A Moodscope buddy phoned me on Monday.

“I haven’t seen your scores recently,” he said. “What’s up? Are you feeling down again?”

He was quite right to question me. I haven’t been doing my Moodscope test daily because, yes, I’ve been feeling down and couldn’t bring myself to face what I knew would be bad news. He knows very well what’s going on; he does the same. None of us like to receive bad news, and sometimes we will go out of our way to avoid it.

I’m not talking about bad news on the TV: that is generalised and does not directly affect us, but the bad news that is personal. I know, when my A level results arrived, some 42 years ago now, I almost couldn’t bear to open them, so convinced was I that they would contain bad news. In fact, they didn’t: I’d done far better than expected, but the thought was there all the same. I know many people can’t bring themselves to open those brown envelopes that contain bills, especially if times are tight and those bills difficult to pay.

Yet trying to avoid bad news only builds up more stress. It is far better to know what you are dealing with. And sometimes, the news is better than we expect.

This applies especially to our Moodscope scores. I know I cannot be the only one who is reluctant to do the test when they know the score will be low. Yet without a full set of data, we cannot use that data to establish patterns and gain meaningful information. The negative results are as important as the positive results.

I know this is especially important for me right now. I am on some new medication and so the current data will be different to the data from previous years. I need to know what the effect of this new medication is. I know I’m lower than normal right now, but I don’t know how much lower. This is the first period for a while where my other health condition – the ulcerative colitis, now in remission – has not affected my Moodscope scores. Up to a year ago, I had a pretty good pattern to follow; I knew where I was in my cycle and could read the pattern well. With the new drug I need a new set of results so I can see the new pattern.

For those of you who do your test, I would urge you strongly to do the test every day without fail. Put an alarm on your phone for a time when it will be convenient or do it as a part of morning routine. Make doing your Moodscope score a habit – and don’t skip a day just because the score is going to be one you don’t like. Only with a full set of data will you see any meaningful pattern in your moods and be able to take any constructive action based on that information.

Mary

A Moodscope member