I track our moods. I use apps. I like data. I want to see if there are patterns, if I’m gauging what I see and feel properly.
I use Mood Log to track Hope’s moods. It’s a simple app, with a clean interface. You can add emotions or behaviors and associate them with highs or lows as you desire. I try to log in the morning for consistency, though sometimes I’ll log big mood swings over the course of a day. It has helped in giving me some insights into how often her moods change…or rather how often I interpret a mood change.
Hope’s Mood Log
I’ve been doing this for about two months now. I do look back at the week trends, but I only recently started looking at the trends over the two months. Hope’s weeks start low and the closer she gets to the weekend the better her overall moods are. I can see now in retrospect how stressed she must’ve been on Monday mornings going to school and how tough it must’ve been for her to rough it through the week.
It’s also become easier for me to just see regular ole teenage mood swings and those influenced by hormonal changes. Moving forward I’m hoping this will help me take a lot more things in stride.
I realized in order for me to do that, I needed to pay closer attention to my own moods. I use the app Pacifica to track mine. It is a little more dynamic that Mood Log.
My logs on Pacifica
I find I tend to rate myself more conservatively over time. For me to rate myself on the higher/good mood end I probably have to be ecstatic; really negative engagements with Hope during which we blew the roof off the house, will get dramatically lower rating. Despite the extremes, I know my mood shift more than what I record. I find it interesting that I don’t seem as honest with myself as I do when I rating Hope. I’m not sure who I’m trying to impress.
At any rate, mood tracking helps me try to figure US out a bit more. I also share them with our therapists, who find them helpful in seeing what happens between visits.
Anyone else tracking moods? What are you using? Does it help?
AdoptiveBlackMom 
July 20th, 2016 at 3:24 pm
There is a free app I use for my health issues called Symple. You track symptoms (rate how present/severe each of them are at various times of day) and factors (mark if that factor (ex: took a medication) existed that day) and it correlates them for you. You could run it so Hope’s mood and behaviors are symptoms, then your own mood and characteristics about the day are factors. I find it helpful as long as I keep it simple and don’t get carried away with trying to track a dozen symptoms and factors!
July 20th, 2016 at 3:36 pm
Cool, there is a desktop version so I’ll check it out. We’re a Google house! 🙂
I like the fact that I can note if medication was taken. She’s good about the morning meds but not a good about the night time ones.