My New Mood Action Plan

Yesterday I wrote about my Mood Action Plan.  There was some room for improvement, though I got a few things right.  Hotbrain, who's been at this longer than I have, agreed that telling your partner and your pdoc, if you have one, are both good things.  If you live with roommates it probably helps to let them in on your action plan as well, and let them know if you're feeling a little wonky.  This, of course, depends on how much you trust your roommates.

At our last MCBT class last night, we paired up with other class members to discuss our plans.  My partner also happened to be a visual artist.  He said that he'd had the chance to put his plan into action the day before (yay! depression!) but he'd run into some problems.  For instance, one of the items on his plan was to draw, because it makes him feel better.  That is, it makes him feel better when he feels like the sketches are going well -- and of course, when you're already depressed, you won't feel like your sketches are going well.

This made me think to add art to my own action plan.  It also reminded me of a story I'd we'd read and discussed in my MFA program about a ceramics class.  Half the class was told that their grade would be determined by a single bowl, so they needed to make the best bowl they possibly could.  The other half of the class was told their grade would depend on how many bowls they made -- the quality of the bowls didn't matter.

Guess which group made better bowls?

Yup.  The pressure was off the second group.  Their bowls were more beautiful and showed more creativity.  Why?  Because they could take risks.  The quality of their work didn't matter, and the result was the quality of their work was better.

I digress into this story because it's all too easy for someone in a depressive state to judge themselves harshly, like my group partner was judging his sketches.  A way around this, I thought, was to assign one's self to make 10 sketches, spending two minutes on each one.  If they don't turn out, who cares?  You only spent two minutes on each of them.  But I've worked this way before, and I know that chances are better that at least two or three of them will be worth pursuing further.

If only I could come up with an analogous practice with music ...  Anyway, here is my revised action plan, with revisions in red:

My Action Plan for Mood Symptoms Consists of the Following Steps:

• Breathing Space (use breathing space to check in: would meditation be helpful or harmful at this time?  What is the best self-care I can give myself right now? What steps do I need to take next?)
• Make a choice of what practices are most helpful to me and start using them (be nice to know what these are … sitting meditation or yoga? Try walking meditation?)
• Take specific actions, including the following steps:

1. Inform spouse
2. Inform pdoc *** if spouse is traveling, this is Step 1 ***
3. Determine what would be the best action toward self-care and do it immediately Choose among the following things:
1. Play some Bach (if order needs to be imposed on the universe) or Chopin (if feeling emo)
2. Make art (work on current project if it can't be "screwed up"; if current project is in a delicate state, make 10 sketches, taking two minutes for each one)
3. Spend time with friends/make plans with friends
4. Do housework (yeah, I know; I've somehow become one of those people who finds this soothing. Please don't hate me)

The one thing I think I need to add to this is to enlist friends who I can check in with. My partner travels a fair bit, and might not me around to notice a change in my mood, or to do anything about it if I tell him. My psychotic episode, for instance, happened when he was in Germany on business. Poor guy came home to a house full of aluminum foil.