The mood meter

I’m my previous place of work I had a mood meter drawn on the whiteboard next to my work desk. Thanks to my sister it had pretty matching pictures to go with different moods and every morning (or sometimes few times during the day) I would change it to indicate my current mood. I can’t remember why or how I came up with it. But it ended up being very useful. After suffering relatively serious depression for about 2 years I was worried about its re-recurrence and very wary of missing the first early warning signs of it. So when my mood meter was stuck in negative part for more than one day I would examine my feelings to figure out the reason and try to do something to lift the mood if appropriate. I wish blogger had mood label similar to livejournal as I miss my mood meter.

In one of our recent Skype conversations my mum pointed out that I was much more positive during my pregnancy and first few difficult weeks of Cats life than I am now. Since I can’t deny her correctness, I had to think about my reasons for not being as happy as I could and should, specially because so far Cat was a very easy baby. I think the main problem is having more responsibilities and no set priorities or plan. If I manage to nap, while Cat sleeps; I get frustrated about how little else got done during the day. If I spend all free time doing housework, I feel drained. If I neglect housework I get irritated at the messiness (I like living in a clean house) or our unhealthy eating. If I take time to read a book or watch a movie, I ponder if it is fair to take time for myself instead of doing something useful for the family. If I see friends in the evening, I feel happy, but exhausted. If I don’t, I feel isolated and lonely. Etc. I realised that I like having a plan for a day when I wake up, I like knowing what I need to get accomplished and having something fun/relaxing to look forward to. I also know that it takes me time to adjust emotionally to the new situations. I need to muse and whinge about new things before I’m 100% happy.

Clearly (in theory, not so easy in practice) my two highest priorities should be Cat’s and my wellbeing. So last two days I spent trying to figure out Cat’s new pattern of eating, sleeping, playing to see how much non-Cat time I have. Once that’s done I can try to understand how many other things I can fit into my day or let slip to keep myself happy, This weekend I’ll try to sit down with Clive to discuss some sort of joint action plan to keep three of us healthy and happy.

BTW my mood of last two days was very positive thanks to warm sunny weather and lots of time spent outside (and realisation that I’m OK with postponing the cleaning of the flat for the fresh air and sunshine). Until spring settles in properly, I’m going to rejoice that the gloom of London winter is almost over.