I live in Adelaide, in a beautiful home near my favourite beach, with my wonderful partner and our goofy dog. I'm studying counselling. I have a veggie garden that isn't weeded nearly as much as it should be, I sleep in as often as I can, and there are almost always dishes in my sink and laundry in my hamper. I've also had more hard mornings than I can count. Bad Day Tools came out of those mornings.

If you're reading this, maybe it's a bad morning. I'm sorry. I know that one well. It's okay. Nothing is on fire. Allow yourself the time.

Here's the honest version of how I got here.

What I've been through

I've lived with hearing loss (80%) and vision impairment (high myopia) since birth, so the world has always asked a bit more of me than it asks of most people.

I've lived through domestic violence and narcissistic abuse, the kind that teaches you to doubt your own memory, to apologise for taking up space, to make yourself smaller so someone else can feel big. I've been through drug addiction, and the long, unglamorous work of recovery.

I lost a baby to a late term termination, a stillbirth. It left me unable to have children naturally, and facing a very complicated, expensive and physically painful process to have one at all.

I wanted to be a mum. I'm not one (except to my dog), and that wasn't my choice. I'm still learning how to live beside that. It's hard to say plainly, so I'm saying it plainly.

I'm not telling you this for sympathy, and I'm not after a medal. I'm telling you so you know I'm not guessing about bad days.

I know them from every direction.

What bad mornings actually look like

The weight is there before you've opened your eyes. Everything you scroll tells you to journal, manifest, or wake up at 5am and feel grateful. I've tried a lot of it. Some of it is fine. Most of it is bullshit, and none of it helps when you can't get out of bed.

Nobody has ever manifested me out of bed.

What actually helped

Smaller things. Feet on the floor. Sunshine (you'll see me call it "outside time"). Cool water on my face. A warm mug held in both hands. Or just sitting up in bed. That counts as a task, trust me. One thing, not ten.

None of it fixed anything on its own. It just got me through the next thirty seconds, and then the next.

Those thirty seconds started with a TV show. Years ago I watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which isn't my usual kind of show, and I wasn't the same person then as I am now. When Kimmy was stressed or anxious, her way of coping was to just get through the next ten seconds. It does work. It's also no way to live. But it stuck with me for years, and it kept popping into my head. So one day I thought, what if I give myself thirty seconds to make something happen?

Thirty seconds to start, and I'll work out the rest from there.

I got curious about why that works. I'm fascinated by psychology, mental health and how our brains work, and by how much they can shift through small movements and small actions. That curiosity led me to start a counselling degree, to hobby-research nutrition, health and fitness, and, apparently, to build some literal tools for bad days. It's also why movement is such a big part of my life. I thrive on a healthy, active life, not because it cures anything, but because a body that moves tends to bring the head along with it.

Not long ago I went through one of the toughest periods of my life. I had been carrying everything alone for so long that I finally, very dramatically, cracked. I fell into psychosis. I ended up in hospital. I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD.

Twenty years of holding it together, and the one person who had watched all of it wasn't surprised. I'm not sure whether that broke my heart or finally let me breathe. Maybe both.

So I moved forward. I worked out who my people actually were. I went to therapy (everyone should) for what felt like the hundredth time, and this time it stuck.

What I won't pretend

I didn't get over it. Nobody gets over a stillbirth, or years of being made to feel small. Nobody gets over living with a disability in a world that isn't built for it, or watching people you love turn into monsters right in front of you.

You learn to carry it differently. Some days you carry it well. Some days you don't, and that's allowed. If you only learn one thing from me, let it be that.

I'm not going to tell you it all happened for a reason.

It didn't. It happened.

Why Bad Day Tools

Bad Day Tools is my love story to me, from me. And now to you. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do all day, EVERYONE has bad days.

Humans have bad days. Robots don't.

I couldn't find tools for those mornings made by someone who'd actually had them, so I made them. A guide. A deck of 52 cards. Each one asks for thirty seconds and one small thing. No affirmations. No five step plans. No pressure.

I'm not here to bullshit you, and I can't fix you. I'm here to help you make a little more sense of your bad days, and maybe make the next one a bit lighter with some small tweaks. Let's work through it, one step at a time.

I don't push people to be better when they can't even find the strength to be awake. I take the pressure off. That's the only thing I intend to do.

If you're lying there right now

You don't have to get up. You don't have to be okay. You don't have to explain it to anyone.

You were never too much. You were carrying too much, mostly on your own.

Give it thirty seconds. That's all. Put your feet on the floor, and we'll start there.

The fine print, because I mean it

I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a counsellor (yet). This isn't therapy. If your bad days are most days, please talk to a GP, a counsellor or a crisis line. There are kinds of help I can't give you, and I'd rather say so.

That's me

That's my story. It isn't yours, and I won't pretend it is. But if you've had a bad morning, you're in good company.

Take what's useful. Leave what isn't.

Then we go.

Caitlin

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