Return to the Mood Diary

No matter how long we’ve had a bipolar diagnosis, we can’t just toss out the most fundamental of tools––self tracking our moods.

When I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder nine years ago, I learned one way to track mood changes, and therefore better cope with them, was to keep a mood diary. Each day (or hour if need be), I marked down how I felt, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “the worst” and 10 being “the best”. I also noted events in my life running concurrently with my moods. After a bit of time, looking at the recorded notes in the diary, it was easy to see how things in my life and my moods fed each other, and this instructed me how I could better control things in the future.

Over time, I became skilled in observing my moods each day (or again, each hour), and more aware of how events affected me. I stopped maintaining a written mood chart, and kept it all in my head. “Oh, today’s a 6”, I’d think, “That’s just fine.” Or, “Today kind of sucks. We’ll give it a 3.” “Wow! Got. To. GO! Today and yesterday and next week will be an 11! Weeee!!! Maybe I need to slow down??” This technique worked for quite some time.

But then, for some unknown reason, I quit noting my mood rating at all. Maybe I got a little arrogant? Perhaps I thought I didn’t need to do it anymore because I was fairly stable, and keeping a diary or chart seemed like such a basic, newly-diagnosed-person’s undertaking. I was experienced now, right?

Wrong! Recent events and super-charged mood swings and triggers have shown me that a return to the ever-powerful mood ranking system is necessary. I have gone lately from 2s to 8s and back to 3s and 7s and have settled into 5s and 6s (which is just fine for right now). Using this tool, I can again look at tangible events and see what actually occurred, compare them to what I felt and process things accordingly. I feel more in control, and can cope better than when I was ignoring mood ranking, and throwing caution to the wind.

I learned that no matter how long I’ve had the bipolar diagnosis, I can’t just toss out the most fundamental of tools! Today is a solid 6.

Do you use a mood chart? Do you find it a valuable tool in your wellness quest?