If you landed here, thank you. You’re either here out of curiosity, support or maybe even no support. (FYI that could just be my anxiety talking, which is a big reason we’re here) Whichever lane you’re in, welcome to my little page where I write about my life and stories that got me out of the bad things daily to the good things daily. 

Lately I’ve been in a pretty shit place mentally again and it got me thinking about the 5 Ws we all learnt in school. What, why, when, who and which? Asking myself these questions. I dropped them straight into ChatGPT and then landed even harder into the questions. Is this our reality now? Replacing human connection with AI and most importantly, our struggles, questions, confusions and everything else that makes us who we actually are - HUMAN. 

So here goes nothing. Well actually, here goes a lot. My name is Michaela fucking Rose Ferguson (3 truths and a lie, one of those names obviously isn’t mine) All my life, I have fallen victim to the struggle of falling in and out love with myself and my life. Episodes of some pretty terrible times. Like most of us, I’m sure you can relate. Or if I really am the only one, I’ve bet the system of getting my white strait jacket on so far. 

Some days and even months my mental health has just felt like it wasn’t going to get any better and whilst I would always encourage absolutely everyone to speak up, talk to someone about how they’re feeling or be on the frontline when someone needed me, why couldn’t I turn to someone when I needed it? Those feelings of I don’t want to be a burden, will i be too much or maybe they just won’t know what to say or even just not knowing how to. 

So coping mechanisms come into play and whilst my coping mechanisms that you could hardly call coping and the mechanisms were so self destructive I look back now thinking how am I still alive, the whole word “coping” really got me thinking. 

How do others cope? What are your coping mechanisms that keep you in the present, sit in gratitude during the hard truths and getting out of those bad head spaces when it feels like there’s no room to breathe. Even if you are just standing outside with all the free oxygen around you but the weight of your pain feels so claustrophobic it feels unbearable.

Everyone has grown up around a dinner table or even no dinner table at all, fed differently, consumed differently but the funny thing is, I’m not actually talking about the way we eat or how big your appetite is. I’m talking about how we have all received love and been fed emotionally. 

Some of us were fed reassurance.

Some of us were fed criticism.

Some of us were fed silence.

Some of us were fed survival.

And whether we realised it or not, we learned to cope from that table.

We learned whether feelings were welcome or inconvenient.

We learned whether mistakes meant conversation or punishment.

We learned whether love was loud, quiet, conditional or steady.

And then we carried those lessons into adulthood, wondering why we react the way we do when things get hard.

For me, coping used to look like control. Or numbing. Or pushing everything down until it exploded. It looked like pretending I was fine. It looked like being “the strong one.” It looked like harming myself in ways that felt like relief in the moment but destruction in the long run.

But real coping?

Real coping is learning to sit in the discomfort without trying to escape it.

It’s choosing a walk instead of a spiral.

It’s texting a friend instead of isolating.

It’s crying and letting it move through you instead of shaming yourself for feeling too much.

It’s making a coffee and stepping outside and reminding yourself that the world is still turning, even if your chest feels tight.

Coping isn’t about avoiding pain.

It’s about staying.

Staying with yourself long enough to see that the feeling passes.

Staying long enough to notice one good thing.

Then another.

And that’s where “Good Things Daily” comes into practice.

Not from a place of toxic positivity.

Not from pretending life is always beautiful.

But finding just even one small thing in your day that will get you through whatever might be weighing you down until you can fix it. 

The warmth of a mug in my hands.

A stranger smiling.

A body that, despite everything I’ve put it through, still breathes for me.

Coping, now, looks like that.

Small, daily choices that don’t feel dramatic but keep me here.

And sometimes staying is the bravest coping mechanism of all. 

So what are the GOOD THINGS that get you through your day?