We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

Feelings come with their own volume knob, and it is usually turned up. A bad week gets described as a ruined year, a good day as proof that everything has changed. Both reports are honest in the moment and wrong by the weekend. The inflation is not dishonesty; it is what happens when you narrate a state from inside it.

Try stating the plain version once, with no adjectives: what happened, what it cost, what still works. Do the same when things go well. Steadier language tends to produce steadier days, and you stop having to recover from your own descriptions.