How to Use the 'You Feel Like Shit' Self-Care Game to Get Through a Rough Moment

Open youfeellikeshit.com and click the button to begin the first question. That's the whole entry requirement — the site is built so you don't have to decide what you need, plan a routine, or judge how bad things are before you start. It's a self-care game that walks you through a series of questions, one at a time, and it's especially useful if self-care is hard for you, if you deal with executive dysfunction, or if you have trouble reading your own internal signals.

The rest of this guide covers how the flow works, how to get the most out of a session, and where people tend to get stuck.

What the game actually is

It's a guided question-and-answer routine, not a tracker, not a mood journal, and not a diagnosis tool. Each step presents a decision that's meant to be very easy and to require as little judgment from you as possible. The design goal, in the site's own words, is to take as much of the weight off of you as possible.

That matters because the hardest part of feeling awful is often not knowing what to do first. The game removes that problem by asking instead of making you plan.

How to go through a session

1. Go to youfeellikeshit.com. No account setup is described on the page — you land on the game and start.
2. Click the button to begin the first question. The page's call to action is literally "I'm ready for the first question."
3. Answer one question at a time. Don't try to solve everything at once. The flow is sequential for a reason.
4. Answer honestly rather than aspirationally. The questions only help if your answers reflect your actual state, not the state you wish you were in.
5. Follow the directions for each step before moving on. The site explicitly says not to rush or skip ahead.
6. Take your time. There's no timer and no scoring.

Set aside enough time

The site suggests setting aside some time — maybe an hour total — to work through each step. That's a rough guide, not a rule, but it's a useful signal: this isn't a 30-second check-in. If you only have five minutes, you can still start, but you may not finish the full routine.

Don't skip ahead

This is the one instruction the site repeats most directly: don't rush or skip ahead, just follow the directions. Skipping tends to happen when a question feels irrelevant or when you think you already know the answer. In practice, the questions build on each other, so jumping around can leave you acting on an incomplete picture.

When this is most useful

The game is designed for people who:

• Struggle with self-care in general
• Deal with executive dysfunction, where knowing what to do and actually starting are two different problems
• Have trouble reading internal signals — for example, not noticing you're hungry, thirsty, exhausted, or in pain until it's severe

If any of those describe you, the value isn't in the questions being clever. It's in not having to generate the next step yourself.

Using it preventively

You don't have to wait until things are bad. The site notes you can go through the routine as soon as you wake up, as a preventative measure. Running it on a normal morning does two things: it catches small needs before they compound, and it turns the routine into a habit you don't have to rediscover when you're already struggling.

If you want to build that habit, pick a fixed trigger — right after waking up is the one the site suggests — and treat the session as a default rather than a decision.

Common sticking points

"I don't know how to answer." Answer with your best guess rather than stalling. The questions are designed to be low-stakes, and an approximate answer keeps you moving.

"This feels too slow." That's the design. The slowness is what makes it usable when your ability to make decisions is depleted.

"I skipped a few steps and now it doesn't fit." Start over from the first question. It costs less than trying to reconstruct where you left off.

"I want to support the site." The page includes an option to consider donating to help keep it going, plus a link to learn more about the site and its creators. Donation is optional and separate from using the game.

What it won't do

It won't diagnose anything, replace professional care, or make a decision for you. It's a structured way to get through a rough stretch and practice self-care — useful precisely because it asks little of you at a moment when you have little to give.