Having some trouble with my therapy homework.

Last time I saw my psychologist she gave me some homework to do until next week. She gave me an empty schedule and told me to write what I do every day (every hour) and to grade how I feel on a scale between 0 and 10.

I like schedules but I have two problems with doing this homework:

1. I'm really worried that it won't be perfect. By that I mean I worry that I won't manage to fill out the schedule properly or grade it truthfully. I worry that I'll make some sort of mistake and for example put down a 4 when it should be a 5. Knowing how I feel is something that's quite difficult for me and I often don't know what I feel except that I'm feeling bad.

2. I find it difficult that I don't know exactly what each number on the scale means. I know that 0 basically means I want to die or that I can barely face the day and just want to disappear, and that 10 means everything is absolutely awesome. I also know that 5 means I'm not thinking about how I feel, 3 means I feel crappy but that I don't want to die, and that 8 means things are going really well. But what about 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9? I know I never go above 5 but I find it difficult when things aren't specific.

Do you ever worry that you won't be able to do the therapy homework well enough and that it'll lead to the psychologist misunderstanding things?

I usually tell my T when I feel like that about the homework....I would say...I was stressed doing the homework because I wasn't sure I was doing it right... Then we would talk about it. Usually it was just me putting unneeded pressure on myself. Like all thing with numbers. There is always a +or - # margin of error....

I have a scale with my T. Mine is opposite of yours.

10=SUI
9=Giving up
8=Emotional breakdown
7= depressed

Anything below 7 doesn't matter because it means I'm safe...lol.

I will never be a 1 or 2...just not me. And I consider 5 neutral.

I don't know if that helps.

I hate scale of 1-10 with an unholy passion. If it were me I'd get shirty and put 5 for everything.

Huh. That would stress me out too. I don't really see how I feel as a linear 1-10 type thing. Maybe I flatter myself but I think my feelings are a lot more than just positive or negative . Also I don't think I could look back on my day and remember how I felt between 11 and 12 versus between 2 and 3.

Omg, this was exactly what I was thinking! The 1-10 scale is so subjective and difficult...esp for anyone who might be depressed (like myself).

Neutrino, can you add a sentence or two beside each number to explain why you are feeling like you are at that time? Perhaps this will add some clarity and you can worry less about the exactness of the number, and it will provide more info. for your T. I honestly don't see how useful a bunch of numbers could possibly be for her.

I "had" (was requested) to do this too but for different reasons -- so we could figure out when I need to reach out to someone. I didn't know what to do with it either. In the end I think I put something like

0. Numb
1. Hyperelevated (manic)
2. Elevated
3. Happy
4. Content
5. Baseline mood, nondescript
6. Destabilized, anxious
7. Depressed, world-is-gray, mildly self-destructive
8. Meltdown, intensely self-destructive
9. The world is ending, suicidal
10. In the process of making a plan I intend to carry out

Hope that helps. I was super stressed out about it too but my therapist said there was no right or wrong way to do it and she didn't intend for it to be so stressful, so don't worry too much, I'm sure your therapist would say the same for you.

It won't be perfect. Feelings aren't perfect and quantifiable. It's ok! Take your best guess. You can even give a range! Like... "4-5" or "4.8 (better than a 4, but not quite a 5". Think about it - if you know it's in the 4-5 range, that's still better information that not knowing where it is at all on a 1-10 range! Heck, if you know it's in the 3-5 range, that still gives your T an idea of where you are, even if it's less precise - you've still limited it to a smaller part of the range.

If it really bothers you, ditch the numbers and just write how you feel. Too bad for T, it's your therapy, you get to do it how you want. So... it might be "very depressed, I hate the world" or "Slightly depressed" or "Scared out of my mind!"

Also, consider that the fact that it's so hard for you might be useful to talk to your therapist about. Just an idea!

Good luck!

But really, it's ok to not get it perfect - because nobody is expecting perfect, and your T shouldn't be making big huge treatment decisions based on whether you marked something as 4 versus 5!

I'm pretty sure it's comparisons that matter in this sort of thing, anyways. It doesn't really matter what exact number you assign to a particular feeling, like whether you call "fine" a 5 or a 6; what's important is to compare how you feel doing one thing versus another, or at different points in your day. When does it go up and when does it go down? I'm thinking that's the idea of this sort of exercise.

I actually sort of like the linear 1-10 type thing (well 0-10 in this case), though it's a bit difficult. I like categorizing things and my thinking tends to be rather black-or-white. However, I do need to know exactly what the numbers mean or I won't be able to do the homework properly. I guess I'll just do my best and then I'll talk to the psychologist next week and let her know I thought it was quite difficult.

I'm afraid there's not really enough space for that. On the paper I mean.

Thank you. I'm sure my therapist didn't intend for it to be so stressful either. She wasn't even sure it was a good idea for me to write how I feel because it might make me too stressed out (at first she just wanted me to fill out the schedule so she could see what the week looks like), but she told me to try anyway.

Well I don't have a T; why spend good money on something so common sense, but that's me? On the other hand I have been doing a mood diary using my own scale and recording system - I keep it on my phone and do it whenever I am in a supermarket queue, overtaking on the motorway (just kidding), on the train, having a rest in the park at lunchtime, while waiting for meetings to start and it is incredibly useful. If you cannot deal with another's arbitrary system maybe you should do your own - the important thing I find is to be able to track back and identify events, patterns, actions/inactions that affect mood and develop understanding and strategies to build on this to feel better and be a better person.

Question: is it "normal" that my mood fluctuates this much (here's an example of how I've graded how I feel during a day on a scale of 0-10, where 0 means I basically want to die, 5 means I'm no thinking of how I feel and 10 means everything's awesome)?

9-10am: 4
10-11am: 4
11am-12pm: 4
12-1pm: 4
1-2pm: 5
2-3pm: 4
3-4pm: 3
4-5pm: 3
5-6pm: 3
6-7pm: 2-3
7-8pm: 2-3
8-9pm: 3
9-10pm: 3-4
10-11pm: 3-4

I feel pretty depressed all the time but it often varies in intensity during the day. Is that normal for depression?

Yeah, that looks normal for depression.

'Fraid so, when untreated I can easily go from quietly enjoying life to wishing myself dead in an instant, then from mild irritation to fiery rage even quicker. Keeping a record and backtracking is something I find useful - there is always a reason, generally embarrassing/painful and always irrational or at least inappropriate to the situation. With practice it does not take long to find the cause, but detecting the cause in advance and avoiding mood swings is a little harder. But if I don't I could throw away all that I have worked for and all that I hope for.

Okay, thanks. Good to know. I for some reason have a tendency to think that if I'm not at a 2 or lower all the time it probably means I'm not depressed but instead just making things up (which of course isn't true, but my brain feeds me that lie anyway). Also worried that my psychologist won't think I'm depressed if I'm occasionally at a 5 (which just means I'm not thinking about how I feel in that moment), but that probably isn't true either.

Yeah, that's right, neither of these things are true. If anything, I think this is exactly what your psychologist would want and expect to see with this exercise: that sometimes you feel better and sometimes you feel worse. That way, the two of you can start to find some patterns behind that, and that could give you some useful information to work with. So I think it's good thing that you're seeing and recording these fluctuations.