Bad days happen to all of us. Simply put, bad days are a part of life. Living with depression and anxiety often make the bad days seem worse. The bad days may seem to occur more often. I struggle with bad days. However, I have learned an important lesson about bad days from my mental health team and from experience. It’s okay to have a bad day. In fact, it is okay to have multiple bad days.
We want everything in our lives to go well. This leads to pressure to always have things go right. That pressure is unhealthy. There is a line from a Grace Slick song that I mention often because it plays a powerful role in my life. I think this line, “Let it go” applies to the pressure we put on ourselves and feel from others. We need to let that pressure go. It is not serving us.
Letting Go of the Pressure to Be Okay
Letting go of the pressure not to have a bad is tough. We see people who seem put together, people who seem perfect. We think that they don’t have bad days. We put pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Then when we have bad day, we internalize it as a failure on our part. Depression and anxiety start talking to us. This makes the bad day worse. We feel the pressure not to let things go bad.
Letting go of the bad days is tough, but it is something we need to do. First, we need to recognize that it is okay to have bad days. They are going to happen. Once we have recognized the bad day, we can begin to let it go. One way to do this is to use self-talk. We can tell ourselves:
· It is just a bad day. I have been through times like this before.
· Sometimes things do not go as I planned and that is okay.
· I can retry tomorrow.
· I am going to let go of today.
Giving Yourself Grace When Living with Depression and Anxiety
Part of the difficulty we have is the pressure to be okay. We need to push back
against that pressure by giving ourselves grace. “Give yourself grace” is a phrase we might hear often. I was reminded to give myself grace recently. I thought about it and realized I really didn’t understand what it meant to give myself grace. I guess I had the general concept, but I wanted to know the full meaning. After some research, I have a better idea of what giving myself grace can mean. Let me share what I learned.
Giving ourselves grace means allowing ourselves to be human. When we give ourselves grace, we allow ourselves to make mistakes, to struggle with things that may seem easy for others, and struggle with things that are tough. We accept that we will have difficult times. We choose not to criticize ourselves. Instead, we treat ourselves with patience, compassion, and understanding. We recognize that we need these. In essence, giving ourselves grace means being kind to ourselves. We might tell ourselves something like, “Today was hard. I don’t need to feel guilty about it. I will just do what I can and that will be enough.”
To give ourselves grace we may find it necessary to accept our feelings without judging them. We might need to adjust our expectations. What we can manage might look different from day to day. We need to let go guilt. This means understanding that we need rest and that it is okay to ask for help. We can acknowledge that we are struggling. We do not need to pretend that we are okay. Just because we have a bad day, the progress we have made, the good things that have occurred are not erased. Our progress is not always linear. It is also important to speak to ourselves with kindness. If a loved one or friend were struggling, we would treat them with understanding and kindness. We owe ourselves that same grace.
Remember, we can only do what we can do. Pressuring ourselves to do more is harmful to us. That is why giving ourselves grace is so important.
Breaking a Bad Day into Smaller, Manageable Steps
Another thing we can consider is breaking the day down. When we are struggling or just having a bad day sometimes it helps to take a step back and break the day into smaller parts. Facing one minute or five minutes is easier than facing the whole day. If manage to get through five, maybe we will be ready for another five minutes. If not, that is okay. We can allow ourselves to rest and try again later. We need to remember that getting through a smaller chunk of the day is enough. We can rest and try again tomorrow. We do not need to figure everything out.
Quieting Your Inner Critic on Difficult Days
Our minds are always talking to us. There is a chatter that sometimes does not want to shut up when we live with depression and/or anxiety. This is the inner critic. When we give ourselves grace, we are telling the inner critic to leave us alone. I wrote a post titled Silencing Your Inner Critic, which address how to talk back to that voice inside our heads that does not want us to give ourselves grace. Having a bad day, feeling as if we are not okay, are valid feelings. They do not make us weak or failures. That voice in our minds likes to tell us we are, but when we give ourselves grace, we recognize and remind ourselves that we are not what our inner critic wants us to believe.
Why You Don't Have to Find a Silver Lining in Every Bad Day
It is important to remember that when we are having a bad day, when we are struggling, we do not need to turn every moment into something positive. We do not need to search for a silver lining. Sometimes things just are what they are. That is perfectly fine. There are not lessons behind every struggle. Sometimes the greatest lesson we can learn is that we need to give ourselves grace. In moments of struggle, we can simply acknowledge that it is a hard day. Nothing more is necessary.
Final Thoughts: It's Okay to Have a Bad Day
When we live with depression and anxiety, there will be times when we are not okay. That is okay. We are human. As humans, we will make mistakes and struggle at times. We may feel bad about something. When this is happening, remember that it is okay to not be okay. It is okay to struggle. Letting go and giving ourselves grace are important. It is important to understand that it takes time to fully understand this. Give yourself that time. Remember, that it is okay to have a bad day.
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