Perspective: What Does a Bad Day Look Like?

When Small Problems Feel Overwhelming

Welcome back to Fog of Mind, helping you to create headspace. I love talking to people about mental health because, for a long time, I did not know how to talk to myself about it. I did not recognise the signs when my own mental health was deteriorating. I carried on. I pushed through.

I normalised feeling constantly drained, irritable, and foggy. By the time I realised something was wrong, I had already been struggling for longer than I understood.That is why these conversations matter to me. If sharing perspective helps even one person notice the signs earlier than I did, it is worth having.

Talking About Mental Health

Last year, I gave a talk about where we find mental strength. I began with a simple question.

Think about your morning.
Was it a good commute or a frustrating one?

That question usually lands quickly. Delayed trains. Traffic crawling. Coffee spilt. The day already feels heavier than it needs to be.

From there, I took the audience somewhere very different.

I spoke about Dame Ellen MacArthur during her solo round-the-world yacht race. Alone in the middle of the ocean, she had to climb the mast in gale-force winds to fix a GPS antenna. No backup. No pause button. Just fear, exhaustion, skill, and resolve.

I then shared a story told by Pete Goss, another sailor from the same race. His boat began listing badly. Below deck, a container of cooking oil burst in the galley, coating everything in a salty, oily mess. Life became miserable in the most literal sense. Slippery. Uncomfortable. Relentless.

Those stories are uncomfortable because they strip things back to essentials. That is where perspective lives.

Most of us will still have bad days.
The washing machine breaks.
The car battery dies.
You lose your travel card when you are already running late.

When those moments stack up, they feel overwhelming. They narrow our focus and convince us that everything is going wrong at once.

This is where taking stock matters.

Look around. Notice what is actually happening. Separate inconvenience from catastrophe. Stress from danger. Noise from reality.

Sometimes the smallest intervention is enough. Stopping. Breathing. Making a cup of tea. That pause can be the difference between finding headspace and having a complete meltdown. Not because the problem disappears, but because you do not disappear inside it.

This is why I talk about mental health. Because perspective can be learned. Because awareness can be built. And because no one should have to wait too long to understand what their mind is trying to tell them.

Bad days are real. Context helps keep them in proportion.

Help someone find headspace. Share this.

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