Tracking Progress: My Personal Depression Update


Tracking progress - that's right, I said 'PROGRESS'! Today I am going to share my progress report. Do you keep track of your depression progress? If you don't track your progress you will feel like you are not getting anywhere and you will get even more depressed.

 Here is how I have progressed. Keep in mind that I have bipolar disorder and so I have to track both my high moods and my low moods. I have learned to recognize when my moods are on the move, which unfortunately they usually are! I can tell when I am getting too high and I can feel when I am sinking.Unknown Object

I have to take care of handling the rough times, both high and low and maintaining the good times. First I will tell you what I do to maintain.

 MAINTENANCE

 The keyword here is TRY. I try every single day to have a hot bath(something I love), a walk, talk to at least one person other than my husband, do one little thing I really enjoy and eat well. I try to avoid refined sugar and manage to succeed about 50% of the time. I completely avoid alcohol, caffeine and try to avoid chocolate. I also try, but don't always succeed to keep a fairly tidy house. Order makes me feel better and when I look around at a neat house I say to myself  'well, at least I can do that!'

 Those are the things I try do to maintain and by tracking my progress I can see when they work. I really have some success with this and I can see progress. But I spend almost as much time handling the highs and the lows as I do maintaining because my moods are constantly changing.

 BEST RECOVERY METHOD FOR ME

 One thing that I do for both high and low moods is REST which seems the safest solution for me. And since fatigue is such a big contributor, rest is a great antidote. Another thing I do for both moods is deep breathing, always a nerve calming exercise. The one thing I must do is respond to the mood changes with something that will hopefully prevent the depression from becoming a full blown, rock bottom depression, or the high moods from becoming full blown manic. If I don't pay attention to the signs, I am in big trouble.

 By tracking progress I can sometimes predict a mood change before it gets out of hand.

 PROGRESS!

 By tracking progress I can SEE progress. It is a worthwhile strategy. The good news is that I no longer get into big trouble any more because I spend most of my time handling this illness. So, I have progressed, BUT, I have to get my husband to remind me all the time that I have made progress because when I get down, I forget that and I feel I am once again in the depths of depression and I will never ever ever feel better again!

 WHAT ABOUT YOU? How are you feeling? Are you making some progress? Are you ready to start tracking that progress?

 There is hope for depression.

 Don't give up!

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