Learn About My Weather: Evaluating the Severity of Symptoms

On any given day, it’s fairly important to take the day’s weather into consideration. It affects how you dress & mentally prepare for your day: for instance, a storm would mean more clothes are needed & more time for your commute it needed, so you’ll need to leave a little earlier. The weather affects your life every single day. Some activities are only available when it’s sunny, like tanning. Regardless of the circumstance, weather plays an important role in the daily life of every individual.

Here is a sampling of my personal mental weather & what it means in terms of symptom severity:

• Sunny: Completely stable & doing well

• Overcast: Mostly stable with manageable symptoms

• Sprinkling rain: Warning signs are seen as symptoms slowly worsen; mostly manageable

• Raining: Symptoms are consistent & persistent & cause some impairment in daily functioning

• Raining heavily: Symptoms deeply disturb & impair daily functioning

• Flash flood: Symptoms are so severe suicide seems appealing

• Thunder & lightning: Psychosis is dominant (rare & always severe)

• Blizzard/ ice storm: PTSD symptoms are dominant (rare & always intense)

If you’re checking in on me, a great question is, “How’s your mental weather today?” or, “How is your personal weather fairing?” This makes it a little easier to talk about.