Kali J Desautels

People really, really want you to be ok. Your friends and family want you to be happy. Your coworkers want you to be fine. Not just in a “how’s it going?” I’m fine kind of way, but in a legitimately want you to be fine kind of way. We have a habit of thinking that if we say “I’m fine” we are saying it because the other person doesn’t care, but we aren’t. We are saying “I’m fine” because we aren’t ok with how the questioner will react. We’re not ok with the concern, or the pity, or the sadness they will exhibit if we tell them what is actually going on in our minds. We are not ready to see our sadness, or our fear, or our anxiety reflected back at us. We are not ok with crumbling.

In my day-to-day life, people ask me all day, everyday how I am. I usually reply “fine, thanks and you?” Or “I’m ok! How are you?” Or “Great, thanks, and you?” Or my favourite for all moods “Awesome. How are you?” I could tell you that I reply that way because they don’t care one way or the other, and in some cases, such as the cashier at the grocery store, or the guy calling to sell me toner, they are only asking as a polite way to get from Point A of their jobs to Point B of their jobs, and really don’t care. I could say I was moving to Mars to marry an alien and they would likely chuckle or quizzically look at me before carrying on with the chores of their jobs. But when someone who cares about me, who talks to me daily, who has even a moderately vested interest in my well-being asks how I am, and I reply with any of the above, it is foolish and reckless to say that I am saying that because they don’t care about the “real” answer. To say that takes away the human connection that we have in our lives. To say that is a nasty, easy, awful way to allow ourselves to sink deeper into the sad, fearful, awful feelings that we are avoiding.

I say this from experience. I say this from both the depressed, sad, anxious woman who took away the agency of my friends and family by bitterly thinking that they only wanted to hear that I was fine; and I say this from the sad, scared, stressed out woman that has too many plates in the air and a strong conviction that if I drop one, all the other ones spinning above my head will come crashing down to my feet.

In the first instance, I told myself that people do not care if I am fine or not, and that they only want to hear that I am fine, so they can carry on with their day. This, my friends, is BS. This is the thought of a depressed, isolated, unhappy person who does not know how to move through the fog that has darkly clouded over her brain. This is the thought of someone bitterly, mentally, and emotionally lashing out, even in her own head. Worse still, it is not giving the asker the courtesy of correcting the supposed lack of care that I am imposing upon them. I have given the asker a role, and determinedly, doggedly, angrily refuse to recast them.

In the second case, the position that I find myself in right now, I cannot bring myself to look the asker in the eye and say “I’m hurting. I’m in pain. I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m absolutely, 100% terrified. I feel like my life is falling apart, and I don’t have enough sandbags to keep it from breaking.” I do not want to say these things because I will cry. I am not ready to drop my aerial plate show. I need to make it through one more minute, one more hour, one more chore before I can sit down and allow myself to feel these things. I am not saying I am fine because you don’t care, I am saying that I am fine because I know that you do. I am desperately hoping that if I can keep saying that I am fine, I can be strong, and brave, and that I will make it through one more day without the levee fatally cracking. I know that when you ask how I am, and I say that I am fine, you really want me to look you in the eyes and you want to say “no, you’re not. Of course you’re not, and I am here for you.” I know that is what my friends and family and coworkers and acquaintances, and so on and so forth are thinking. I know that you you do genuinely care. I know that you want me to tell you the truth. I know that I am not saying that I am fine for your benefit; I am saying it for mine, because I have a job, and kids, and friends, and family, and I do not want to say I’m not. It’s so much easier to keep going if I am fine. It’s so much easier to not have the stressors that are trying to break me succeed if I am fine; because right now, my “I’m fine” is the mental equivalent to Atlas holding up the world. My “I’m fine” is keeping things in their place. And if I tell you the truth, it would be as if Atlas shrugged.

So please know that when someone asks you how you are doing and you say fine, you are not saying that you are fine for them, you are saying it for you.