I'm Fine
I’m — lost, scared, confused, misunderstood, insignificant, empty, trapped, lonely, hopeless, depressed, suicidal, broken — fine.
A girl walks down the street to her high school on a cold fall Friday morning in a black sweatshirt, jeans, and converse. She contemplates her past week, where she was bullied for being different and dressing differently, and she tries to forget about the constant yelling that goes on in her house. As she walks, she scratches the surface of her sweatshirt and feels the raised scars beneath it. She finds her locker in the school hallway, still lost in thought, wondering if her life is worth living. As she grabs her books, a friend walks over she hasn’t spoken to in a while. “Hey, how are you doing?” The girl doesn’t even look at her friend. She just quietly says, “Oh, I’m fine.”
One of the most typical responses to “How are you?” is “I’m fine,” a statement wrought with tension and deception. It’s a charged phrase with a million different meanings, but some people take it at face value because they don’t want to deal with what it hides: insecurities, fears, and mental health issues that seem too difficult to talk about. It is so common a response that many people brush off as the truth, a fact of life that everyone’s just fine, surviving the usual highs and lows of life.
The problem with this is that most of those who use the phrase, and most of those who hear it, know what it really means. Both struggle to find the words to tell the truth, and both find it easier to just say that everything’s fine.
It's the social norm to ignore the deepest, darkest parts of the human mind, hardly ever acknowledging that there are people in the world who need real help, attention, and maybe a little more kindness and love. In other contexts, saying “I’m fine” can simply hide feelings of anger or hurt. It can be used as a way to play off a grudge or to mask feelings of resentment toward another person.
It can be passive-aggressive, angry, or sad — emotions that remain unacknowledged, hidden by a half-hearted smile and a deceivingly positive demeanor that simultaneously screams “help me” and “leave me alone.”
Because there is so much stigma surrounding discussion about what’s actually wrong with us, we doubt that anyone will care about our problems, understand our insecurities, or be able to help us. We feel helpless. The unfortunate thing is there are so many people who feel this way, but they don’t discuss it because of introversion or not wanting to seem weird. This is an issue throughout society that directly affects teenagers and young adults, who generally have more to hide than young children or older adults. The life of a teenager is characterized as rebellious and experimental, which can create a fair number of secrets and inner conflict. They don’t want to discuss the uncomfortable or confusing aspects of growing up, so they hide it behind a wall of fake smiles.
A big issue with using the phrase “I’m fine” is that it can also be very literal. Sometimes it simply means that the person is doing well. They’re paddling along happily through life, and nothing is really bothering them. In this case, reading into it is wrong. If a friend says “I’m fine” and they mean it, trying to probe something out of them will be ineffective and potentially offensive.
At the same time, if something is really wrong, asking questions about that can also cause rifts in friendships because the person suffering clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. If you believe someone actually needs help, try to weigh if asking will open them up to you or if you’ll just have to wait until they’re comfortable enough to talk about it.
In a world where “I’m fine” so easily hides the truth, society needs to question how we view, interact with, depend on, and discriminate against other people. It’s a veiled phrase used to avoid conflict, because telling a white lie always seems easier than talking about a controversial topic, whether it be within a group, between friends, or out in the open. Everyone goes through hard times and everyone can benefit from sharing their story. Even if two people are suffering due to completely different circumstances, they can identify with each other’s pain and make the burden a little more bearable.
So be the change. You can alter the life of someone who just needs a friend or a confidant to listen to them. Be willing to take the time to let people open up to you, but keep in mind that if you force them to, those people will likely close off even more. Know the signs of a person struggling to get through life, and never shut anyone down for being confident enough to share their feelings and fears. This way, people can start talking about how they really feel and maybe fewer of us will just be “fine.”
