World Mental Health Day was last week, on 10/10. I have some thoughts, but first I’ll relay two things that happened.
The first thing happened last week on Monday, at the end of my work day. I had a call from a colleague of mine on the other side of the country. My colleague asked how I was. These days, I try not to reply back with an automatic, “Great!” I try to be mindful about how I’m actually feeling and express it in a real (yet still socially acceptable) way. So I paused to take stock of how I was in that moment, took a deep breath and let it out, and concluded, “I’m okay.” Because I was. “Just okay? Not ‘great’?” my colleague said. “No,” I said, with a smile to soften it, “Not great. But I am okay.”
“Why not ‘great’? What’s going on?” my colleague pressed. “Your energy level seems low. What I can do to help you bring it up?” Which surprised me and, if I’m honest, annoyed me more than I would like to admit. But I knew that this concern was coming from a good place, so I gently explained that (1) it’s okay to be “just okay”. It’s not a bad thing. I don’t need to be “great” all the time; and (2) they were three time zones behind me and had called me at the end of my work day after I had been on back to back calls for close to four hours, which I personally find quite draining. I didn’t think having a low energy level at that moment was cause for concern. “I really am okay,” I said. My colleague backed off and we moved onto other things.
Two days later, I was on a call with another colleague. This colleague asked how I was, and again I paused to take stock and I concluded that I was okay. “That’s all?” my colleague said, as if there needed to be something more. “Well,” I said slowly, thinking about my mile-long To Do list and my deadlines that week, “there’s a lot going on and I’m a little stressed right now, but I’m okay.” My colleague immediately started trying to solve my “problem”. “What are you stressed about? What’s going on? How can I help to reduce your stress?” I almost felt like I was being given the third degree. Again, I know that this concern was coming from a good place, but I just didn’t feel the need to get into all the little details of the myriad things on my mind. I explained that it was just normal, run of the mill stress, that I didn’t feel overwhelmed, and that I didn’t need help getting to a “better” place. I genuinely felt okay with where I was in that moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I am truly grateful to work with terrific colleagues who care about mental health and who are willing to offer support. However, this relentless focus on constant positivity being the ultimate ideal of mental health that we should all be striving for is misguided at best. I told two people at work last week that I was okay, and their immediate reaction was to try to help me be better than “just okay”. Let me just state this for myself and whoever else needs to hear it: It’s okay to be “just okay”. I don’t have to be “great!” or “awesome!” all the time. Just being me and existing with the feelings that I’m feeling – that is enough. We all have the right to be out here and feel what we feel.
There are people who are genuinely not okay and are in a very bad place. They may need more support to help them to get to a healthier and safer place, but they still have the right to feel the way that they do. I know, because I’ve been there. I’ve had some dark moments and it’s possible that I’ll be there again sometime in the future. In the early 2000s, I went through probably the worst year of my life for my mental health, until the global COVID-19 pandemic happened. It took a lot of work for me to get back to a healthy place for myself, mentally. Those lessons came forward with me and helped me recover when my mental health took a nosedive during the pandemic. I don’t feel like I’m depressed now, but I have recently realized that I am still struggling a little bit with the tail end of the burnout that I experienced during the pandemic. I’m getting through the difficult days with love and compassion and kindness for myself and simple gratitude that I’m still here and that I’m still in it.
Rather than pressure people into being “great!” and positive all the time, I’d like to suggest this: Try meeting people where they are. Be with them, even when it does not feel comfortable. We don’t always need rescuing; sometimes we just need someone to be with us. Meet me where I am, and I’ll do the same for you.
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