always uncertain of the efficiency of my mood chart. This is why I don't make one. I overthink it entirely too much. I have to depend on what my husband says or proceed by my writings (and if I start to have panic attacks) to best gauge my mood.

[~Christina]

I chart using pen and paper here. I use a 1-10 scale for over all mood, Anxiety, irritability and I chart my hours of sleep.

It is a quick easy way to see any patterns emerging. Take me 3 mins at night before bed.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

This is why the app that lets you post 15 times a day if you want is good. No need to overthink, just press whatever seems right that moment and if 15 minutes later you change your mind you make another entry. Mine looks like spikes all day every day but I'm guessing eventually they won't be very big spikes and will just be more around the mid-range and that will be a more normal mood. Right now they just look like I am feeling crash after crash and high after high.

I like to trust what I've written too but having handy charts does make it easier for the pdoc and therapist. I hope since I'm trying to be so good about this right now. I just wish I could find a scale that went -10 to 10; that would leave 0 as normal and that makes so much more sense to me but apparently not to the people who make these apps. Oh well. I can't make apps so I go with what I've got

Originally Posted by cashart10

I'm always uncertain of the efficiency of my mood chart. This is why I don't make one. I overthink it entirely too much. I have to depend on what my husband says or proceed by my writings (and if I start to have panic attacks) to best gauge my mood.

[bbTofu]

The lecturer in a psychopathology course, suggested a simple scale which I'm not sure used elsewhere beyond the boundaries of the course

The scale is
0; euthymia which does include the appropriate minor mood swings, u can be bit happy and bit down but nothing major

1 - happy elevated mood. Those are the people who are 'naturally' happy. (typical energetic salesmen and entertainers I suppose)
~~ Hypomania suggested somewhere between the two.
2 - Mania.

-1; Depressed mood, there are people who have a bit more negative tendency and usually stay there as their default.

-2; Depression. well this is the depression that is more severe than depressed mood and usually here is where it starts to affect one's functionality etc...

I suppose there could be -3 to describe the most severe depressed mood.
I suppose for convenience we could draw number as Hypomanic and 3 as Manic instead of wondering where between 1 and 2 we stand.

What do you guys think about this kind of scaling instead of the typical 1-10, because it leaves less room for inaccuracy and maybe easier to be definitive for sake of measuring own's state.

I have this mood chart here it tracks mood, weight, sleep, anxiety, irritability, meds, and alcohol consumption. I picked it up off the web some where, I don't remember where now though. Although honestly I haven't really been very good with keeping a mood chart. Here is a link to it if anyone is interested:

http://1drv.ms/1LJxMiT

[Crazy Hitch]

Hi LettingGo, yeah I've had some problems with mood charting too in the past. The reason was that I had to rate my mood on a scale of 1-10 in conjunction with the current meds that I was on. Problem was if I went through months of depression it kind of just "flatlined" and it no longer looked like anything significant. A psychiatrist told me last week of an app you can download where it shows you faces - and you choose a face (with the facial expression) for the day. I haven't got around to finding the app but I'm going to download it on my iPhone and give it a go.

[RisuNeko]

I have no idea what my mood is on any given day unless i'm at an absolute extreme. I have a big dark grey area in between the two extremes that I don't have any insight into.