Excellent Ways to Make a Bad Day Much, Much Worse
If you’ve ever had a Bad Day, you’ll know there’s always a moment where things could still go either way. You could recover, reset, have a snack, go outside or watch terrible television and emotionally stabilise via carbohydrates.
Or you could pour petrol on the emotional campfire and turn “a bit flat” into a full internal collapse by 2:15 pm.
Humans are incredibly talented at this. In fact, many of us respond to Bad Days with the exact strategies most likely to deepen them. Like emotional raccoons, we keep rummaging through the psychological bins, making things worse for ourselves.
Recognise any of these?
Everythings Fine
Denial can be fun. Let’s ignore all the tiny warning lights flashing on the dashboard and simply continue accelerating directly into emotional oncoming traffic.
Somewhere along the way, we started treating ourselves like rental cars. Strange noise? Keep driving. Feeling tired? Push through. Overwhelmed? Go harder. Emotionally fragile? Don’t be dramatic, keep functioning.
There’s almost a strange pride attached to it. People talk about running on three hours sleep, surviving on caffeine and “just getting through” like they’re recounting an ultramarathon rather than describing a nervous system quietly filing a complaint. Yet instead of recognising this as a sign that we’re not operating at full capacity, many of us react by becoming aggressively efficient.
It’s time to really double down and answer more emails, add more tasks, stay later, volunteer for things, reorganise cupboards and attempt life admin that would normally require the emotional stability of a Swiss diplomat. In denial where everything is fine, nothing to see here, we seem to be saying, “I appear to be approaching psychological collapse, so now seems like the perfect time to power through harder.”
And because everyone around us is doing the same thing, the behaviour starts to look normal. We celebrate people for “keeping going” without always noticing that sometimes what they’re pushing through is exhaustion, grief, overwhelm, stress or the early stages of becoming an anecdote in someone else’s wellbeing seminar.
The tricky thing about denial is that it can look very productive for a while. Until suddenly you’re crying because the printer jammed, rage-texting your internet provider, or staring blankly into the fridge, wondering if cheese counts as dinner and emotional support.
Doomscroll Your Way Down
One of the worst things you can do on a Bad Day is hand your emotional state over to the internet and ask it to confirm your worst fears. And yet many of us do exactly that.
You wake up feeling flat, anxious or emotionally crunchy, and within minutes the algorithm is serving you: “Seven signs you’re burning out,” “How to tell if your workplace is toxic,” “Five clues people secretly dislike you.” Well, fantastic. Exactly the energy we needed today.
Bad Days have already tilted the brain negatively. Stress narrows thinking, and suddenly you stop gathering information and start gathering proof - proof your boss hates you, proof your relationship is doomed, proof everyone else is coping better than you. A colleague replies “Thanks” instead of “Thanks!” and suddenly your brain is standing in front of an imaginary conspiracy board with red string yelling: “IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.”
Social media makes this worse because the algorithm loves feeding you more of whatever emotional state you’re already in. If you’re hopeful, it gives you inspiration. If you’re spiralling, it practically pulls up a chair. And somehow doomscrolling feels productive. Like you’re “researching” your feelings instead of accidentally deepening them.
One more video. One more post. One more stranger explaining why everyone is emotionally depleted and should move to a cottage immediately. The human brain loves certainty — even terrible certainty. Which is why bad days can get much worse when we start collecting evidence for the worst possible version of reality.
Turn Aunt Doris Up to Eleven
Most of us have an inner critic. That voice that quietly comments on things. You may remember mine, Aunt Doris, who is my inner detractor. So if you want to really make a Bad Day badder, your Aunt Doris is going to need a few chardonnays, access to a megaphone that goes up to eleven, a stadium tour and pyrotechnics.
Listen as she shares helpful advice that starts with phrases like, “Oh, well done,” “Yes, everyone noticed,” “You do this every time,” “At your age?” or “Interesting choice.”
On Bad Days, your brain interprets wildly unhelpful commentary as objective truth. You’re not tired, you’re failing. You’re not stressed, you’re incapable. You didn’t make a mistake, you are a mistake.
Aunt Doris loves a Bad Day because your defences are down and your perspective is shaky. On normal days, she’s background noise. On Bad Days, she gets a megaphone, a spotlight and apparently a full Netflix special. Suddenly, every mistake becomes a pattern. Every awkward moment becomes evidence. Every tiny wobble gets narrated like the collapse of Western civilisation.
Bad Day Doris doesn’t just comment on the situation. She rewrites your entire autobiography in a deeply judgmental tone, with absolutely no fact-checking.
Make Major Life Decisions
Bad Days have a sneaky way of convincing you that your temporary feelings are actually profound insights. Suddenly, everything feels symbolic. A slightly awkward meeting? Clearly, you should resign. A disagreement with your partner? Perhaps you should leave them and move to a remote coastal town and “start over.” One unanswered text? Well, society has collapsed.
On Bad Days, the brain becomes a terrible life coach. Everything feels urgent, absolute and permanent. This is why bad days are not the ideal time to:
quit your job
break up with someone
send “honest” emails
get bangs
text your ex
decide your whole life has been a lie
There’s a reason why you don’t do the grocery shopping when you are hungry. Frankly, we should apply similar restrictions to major decisions while emotionally spiralling.
Bad Days happen. They’re part of being alive. But a surprising amount of suffering comes from what we add on top: the pushing, the catastrophising, the self-attack. So if you want to be the best worst self you can be, get your Bad Day to recruit some backup.