I’m tired of the F word, everything is not fine, and that’s okay. What’s not okay, is saying “It’s fine” when in reality it’s not. While working in Psychiatry and Trauma Surgery, I feel like I have a unique birds-eye view from two very different, yet closely related important perspectives, and it begs me to ask the question, how did the world change after 2020? Things are not fine in the world and questions need to be addressed. For example, Mental health, a topic that should be in the spotlight even before COVID-19, where is it now? What has the self-isolation, virtual work, virtual school, mask-wearing, social and physical distancing, financial burdens, and the death of family member or friend done to the mental health community which was already under-served?
Here is an analogy that I share with my patients that deals with physical trauma that can in turn be used to describe emotional trauma. Imagine that you are hiking a mountain, you lose your footing and slip onto a large rock. You scrap your leg and you start bleeding, you grab a piece of clothing and apply pressure. You stop the bleeding, get to your base camp, wash the wound out, dry it out, apply some triple antibiotic ointment and cover it with a band-aide. After a few weeks, your skin heals over the wound leaving a scar of the incident. The short story describes the traumatic event from the perspective of physically hurting your body, but what happens when we emotionally hurt our mind? We physically see the scar on our leg but does it not count because we can’t physically see the scar when we hurt our mind? Yes, the skin heals and forms a scar to remind us of the incident but scars also occur in our mind after traumatic emotional experiences, those scars need the same or if not more attention than the physical scars, our emotional well-being depends on it.
Here’s an idea, next time you ask someone how they are and their response is “I’m fine” or “It’s fine”, question it, and dig deeper. Chances are that things are probably not fine and they are saying that to avoid the reality of their feelings, emotions, or current circumstances. I can’t tell you how many times I have questioned the phrase only to find more to the story. People think that communicating is just exchanging words between two people, but it’s so much more. Communicating is the act of exchanging meaningful words and listening actively. Meaningful words that reach a person’s mind and soul, the meaningful words that unlock the doors in the human mind that have been closed because of either past experiences, present circumstances, or future doubts.
I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to express yourself, it’s okay to be not okay. Be not okay, and share what you are feeling with the people that are close to you, whether it be a family member, spouse, life partner, friend, or close acquaintance at work or school. I feel like I would be doing a disservice to my patients, and humanity if I didn’t express what I’m witnessing firsthand with our mental health community. Don’t let the outside noise from what the world is still going through and healing from negate what your inside noise of valid feelings and emotions be drowned out, it’s okay not to be fine.
Below is a link to “The State of Mental Health In America” where you can get more information;
https://mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america
Head Up, Eyes Forward!!!
