“How are you doing?”

“How are you doing?" 

I really really struggle to answer this question. It's sobering to realize how few people you can really talk to. 

So now I’m going to be almost hypocritical and write about it. 

How do I avoid lying while balancing privacy? How do I find the line between appropriate and oversharing? 

When it comes to my physical or mental wellbeing on the day to day I struggle to honestly answer that question. I have to answer it in layers. 

Layer 1:

I want to answer the obligatory “good” and move on. But that isn’t always truthful. “I’m doing” works. It doesn’t lie. But it doesn’t blow things up. That's where it starts and ends. The problem is if people know you too well. They don't buy it. So onward, deeper.

Layer 2:

"I'm tired" or "I have a migraine" are the go to responses. Both are almost always true. Or at least one of them is at all times. It’s usually a level of understanding you can have with most co-workers, extended family, teachers. People know something is off, it explains it away. But some people knows there is something is more.

Layer 3:

There’s the layer where more chronic issues may be known by some family, friends, and specific coworkers. For me it’s not just the migraines, it’s also whether I had a blood draw that day. It can also be something that is more readily visible but I don’t want to talk about. It’s oddly enough not much of an emotional layer.

Layer 4:

Now this is for the real friends. It’s the last of the masked stages. I can be a little honest about where my mental health is. A soft grin still exists when you talk about how much pain you’re in. A little sarcasm still plays around to soften the blow of how depressed or manic one is that day. How bad it hurts. The people who know you may be able to peer through, but even if they can’t they have a true idea of where you’re at.

Layer 5: 

The mask comes down. But for me this is where things get cut through. It’s when you meet the therapist. It’s the triage nurse when you wind up in the ER or the doctors office. It’s where I am forced to drop everything, all the masking, all the pretension. Some of the friends who make it to 4 push through to here. But not most. And then there’s a couple more people who get more.

Layer 6:

This is where I let people know I’m scared. How I’m processing what I’ve been through. Work through the homework with therapy. Where I struggle with new medication. The details of everything. This is home for the precious few. And man do I need them.

Layer 7:

This is the commentary I can’t say. The silence. The struggle to articulate the emotions I don’t understand. The thoughts racing too fast to catch. 

That’s why I hate the question. Not everybody needs to know every layer. Not everyone needs to know everything. 

But I feel this need to answer it honestly. As I know many others do. So a lack of sharing and oversharing occur.

It’s sad to me that this question is just a greeting. It’s come cruel trick of our culture and language. I hope we’re cognizant of what we may be missing when we ask this question. We’re not the only ones who struggle to answer it. We’re not the only one who sometimes stare at the ground hoping we don’t hear it.

And that’s ok.