Surviving the Worst Day Ever

Dear Sheila,

When something bad happens to me during the day I think, oh no, here we go again. invariably, once a bad thing happens the whole day continues to go sour and by the end of the day I’m so upset all I want to do is go home, ignore everything I need to do (I’m usually a very productive person) and sit in front of the TV and zone out. I’ve even been known to take a few days off because I’m still in such a bad mood. It just seems like a domino effect when some aspect of my day falls apart, i.e. getting a parking ticket, finding out a client has reversed his decision and the project I’ve been working on for weeks is no longer needed, etc. I don’t understand why everything else goes bad once my day gets headed in the wrong direction. I’m not a superstitious person but I cannot shake the idea that I’m powerless to stop the day from completely tanking, turning into a nightmare and feeling like the worst day ever. Why does this happen to me?

-Downhill Dave in Mukilteo

Dear Dave,

Yuck. Sounds like you believe you are in quicksand and, in a way, you are! Because you BELIEVE you are powerless to change the direction of your day you continue to perceive every new event in the worst light, trapping you deeper and deeper in the muck of negativity. On another day, when you haven’t already decided things are going wrong I’ll bet if you were to get a parking ticket, for example, you might see it as an inconvenient hassle but not catastrophic.
Here are some ways to approach the events of a potentially bad day:

1. Check in with yourself after the first event to see what your negative expectations are for the rest of the day. Are you anticipating disaster and thus finding it everywhere? In other words, are you creating a self- fulfilling prophesy?

2. Are you distorting events, making them worse than they truly are? Cognitive distortions play a big part in how we feel about events and ourselves. If you are making comments after getting a parking ticket, for example, like “great, now my day is ruined!” How can it not be? You’ve just set yourself up for a nasty day. Watch out for exaggerations that you are buying into with words like: ruined, awful, worst, always, never, etc. Typically, events don’t actually fall into these categories.

3. Are there any advantages that come from having a bad day? I know this sounds strange but usually there is some sort of payoff to our thinking be it positive or negative. You mentioned that you are usually very productive? Could it be that having a bad day is a way you can give yourself permission to chill out and not think or do anything for a little while? Allowing yourself some downtime even when things are going well may be a way to diminish a subconscious need for bad days just so you can check out for a little while.
4. An alternative tack if you just can’t turn your thinking around would be to simply accept the day’s bad events and say to yourself, “yup, crummy day-no big deal. So what. I’ve gotten through this before and I’ll get through it again.” Sometimes, just accepting the “inevitable” gives us room to let go, stop trying to control the situation and move through the negativity faster than if we’re fighting it and actually aggravating the situation .

Here’s to better days ahead.