Hi Somnia. welcome to te forums and congratulations for starting working on the program. It is supposed to work in each session for one week before moving on. The mood tracker tool is for daily use and at least for the entire duration of the program so you could watch your progress. You could use the activity tracker tool for a few weeks and until you start noticing some improvement. Feel free to add any questions you have. The important thing with CBT is to give at least 1 month before evaluation its effectiveness.
Hi. I´m new here, started the program a couple of days ago. But I see how just observing my activity troughout the day is helping me to feel a bit better. I´ve been depressed for the last 2 or 3 months and now I´ve feel motivated enough to start to do somthing about it (like this program), so I´m pretty excited about it.
I´ve read Session 1 and want to know how many days I need to use my activity and mood tracker so I can move into Session 2. One week? Two? Or more time?
Thanks for the advice.
English is not my native tongue, sorry if there are mistakes in my post.
What Ashley says about learning to challenge and replace negative statements is so true! It does take work, but once you get it... wow, whole new outlook on life. Acknowledging the negative is an important first step in my opinion. So, again... great work!
Thank you for posting your thoughts. It looks like you came to a lot of important realizations - an you are only on the first session!
Keep working on it and you will see results.
You will eventually learn to challenge and replace all the statements and questions in your bottom paragraph. Hang in there! We will help you every step of the way.
I finally finished session 1. After reading through it, especially the causes of depression, I related to most of them. Mostly the relationship one, that's the first time I read something like that or did an activity on it. I also think I have a lot of stress. I know that childhood trauma and neglect have something to do with it. Social isolation...because I don't talk about it and hold it inside. Low self esteem, problems with thinking (negatively or can't think my way out of it) and behaviors By using the activity tracker, I noticed the reoccurring low moods were caused by mostly social which leads to stress and the others, but it also occasionally depends on the time of day and my energy level. I can change my moods very quickly which right now is something I don't know how to control. I'm almost scared of my own emotions or emotional reactions. I did however notice that just feeling what i feel made my day a little better.
I am glad that I am realizing that this is a medical issue, and not an "I'm a useless person", or labeling myself as lonely, isolated, It always happens, It'll never stop, I'm an awful person, I can't do this, what's wrong with me? Why can't I be happy without the lows that follow? Why can't I smile? Why do I feel so ashamed? How can I be so trusting and happy one minute and so untrusting and sad the next. It has a name. Maybe I have more than one name.
I found the activity tracker very useful and after a few days I started feeling a little better. I noticed some evidence that connects what I am doing with my mood. The problems that I have in my job have an huge impact in my mood. But I also have mood swings due to personal issues.
Right now I am updating the mood tracker everyday and writting on the activity tracker worksheet 3 or 4 times daily.
I definately do struggle with this as well. My ups and downs almost seem unrelated to daily activities. Some days a swim will be calming and soothing and other times it's just another headache. When I've reached a goal, that I expect to feel good about it and then I crash and burn when I don't.
I'm hoping to find a trend at some point. If I look at events one day at a time, I might not see it. But I'm sure over a period of weeks or even months I will find a pattern. Something can happen this week that only catches up with me next week.
The important focus for me is to track everything. The more information you have the more likely you are to find an answer, or just part of an answer.
Hi Mellie... thank you so much for posting this question. I have been thinking the same thing... does anyone else fluctuate from one end to the other? I was going to ask if it is normal or just me? I was kind of embarrassed to be asking such questions the second time around, so thank you for bringing it up. At least I'm not the only one. I don't think it is a matter of it fluctuating because we are paying attention... but, since we are paying attention it is hard not be alarmed by the changes. Maybe that's why I like using a 0 - 10 scale. The fluctuations don't seem soooo drastic. Ha.
I don't really believe we are doing the tracking "wrong" or that we are crazy. Maybe the point of this exercise is just to be aware of what is happening in our day and what is causing the ups and downs. Perhaps most people have these fluctuations but they are somehow better able to manage them overall. The CBT program does teach us how to take things in stride more... without judging ourselves so harshly. It's hard to remember that when the depression is so active.
I hope we have an Health Educator around to clarify...
So today is the first day of tracking my hourly mood and I feel like I may be doing it wrong and perhaps it's the 0-100 scale that is confusing me as well....I'm just looking at the first half of my day, and according to my hourly mood, I have fluctuated from 90 (crying in the shower wondering why i'm even alive) to 0 (getting a very exciting phone call!) I'm wondering if every hour my brain has a whole new way of calculating my moods or if they are in fact fluctuating like crazy....Did anyone else experience this?
