Tracking progress and good news

First the good news!  With almost three months after my ‘walk off’ I am absolutely making progress.  The bad days are less severe.  The good days are trending upward.  It is really SLOW progress but I can see and tell the difference.

 

Tracking my symptoms helps me cope.  I am analytical by nature.  It is almost meditative for me to think about it in this way. 

 

I am wondering if anyone else does this and what your system is?

 

Here is mine:

 

Each day is labeled green, red or yellow as defined below.  I track symptoms each day as well as severity of symptoms for the red days on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most severe.  I record more detail and thoughts on symptoms more qualitatively as well.

 

The trend month over month on number of green versus red days and severity of the symptoms tell me whether I am making progress. 

 

A day can be labeled G, Y, or R1, R2, R3, R4, and R5.

 

I've defined my labels as follows:

• Green (good) day:  Full clarity! 90% or more symptom free.
  
• Red (bad) day:  Near full day of debilitating symptoms mostly including anxiety, feeling of suffocation, depression, pacing endlessly, insomnia that causes symptoms, exhaustion.  R1’s - less debilitation while R5’s are very, very severe.
  
• Yellow (just ok): All days in between green and red.
  

   

To compare this to windows and waves, my feeling is that green are windows and red are waves.  Yellow may still be waves but much, much less intense.  I am still debating this internally.

 

Cool idea.  I do not track.  I am a very abstract big picture person.  I have a kind of inner map for time frames:  every 3 weeks a wave, then every 3 weeks a milder wave, then an almost nothing wave, then no wave.  I just notice that I feel better and better and practice gratitude every day.  4 months post benzo and I feel so good now  .  I take note of what I am doing over time that has made a difference. 

Congratulations on the good news. The nature of this beast is that progress is usually gradual but as long as you can say it's definite, that has to be a good thing.

 

Sounds like a good idea to track your progress. All I'd say in caution is to keep in mind that when we measure something, we are bound to distort the outcome. That can be a good thing and presumably is why you're doing it... but don't be scared to take a break from it and leave a gap in your data. I'm an analytical person too and sometimes can get too caught up in something, so that's where my advice comes from. But while it's working for you, this is a great idea. It encourages mindfulness IMO, which is always good.