Poster child for moodtracker.com

For the last month, I have faithfully filled out my mood chart, and it has enabled me to see patterns, encouraged me to make sure I take my medication, and forced me to make changes in my life. I have started eating more healthfully, exercising more consistently, and attempting to get my 7-8 hrs. of sleep a night. I am grateful for this website! Anyone else a poster child out there?

Not yet, but I am definitely working on it.
My biggest issue is not taking my meds consistently, and then I just stop all together. I feel like if I miss one day then I'm back to square one and have to start all over since my meds usually take a couple months to really start working.

I'm glad to hear you seem to be doing better though! Yay!! :D

I too am a great fan of Mood Tracker. I print a copy every time I go and see my Dr. and it has become a great tool to help him see how exactly I have been doing through the month and then I don't have to rely on my memory.

Woop just filled in my 100th moodtracker entry!

Never would I have noticed (well I hadn't for the past 8 years or so since I've been struggling with stress and bits of depression) how closely my mood matches my sleep!

It is a slight chicken and egg though: I feel frustrated and upset with myself, so stay up later/set alarm earlier to try to catch up and get more things done, which then makes me more tired and more frustrated and upset with myself! So things aren't totally perfect yet, but I've felt much more stable during the past month than I have previously, especially since mid April when I made a conscious effort to get more sleep!

Here's a sample from the past couple of months:

Yes, I found that once I started doing those mood entries, I'm a bit better because well it's not that I feel better but now I am able to find patterns (like i tend to have epsiodes at certain points) and see what things are triggers for me (like how much sleep did I get etc)

Also it makes me feel like it's more important to take my meds because Im being held accountable to something (even if it's not a person, it's just a database) but it makes me feel like Yes I DO need to take my meds today because if I don't take my meds today then I'm going to have a big red dot on my mood chart for today. So it kind of makes me remember to take them, and know it's important to take them.

Basically I feel mood tracker has allowed me to get back control over my illness instead of letting it control me. (this isn't to say I don't have plenty of bad days, or also times when I forget to use mood tracker...but I'm saying in general it has put me in the driver's seat of my emotions.)

Also, I actually keep track of my periods now because one of the questions on each mood entry is are you menstruating? So, when I do my daily mood entry I just mark yes or no. This has allows me to track my period easily, something I've never in my life done, and so now i know if I'm having irregular periods or if I missed one etc and also if my moods coincide with my periods, etc.

Oh I forgot this: someone mentioned showing the dr your charts. This is another great thing.
The type of person I am, I will go to the dr and feel like "well I don't want to be any trouble, really I'm fine, it's not that bad, I'm really okay..."
now I AM getting better about this- every time in the past few months that I've gone to the dr, I have made a list beforehand so that if I didn't know what to say I could look at my list, but i haven't even needed the list...when I go to the dr now I have gotten better about just being honest and saying exactly how I feel and what I need help with.

I show my dr my print outs from the mood charts and this way I can show her exactly how I have been.
Before, when I went to the dr I would trivialize my problems, saying "oh I have mostly been ok...nothing that bad"
Now, we can both see exactly how I really have been.