I am a new member and this is my first post. What I want to offer and share are tips to cope with anxiety and depression when you are in the MIDST OF FEELING TERRIBLE. This could be true even if you are taking medication, are in therapy, and working very hard to achieve breakthroughs.
I will give an example. It could be detailed but I'll state it in general for now--depending on responses. Over time, how do you know if you are improving, staying the same, or worsening? Without data, it is not possible to know because our memories do not extend past a previous day or so, at least not in detail with respect to our moods.
So keep a spreadsheet a create numerical values that describe your degree and type of suffering, for example, "0" = free from anxiety and depression; "1" = tolerable anxiety and depression; a range from "1.25 - 2.00" = I can make the statement: "I am suffering!" Enter one average value for each day. If night problems, create a column for your night value. Add up the points every week. As time goes by, you can compare weeks and find patterns. You can use "a" for anxiety and "d" for depression, so, for example, "1ad" or "2a," etc.
I would like to discuss this method further with anyone who is interested. For extreme suffering, it's possible to track on a notepad; it's reassuring. Please read my Profile. Nothing is hidden.
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I’ve noticed in the past that when I kept a mood chart that certain things seemed to affect me more than I was aware of so I could make a change for the better.
I agree with you ....my emotions are like a roller coaster in slow motion, and it's kind of an ebb and flow thing..... I was just concerned about this being a data mining thing if the poster is asking for data. Maybe not....I could be wrong...
Data mining?? No way! You are assuming that I have some selfish interest or alterior motive. That is not the case. I am a fellow sufferer seeking relief and offering assistance. If I am offering assistance, and people find it worthwhile, then it gives me joy to receive responses--the connection I need, and we both help each other.
I appreciate and note your skepticism and appreciate your response. Charting data for moods is NOT a means for healing. It is a means for evaluation. Let me make an analogy using the 1-10 pain scale for physical pain. Suppose you are suffering chronic pain, that, on average, you rate daily as a "7." You see a physican and are given a medication and PT. As the days go on, you are not sure if you are improving or if the source of the pain is increasing. Without a daily number and a basis for comparison over time, there's no way to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatement. With anxiety and depression it's worse because these are volatile and labile emotions that often come and go without known reasons. Hopefully, therapy, in time, will discover those reasons and provide relief. Meanwhile, you may know today that you were a "1a" or yesterday that you were a "2," but past that point all is lost to memory and you have no means to assess.
Besides, you don't have to use my numerical values matched to symptoms, you can create your own that fit you. As time goes on I will give other tips that may relieve suffering at least a little.
Hello Starrlight. Thanks for your response. Here's an example of one pattern that I'm looking at. I recently reached "steady state" on the SSRI setraline. I am not yet at my maintenance dosage. That's a work in progress, But, meanwhile, I have noticed significant relief from both anxiety and depression, i.e., greater hours without suffering, for me, integer "0." So after two weeks on this medication dosage I'll sum the points. Then I'll sum the points for two weeks before I started the medication. Then I'll calculate the percent gain in time without suffering.
Recently, I experienced both the worst anxiety and depression episodes than I ever had in my life. I gave those extreme events a value of "4."
I would like to know if my numbering system applies only to me or if it can be generalized usefully to others. Before you start charting your date (numbers), you need to arrive at the set of numbers you will use. Then you need to "define" each number with the symptom you have that fits that number, so the same number always means the same thing.
Please let us know what numbers or scale you come up with particularly if they are different from mine. Maybe you'll have some good ideas to share.
It sounds like your doing research on the members.... I don't know what other purpose keeping a spreadsheet would benefit someone with, other than confirming the days they really feel crappy and the ones that are better....that's just data.
Research on the members? No ! The contrary! I am doing research on myself and revealing my personal stuff to others--simply a method to evalate status as objectively as possible. That, in itself, is comforting. It's not "just data." It's what the data signifies and means with respect to changes in your condition/suffering.
okie dokie then.... I see you have a system that seems to work for you...we watch out for each here, and your approach seemed a bit like what we used to do in my science classes to collect empirical data for graph analysis....so.... I'm sure you can understand my concern. I am an old timer more or less here after 7 years, and your welcome here as any other member wanting to connect and share.
Ah, thank you, fauxartist. I fully understand and appreciate what you mean when you say that you look out for each other here. I guess that for any newcomer like me there is always suspicion until that person can demonstrate his/her bona fides. So I understand. Given that in your science classes you would collect empirical data for graph analysis, indicates that you could have appreciate for an evaluation like the one I recommended! As an example, in summing weekly or monthly points, it would be easy to create a bar graph. And moods are discrete, identifiable things and, therefore, empirical. If it means anything, my psychoanalyst, M.D. at a major U.S. university, thinks my idea is a great idea! For one thing it means you are on the road to understanding your pain. A strong use case it to compare summed points for mood before taking medication and after medication reaches "steady state." That's kind of a no brainer.
Hello All: Could an "oldtimer" here please explain to me how I introduce a new post to this thread as OP (me) when I am not replying to a specific member?
The tip I offered using a number scheme for daily mood evaluation is not so much a tip that can help to relieve suffering as it is a means of evaluation. However, being able to evaluate objectivively how you are doing is comforting. It is more comforting knowing than not knowing, so, in that sense, you might get a tiny increment in relief. I have other tips that directly bear on providing a little or some relief which I will offer here. All together, these 10 or so tips that I will offer, along with the evaluation method are part of a package. A package of tools that you can use when medication or therapy is not successful at that moment and you are in pain. Hopefully, besides discussion, others here will share their tips and we can, therefore, help each other. Whether a particular tip is useful or not, we will benefit from some mood uplift just by virtue of communicating here and making a connection.
Here is another tip. This tip applies more to anxiety than to depression and it references what happens when you wake up at night feeling very anxious and disturbed, at an extreme, that you are losing your sense of self, that you could die, imminent annhihilation. Such feeling are terrible and beyond words. Here's the tip: When you are feeling such the worst place to be is lying down when you are in a helpless position. Lying down is always more helpless than sitting or standing. Even worse, it is dark, and you cannot see. This is worst position to be in when you are suffering as such. So get up, move to another room, turn on the lights, and sit in a chair. Connect with someone--talk--and try engaging in some light activity such as solitaire on the computer, etc. Speaking for myself, this will NOT remove my suffering but it will lessen it to a degree. And we know that the horrible suffering passes in time. So write the time down so you have a reference point and wait until you feel better. Also, do you have an emergency list of people you can call 24/7? That special childhood friend? Do not lie down again until you are sleep and or symptoms subside significantly.
Here is another tip that relates to a daily numbering system to evaluate mood. This is the same numbering system but you apply it everytime you have a mood shift, better or worse, anxiety or depression or both, and you track during the day on a notepad. This is for EXTREME suffering where you feel you are going out of your mind and can barely hang on.
Here's an analogy. Compare these sudden mood changes to a roller coaster. On this roller coaster you are blindfolded. You don't know when a sharp turrn or descent is going to come. Monitoring in discrete units of time is like taking that blindfold off--the analogy doesn't fit exactly. So, today, for me, I woke up free of "ad" anxiety depression, so I wrote 6:15 AM "0."
If I continue to feel well, I'll just leave it alone. But suppose at 10 AM I feel light but tolerable depression. Then I'll write 10:00 AM 1d. Ooops! Now I have painful (suffering ) anxiety at 10:20, so I'll write 1.5a. Now I'm on the roller coaster and frightened. I'm hoping that that 1.5a will decrease. If it does, I'll write that new value. For myself, I observe that my values increase (more suffering) around the middle of the day when I have finished my morning activities and don't know what I'm going to do next--dangerous open spaces and uncertainty.
I have no idea whether you would find this technique comforting. I do. YMMV. For anyone who tries it, let us know. Some may criticize the idea but, really, the only way to find out if it's a good idea or not is to try an experiment--test it--and find out.
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