Mondays and Thursdays are my best days, but Tuesdays afternoons and Saturday evenings are difficult for me.

February and March are when I feel the very best, but I tend to slip into a mild depression at the end of the lacrosse season in May.

I am more productive in the summer, but I am usually affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, in the late fall.

How do I know all this? I tracked my mood twice a day for two years with an app, iMoodJournal. Every week, I reviewed the data and noted low and high days. Then I recalled what happened on those days, and, very slowly, the bigger picture revealed itself to me.

Before I tracked my mood, I assumed that my depressive episodes were sporadic and random. Because of that, I further assumed that they were beyond my control. I felt trapped in a mental “fog of war,” a term that means, “uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.”

It is terrifying, stumbling around in the dark; knowing an enemy lurks nearby. It is even more terrifying when the enemy is your own mind.

After my hospitalization in the fall of 2016, I decided to map my mind as well as I could. iMoodJournal and PocketCBT were tools I used to spy on my internal enemy that was intent on doing me harm.

By identifying the times when depression or anxiety were most likely to launch an assault; I had time to dig a mental foxhole.

I could gather supplies and call in reinforcements. All of this gave me the mental ability to say to my depression and anxiety:

“Come Get some!”

I do not win every battle, but I no longer feel like I’m losing the war. There is immense psychological relief that comes from preparation. Whether that is rehearsing a presentation, doing breathing exercises, or telling your friends, “It’s almost winter, I may need you on some bad days,” you bolster your defenses.

While we cannot control our circumstances, we can control our reaction to them. If we have a good idea of when circumstances will change, we can be prepared and be even more in control of ourselves.