We’ve all been there. Crappy week, even the smallest things go wrong, and no one gets it, y’know? You’ll come home after facing a sequence of perfectly life-ruining, first-world-pain moments and try to complain to your roommate who proceeds to put things in “perspective” and tries to make you see how “it isn’t that bad.” (She probably just went on a break trip and broadened her horizons.) Normally, you’re amenable to this. You typically welcome this because you’re not psychotic or a compulsive whiner. But sometimes you just have to wallow and feel sorry for yourself, and today is one of those days.
So your roommate is no help. In fact, it only contributes to the problem because no one understands you.
Your friends are scattered around campus, either in class or in their dorms, and no one feels like moving to see you because it’s cold and raining (obviously). Some of them may even be the problem, so forget that option.
You go to your room and call your best friend from home, who then talks about her own life for an hour because to be fair you haven’t talked to her in weeks (since you’ve been so busy and overwhelmed) and she does have things going on too. But you want to ignore that.
So she’s off the list.
You hang up, completely frustrated, and text/Skype your boyfriend/crush who is trying to be supportive but having a hard time understanding what exactly is so terrible in the first place because, let’s face it, they’re guys. Plus, depending on how long you’ve been dating or “talking,” you don’t want it to seem as though you don’t have a handle on your life; whining is a turn off.
You can’t talk to your mom because she’s busy taking care of your siblings/dog/cat/guinea pig/exotic fish or at work/yoga and you’re painfully reminded that the world is going on without you back in your hometown.
On top of everything, there is nothing sweet to eat within your near vicinity. Woe is you.
But miraculously VU Mobile is your friend today, and you can connect to the internet for more than five minutes. The internet. Your safehaven.
Having one of those days? Here are five websites that you can turn to. Feel free to vary the order, but I highly suggest you start off with the first one:
Various pictures of manatees with calming captions. You may summon as many calming manatees as you wish. They’re all there for you.
You’re welcome.
2. Daily Odd Compliment
3. I Like Your Jacket
With these two websites, it’s compliments all around! Some are witty, some are blunt, but they all make you feel better about yourself, and that’s what’s important.
Time to relax. Here’s a website that reminds you not to sweat the small stuff and just take thirty seconds or more to meditate. Turn off your phone, ignore your social media, ignore your friends, ignore the world. Just sit and relax, reflect on what’s actually important in life. At the end of the day, is everything that’s immediately affecting your state of mind going to affect your entire life in the long run?
From the creators of the Quiet Place, the Thoughts Room allows you to skip the meditation and head straight for the venting. As you type in your frustrations in a box that is similar to a facebook status, the words begin to fall away to remind you that you’re there to shed all the stress and burdens you’re facing. Vent as much or as little as you need to, it’s totally private.
Having summoned manatees, accepted compliments, and visited the Thoughts Room and Quiet Place, by now you should be ready to figure out how to deal with what you’re facing. The Stress Analyst is just the place to do that. This website goes through step-by-step what is wrong, and offers solutions until you feel cool, calm and collected.
Bonus website:
If you’re willing to be reasonable, and have calmed down enough to do so, top off your internet reassurance with the magic button – it makes everything okay. Note: Don’t start with this button, because it’s basically telling you what your roommate tried to tell you in the first place—rethink your perspective—and you hated her for it.