I'm very open about my struggle with my mental health. I've dealt with depression for more than half of my life, and some days are easier than others. This post is all about the tools in my journal I've used to deal with mental health, either in tracking my mood fluctuations throughout the day or in distracting myself during a downward spiral. I'm a firm believer in using all of the tools I can to get through, no matter how small.
I was having a shaky episode this weekend. I needed to distract myself from going off the proverbial deep end, or from catastrophizing, as I am wont to do. I needed to do something other than scroll through social media and panic, but I was in such a state that I couldn't focus on any actual activities. So, I made this spread.
I drew "anatomical" (in quotes as I am sure these are not really close to being anatomically correct) figures of the brain, heart, and ribs. To me they represent the constant battle of depression in sorting out the conflicting messages of what your illness tells you and what you know to be true. In the background, I scrawled the lyrics to Halsey songs (in particular from the album Badlands) until I calmed down. The repetitive action gave me something in which to channel my energy. The lyrics themselves captured a lot of what I was feeling. And my cramped, crabbed handwriting really fits the whole desperate and anxious vibe of this page.
In terms of actual managing my illness, I've found that a lot of traditional mood trackers don't work for me. Trackers like this or this track the mood by the day, but that's not as effective for me. Due to the nature of my illness, I have a lot of intense mood swings throughout the day, and it can be hard to choose just one overarching mood to capture the feeling of the whole day. I'm also about to meet with a new doctor to manage medications and moods, so I wanted to see if there was a pattern to my mood swings. I developed this tracker below to do exactly that.
Each color represents a mood. My code is very specific to me, meaning that I use pink and purple to represent the happier sides since pastels are some of my favorites. A lot of journalers put their colors within the theme of the month, but I don't find that to be productive. I've been using the same sort of colors since I started tracking my moods more than two years ago. I now associate them easier and thus can look at the tracker to know immediately what that day was like.
I go further that that, though. I have additional codes in the back that I use to track extenuating factors. For instance, I use a red dot next to the date to mark whether I have my period, since menstruating can at times affect your mood. I also use colored dots to track how many cups of coffee I have a day as well as how many glasses of alcohol that I might have, as studies have shown that they may affect mood. Other colored dots next to the date will represent any medication use or changes.
Some of the other trackers I use are much more specific to me, but it can be certainly helpful if you are trying to manage your moods and behaviors. I'll use certain patterns of dots, lines, or shapes over the moods in the bar themselves for certain behaviors. That way I can see if a behavior matches to a situation, a time, or a circumstance. A triangle over an area will represent impulsive behavior, like on Friday morning when I impulse spent even though I knew I shouldn't.
All of this likely seems like overkill. And it kind of is. If you don't suffer from mood swings or mood regulation, it might seem unnecessary to go this in depth with a tracker. That is probably why so many bujo bloggers just attach one mood to one day, since they won't experience the switches that someone like me might. But I am tired of being beholden to my moods. I want to get some sort of control, or at least understand why my mood is constantly in flux. This sort of tracker helps me to at least attempt to do that. Activities like this are part of why I think journaling can be so helpful, since it is entirely personalized. Your tracker doesn't have to look like mine, we can customize them to our own needs.
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