Stressing all day

It's due to the new activities at work.  I'm lead on these.  I tracked it down to one, and ended up going into the office to work on it for a bit.  I have a lot of stuff on my work plate, so it's good that I sold my house the other week and got that off my home plate.  I spent about 1.5 hours reviewing the task and understanding what we need to do.  That helped.  This evening, I took the time to review my experiences with tomorrow in mind, thinking of what might come up at work.  I then reviewed multiple entries I have in Observations and Essays that are related to work issues.  It helped lessen a lot of my stress.  Over time, I've built these entries up and refined many of them.  They really came in handy today.

Sometimes the App isn't the Thing

Social events can really stress me.  It's the constant assault on my senses, in particular my hearing.  I have a tough time focusing on one thing including conversations with people right in front of me.  I've been this way since I was a kid.  I often just need to get away and re-charge with a walk, but even that doesn't always help.  When I'm overwhelmed like this the best thing for me to do is simply get away.  The app can help in situations like this, in terms of challenging thoughts like "I can't take this anymore."  But the real thing to do is simply thank the host and hostess (if applicable), say my good byes, and leave.  I used to think it was rude to leave before most people leave, but I really don't think anyone wants me to feel overloaded.  I have a couple of entries in the app that relate to events like these, and they can help, but like I stated earlier in this post, the best thing in these situations is to simply leave.

A Friday Night Reflection

Had an OK day.  Lot's of jumps to conclusions, usually involving conflict, coupled with overgeneralizations involving time.  This temporal exaggeration stuff has gone on for most of my life.  It's nice to be aware of this as a cognitive distortion and catch it in its early stages.  I wonder where this particular thought originated?  Hmmm.  I'll reflect on the days events and develop some challenges to these thoughts.

My Morning Reminder

I followed my morning reminder today and reviewed My Experiences with respect to my current mood and the day's events.  I was feeling a bit anxious and traced it down to jumping to conclusions and overgeneralizations.  These were my typical issues related to having multiple things on my plate and thinking that each will consume all my time due to unexpected events.  One thing that helped was focusing on just those things I needed to get done today.  I don't need to get everything done on any given day.  Scoping my effort to what was needed helped.  Another thing that helped was focusing on past experiences in this regard and recognizing that pop up events typically are not catastrophic and are usually manageable.

Getting Better at Catching Distorted Thoughts

This is why I built the app for myself.  So I have a place to record and reflect on frequent occurrences and thoughts.  Because I take the time to review my entries I'm somewhat primed to catch thoughts during my day.  Today was pretty good.  I had pop-up items and handled them pretty well.  I reflected back on my day and the thoughts that popped up.  I really have issues with time and thinking I won't have enough time to do what I need and have some fun, but more often than not, I do have time for both.  I think I'll review my prioritization scheme before turning in tonight.

For the new users...

Things to try:
Check out the hints on each page.  They are somewhat customized to each tool and will hopefully provide valuable insight.
When a reminder triggers, you can get to the home page via the home icon in the options menu.
Take your time customizing the definitions of the distortions to yourself.  I created this over a period of time.  The point of hosting this app on your phone is to provide persistent access to a place you can log your thoughts and experiences.
Feel free to post in response to this blog or post on our support page.  You can do either from your phone.
Work with your therapist on your entries.
How's that?

Thinking in Bed This Morning

I tend to wake up early and have done so most of my life.  This morning was no different, and as usual I was thinking.  Thinking about work and how the new projects might evolve, thinking about getting some exercise today, and thinking about my day in general.  Interspersed with these thoughts were reflections on the basic cognitive distortions and how they came about in my life.  I know I'm a little further along the Asperger spectrum than most, and was trying to figure out if that may have been a driver for my depression.  I have a tendency toward dichotomous thinking, which is probably a big driver of my jumping to conclusions.  Either people will support me or they will reject me.  However, in most situations people are somewhat neutral to supportive of me.  So why the negative forecasts?  I'll keep noting the way people react to my input and see if I can wear these forecasts out.

Had a Brief Incident Today

Jumping to Conclusions it was.  Mindreading too.  My wife called, telling me that she was looking at a house that just came on the market and thought it was really cute.  I was home waiting for a handyman to come and dig into an electrical issue we have.  She said something that made me think that she wanted me to come and see the house.  I had other plans for my time and thus the thoughts stated jumping.  Things like "she's going to try to coerce me into going to this open house," "she's going to be angry if I don't go," "if I go, I'll never get to the stuff I want to do," "I don't have time for this now, I need to prepare for tonight," "she shouldn't call me when I'm in the middle of something," and more.  I caught these pretty quickly and countered them with cooler thoughts.  I then reviewed My Experiences and some of my entries.  Doing that helped, though once I get excited it can take a little while to calm down.  I have a social event tonight and did some prep-work for that, so I should be good to go.

Missed a Post Yesterday

I was supposed to close yesterday, but had issues with the repairs the buyers requested.  Information was sketchy at first.  All I knew was that the buyers were not happy and that my handyman was supposed to contact the buyers' agent to find out what was wrong.  Lots of distortions, such as this will never end, the whole deal will fall through, they are holding up the deal to get more money, and more.  What did I do?  I reviewed my experiences to capture the specific distortions and then created a new entry in my event log.  It helped me capture those thoughts that were distressing me most and calm me, a bit.  I was still anxious over the whole situation, but I was better able to focus on my work and get some stuff done.  Long story short, we recorded the transfer of property with the county yesterday and today I picked up a check for the sale.  This is quite a load off me.

Just about ready to close on the house

Lost of stuff going through my head, mostly that I won't have time to do the things I need to do before we close.  I'm really jumping to conclusions here, and have been working hard to identify the few things I really need to do.  There's just a couple: look for any more keys to the house and install the smoke and CO detectors.  Really shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes.  I think I can do them all first thing in the morning without much effort.  We'll see.

Mad sure I reviewed My Experiences this Morning

As you may have seen in yesterday's post, things are getting hectic right now.  I made a point to review My Experiences and really thought about how each distortion may manifest today.  It was good to do that.  For example, all or nothing comes up as a pass/fail based on getting "everything" done.  What does "everything" mean?  All I really need is to get some things done, such as being at the house so the gas company can turn the gas back on and preparing for a telecon this afternoon.  I completed both of those as well as emptied the house of our possessions.  Jumping to conclusions popped up as forecasts of conflict and strife.  None of which happened today.  Disqualifying the Positive mostly manifested in regards to not giving myself credit for all the planning and pre-work I do to make things (work and home) happen.  I can go on, but won't.  I'm glad I made the time to review My Experiences today.  I don't always do that when things get hectic like this, but when I do it usually helps.

Interesting Day Today

I had a full day planned.  Then I learned that the house should  (not a distorted should, a real should) close this Thursday.  So, work is getting hectic, I'm picking up new projects this week, and now I have to empty my house by Thursday.  One more thing, my house was tented for termites this past weekend and the gas company will only give me a 4 hr window, so I'll need to miss work.  First thoughts: I'll never get everything done; my week is ruined; I should have had more notice of the closing date.  Look at those distortions.  One thing I did was reference the prioritization scheme.  That helped me sort out what's important and what's not.  Then I challenged some of those thoughts and I realized that I'm not alone in this, because my wife will help.  And then I scoped the effort and realized that I probably can get everything out of the house by Thursday.  The new tasks at work are spooling up slowly, which helps.  I took a power walk at lunch, which also helped.  Finally, I got to work packing the remaining things at my house this evening.  Starting on the task can really help defeat some of these thoughts.

100th Download of Trial

I just noticed that we had our 100th download of the trial version.  I hope this app is helpful for you.  I had a few hitches in the early versions of Mood Sentry Trial, most notably I had the timer crapping out about a week early, hence the poor rating on the app.  That was a hectic couple of days.  A poor rating, and the reviewer wrote in German!  I found the error and put out a fix, as well as extended the trial period for every download prior to that fix.  I should probably delete the poor rating because it does not apply to this version, but something tells me to keep it up anyway.
I may terminate the trial version in the next month or so.  I've mentioned that I've been working on a personal project at home in addition to putting the house on the market and several things at my "real" job.  Well, that personal project has been the iPhone version of Mood Sentry, which is pretty close to being complete.  I don't think I want to support 2 paid versions and 2 free versions, so I'll probably drop the free versions.  We'll see.

Had an OK Day Today

Spent the day with several other people on a hike.  I did not prepare to be around other people like I often do, and as such I think I tended to keep a little distance between myself and the others.  I just reviewed how I prepare for events like that, and I think it would have been better had I prepared.  I had a good time anyway, as did the others on the trip.
This evening, two things kind of set me off.  One was a work related phone call that I somehow missed on Friday.  That call set off some Jumping to Conclusions and Magnifications, in the form of scenarios on Monday in which I get grilled for not checking my messages and not helping when needed.  I can counter these based on experience.  I believe the person who made the call may have taken care of the situation himself.  I'll need to check on that.  If not, we'll deal with it on Monday. The other incident tonight involved a comment my wife made in regards to me thanking a person she thinks helped me sell my house.  I think my issue is related to an all or nothing interpretation of her comment.  Something like: if she thinks I need to thank someone else, then she doesn't think I deserve any of the credit for selling my house.  Nothing she said indicates any such thought on her part.  All she said is that she thinks I should thank someone who I don't think I need to thank.  That's all.
I need to review My Experiences before turning in tonight, and maybe enter a new item.

Working on Entries can be Calming

I often find that reviewing and updating entries in Mood Sentry can be calming.  I think it may be due to taking proactive action to manage my condition, and improve on that management.  Today I took the time in the morning to review my experiences, and actually read through them all.  That helped prepare me for my day.  I had a meeting after lunch and recognized that I was forecasting conflict.  I caught those thoughts and did some reflection and counter thoughts before the meeting.  That really helped.  Then this evening, I took some time to update a couple of entries I have related to not equating work with worth.   That act helped me unwind from a fairly stressful day, as did a long walk with my wife.

Rough Day at Work

When I fired up my computer I noticed a couple of e-mails related to 2 different tasks I'm supporting, both of which became very hot over night.  I had some time to review My Experiences and found that helpful.  In particular my entry on Disqualifying the Positive.  That one entry has come in handy over the past week.  It's funny how I can capture things that seem to go in and out of relevance.  I had an opportunity to review an entry on the topic of "I am not my work," which I took a moment to update.  There were other items I reviewed, but these two were quite handy today.  It's good to keep generating entries and reviewing them periodically.

Working on New Videos

I'm going to develop some videos that are specific to each function, such as My Experiences, or Daily Goals.  These will be short, maybe 2 minutes at most, but have more detail than the general overview videos I have out there now.  Is there anything you find confusing that I might be able to clear up?  Let me know via comment, or via the support page.

Had a Better Day Today

I actively worked my mood today.  I reviewed a couple of "My Experiences" this morning, ones that I thought were relevant to what's driving my mood these days.  Late this afternoon I went back to "My Experiences" and reviewed several more entries and discovered that there were more thoughts at play.  For example, this morning I reviewed Overgenerlizations and Jumping to Conclusions thinking those were some of my main mood drivers.  This afternoon I reviewed those two as well as Magnification-Minimization, Mental Filter, Disqualifying the Positive, and Emotional Reasoning.  I found that all of these have been playing some role in my mood these days, and the identified mitigation techniques helped.  Even though I created all these entries sometimes I still get surprised at how effective they can be.

Porpoising Today

Up and down in mood.  Mostly driven by the new project at work, that has yet to begin.  I'll settle down once the project is authorized and funded.  Until then, I'm racked with forecasts of failure and never ending problems countered by thoughts of success and a reasonable workload.  Feeling like I don't have time to do the things I want, but when I look back on my day I can see that I got plenty done.  That helps.

Did OK today

Woke up, reviewed some entries and set some goals.  Hit the three main goals and a few more to boot.  I did have a bout with anger in the afternoon, driven by should statements.  It had to do with a screen door I installed last week.  It was actually a very minor mistake on my part.  I tackled those thoughts pretty quickly.  I'm having some low level anxiety about an upcoming project at work.  I'm lead on this project, and if you have red some of these posts you might guess that I've been jumping to conclusions, none of which are good.  I have been balancing the negative thoughts with more positive and realistic thoughts, which has helped temper my mood a bit.  Good stuff.  I have some custom entries in my app related to new projects that I'll review in the morning.

Overcome by Emotional Reasoning...

I really hate to admit this, but I feel a need to.  I was just working on an update to the app and realized that none of the references were not loading.  I jumped to the conclusion that I broke the app.  Note that I was running on a simulator.  To aggravate things, out cockatiel was "cheeping" away right behind me.  I was trying to figure out what when wrong, the bird was cheeping, and I planned to stop working on the app a half hour ago.  I found myself in a bad mood, and was focused on all the things that were sub-optimal in my life.  If forgot to check the lawn mower today, the new project at work is going to be quite a handful, I'll need to fix the app, do some work stuff, mow the lawn, and more tomorrow.  There won't be any time for me.  And the bird won't shut up.  Anyway, I took a little break and when I came back I realized that the modem crapped out for a minute or two.  All is well now.  It's funny how quickly my thoughts can hijack my mood.

Getting Better at Catching My Thoughts

The app helps me recognize what's driving my mood.  It seems it's often the same thoughts popping up, mostly forecasts of the stuff hitting the fan and me having to fix it all.  That sounds like a personalization.  I've never really looked at my forecasts as possibly being the product of personalization.  Hmmm.  I'll try to develop a counter thought in real-time...

Stuff does hit the fan on occasion, but those occasions are rare.  When it does, I'm pretty good at analyzing the situation and assembling a team to address the issue.  I really can't think of a time during which I wasn't able to get a competent team together to fix a problem.  Looking back on today, even though there was a flurry of e-mails on certain topics, no "stuff" hit the fan.

Not bad.  What do you think?

Feeling Good Today

I slept pretty well last night, which helped a lot.  I found myself forecasting today but have been getting pretty good results pushing my thoughts to a positive outcome.  I still see things like e-mails and automatically think that there's some sort of bad news contained within, that my whole day will be ruined by what ever is contained in that little notice.  However, I'm getting better at opening them and discovering that there's really nothing catastrophic inside.  Not bad.

Under the Weather Today

Didn't sleep well last night, and had low energy, nausea, and a very scratchy throat today.  I left work early because I was not feeling well.  I have to share that last night, when tossing and turning, I was ruminating on the upcoming day's events.  I caught myself forecasting conflict, failure, and emergency after emergency.  I was able to imagine the opposite of these extremes, such as people patting me on the back and congratulating me.  Then I was able to think about a happy medium, somewhere in the middle where I simply got the job done with maybe a thank you or two.  That helped with my mood, but the heat and humidity (for So Cal) still kept me awake.

Caught a lot of Forecasting Today

I took last Friday off and thus was expecting a lot of e-mails when I checked my inbox today.  Along with that expectation came a general feeling of the stuff hitting the fan.  With every e-mail I opened, I was expecting an urgent action on my part, or even an emergency that needed to be addressed last Friday.  No such thing.  I noted that, and then reflected that such occurrences are infrequent and when they do happen are important and higher priority than the items I was planning to work on.  I then needed to contact some people (customers) and again expected conflict.  That wasn't the case either.  Actually, they stated that they like it when I contact them.  I noted that too.  Just more data for my memory.

Thinking of Adding a new tool or two

One is for addressing specific thoughts.  This would be a two window tool, like the Event Log.  The upper window would be used to capture the thought and how it impacts you.  The bottom window would be used for counter thoughts.  If you read Dr. Burns' book "Feeling Good," then think of these as hot/cool thoughts, or TIC/TOCs.  There's another tool I'm contemplating, which would be my first 3 window tool.  That sounds like a bit much for a phone display.  The top window would be used to identify a thought that is of particular concern.  The middle window would capture a simple plan to challenge that thought.  The bottom window would be a status window, capturing how you are doing to the plan.  I need to think about this a bit more.

Another Tough Day

Still ruminating on things.  I tried something new (for me) this evening.  What I did was write down a major task/todo list of the main items in each of these categories: the App, Home (the sale of my house), Work, and  Other.  I dedicated one page from one of those pads realtors like to leave on my door step to each item.  As an example, for Home I had: address buyer requested repairs, tent (for termites), move the remaining items, mow lawn.  Once I had the four pages laid out, on each page I identified the thoughts associated with that list.  Then I addressed the thoughts, identifying the distortions associated with each thought.  I was feeling overwhelmed with so much stuff going on in my life, but doing this exercise helped me feel better.  This activity was kind of large for phone based app, but I might be able to break it down into something that will fit on a phone.  We'll see.

Tough Day Today

I think it was an issue with the offer on the house that set me off and tainted just about everything that I thought of.  When I look at this issue objectively, it's not that bad.  I'm using "should" statements in regards to this issue, such as the buyers should just agree with me.  However, that's not realistic.  They should tell me what they would like and what they think, which is what they did.  Once the shoulds took hold, then came the forecasting.  I don't have the time to do this (forecast, overgeneralization).  Then the other things in my life got dragged into this.  I won't have time to update the app.  Between the house and work, I'll never have time to work on the app or on my volunteer activities or read my magazines and books.  Overgeneralizations and forecasts.  I often think I won't have time to have fun or yo do the things I think are interesting.  The reality is that I usually do have time for other pursuits.  Unfortunately, when I do these other things I often find myself ruminating on distorted thoughts.  I'm thinking these thoughts may actually be the result of perfectionist thinking.  I'll work on this.