This is the exact opposite of my experience. Mood tracking just makes me focus on how bad I feel. Thinking “this too shall pass” of bad moods and “carpe diem” of good ones makes me go “I know I’m biased the other way, but come on, at least pretend to be consistent”. I know low points go away, but I know they’ll come back worse so it’s even more depressing. I know high points will come back, but I know they’ll be weaker each time and that soon my best mood will be my current worst mood. Actually curing the depression is the only thing that helped.
Actually curing the depression is the only thing that helped.
What did you use to actually cure it? Is this the kind of depression that was probably a result of a random imbalance of neurotransmitters, rather than anything actually going hugely wrong in your life? In that case, yeah–if your mood is unrelated to your surroundings and seems to be newly and frighteningly negative, I can see that tracking it wouldn’t be helpful.
Is this the kind of depression that was probably a result of a random imbalance of neurotransmitters, rather than anything actually going hugely wrong in your life?
That distinction is pretty artificial. If you must know the history, my childhood sucked big time in several different ways. When circumstances improved, the depression made my life get worse rather than better. Then I got on meds, so the depression went away and I could start picking up the pieces.
be newly and frighteningly negative
Sure, if you’re in okay circumstances and it doesn’t creep up on you and you can do something about it. If you don’t actually remember the last time you were healthy, it just feels normal.
If there are hugely wrong things with your life but you’re just too lazy and scatterbrained to fix them, it’s a great idea to put them on the back burner and go fix your brain first.
Sometimes to get better, things have to get worse first. Just because something makes you focus on how bad you feel doesn’t mean it can’t be productive in the longer run. Though I suppose if you’re depression is so severe that that extra focus might tip you over the precipice, I can see why you might not want to risk it.
I am curious to know what “Actually curing the depression” required for you?
Sometimes to get better, things have to get worse first.
Sure—the operative word was “just”. The forms of it I could sustain didn’t help over five years or so.
I am curious to know what “Actually curing the depression” required for you?
Meds.
Specifically, things got so horrible that I was forced to drop my plans of getting medical insurance in order beforehand, and to go to a doctor, who promptly handed me off to a psychiatrist, who put me in the loony bin for a few days and on meds. The meds turned out to make it worse, so I was put on a different med, which worked so quickly and miraculously that the psychiatrist feared I was going hypomanic.
Thanks for sharing this. Its the first time I’ve heard this response, but not surprising that many people have it.
Its my belief that learning what reality is for you is power, even if it is depressing, because then you can see results as you change things. If you go from extreme depression to moderate depression, you might realize it while tracking, when you otherwise wouldn’t. If you realize that you have changed, you are much more likely to make lasting updates and continue in the right direction with new behaviors than if you don’t know whether or not the new behaviors are doing anything.
It sounds like MixedNuts has a problem like mine—a part of the self which is frequently poised to attack on just about any pretext. Here’s a very extreme version.
I’ve gotten some relief from working on moving my sense of self from the attacking voice to the rest of me.
I’m not sure how much habitually looking at one’s self from the outside (is this really possible? maybe it’s a hypothesized outside) is a problem in itself, and how much it’s only a problem if the outside view is a hanging judge.
This is the exact opposite of my experience. Mood tracking just makes me focus on how bad I feel. Thinking “this too shall pass” of bad moods and “carpe diem” of good ones makes me go “I know I’m biased the other way, but come on, at least pretend to be consistent”. I know low points go away, but I know they’ll come back worse so it’s even more depressing. I know high points will come back, but I know they’ll be weaker each time and that soon my best mood will be my current worst mood. Actually curing the depression is the only thing that helped.
What did you use to actually cure it? Is this the kind of depression that was probably a result of a random imbalance of neurotransmitters, rather than anything actually going hugely wrong in your life? In that case, yeah–if your mood is unrelated to your surroundings and seems to be newly and frighteningly negative, I can see that tracking it wouldn’t be helpful.
Meds.
That distinction is pretty artificial. If you must know the history, my childhood sucked big time in several different ways. When circumstances improved, the depression made my life get worse rather than better. Then I got on meds, so the depression went away and I could start picking up the pieces.
Sure, if you’re in okay circumstances and it doesn’t creep up on you and you can do something about it. If you don’t actually remember the last time you were healthy, it just feels normal.
If there are hugely wrong things with your life but you’re just too lazy and scatterbrained to fix them, it’s a great idea to put them on the back burner and go fix your brain first.
Sometimes to get better, things have to get worse first. Just because something makes you focus on how bad you feel doesn’t mean it can’t be productive in the longer run. Though I suppose if you’re depression is so severe that that extra focus might tip you over the precipice, I can see why you might not want to risk it.
I am curious to know what “Actually curing the depression” required for you?
Sure—the operative word was “just”. The forms of it I could sustain didn’t help over five years or so.
Meds.
Specifically, things got so horrible that I was forced to drop my plans of getting medical insurance in order beforehand, and to go to a doctor, who promptly handed me off to a psychiatrist, who put me in the loony bin for a few days and on meds. The meds turned out to make it worse, so I was put on a different med, which worked so quickly and miraculously that the psychiatrist feared I was going hypomanic.
Thanks for sharing this. Its the first time I’ve heard this response, but not surprising that many people have it.
Its my belief that learning what reality is for you is power, even if it is depressing, because then you can see results as you change things. If you go from extreme depression to moderate depression, you might realize it while tracking, when you otherwise wouldn’t. If you realize that you have changed, you are much more likely to make lasting updates and continue in the right direction with new behaviors than if you don’t know whether or not the new behaviors are doing anything.
It sounds like MixedNuts has a problem like mine—a part of the self which is frequently poised to attack on just about any pretext. Here’s a very extreme version.
I’ve gotten some relief from working on moving my sense of self from the attacking voice to the rest of me.
I’m not sure how much habitually looking at one’s self from the outside (is this really possible? maybe it’s a hypothesized outside) is a problem in itself, and how much it’s only a problem if the outside view is a hanging judge.