“Hey, how are you?”

“I’m fine, and you?”

“Dealing with some hopelessness and despair, thanks for asking.”

Nobody really wants to know, right? I keep forgetting that it’s okay to lie in these instances. The reality of what is actually going on with me is often too heavy for most people to handle. But I don’t want to lie, and I don’t really care how it makes them feel. I’m not doing okay, since you asked.

It’s worse when I’ve been honest with my feelings, and not only does the friend/family member/overly chatty barista immediately latch on, they have advice!

“It’s like I’m drowning under the weight of everything that’s happening to me.”

“Have you tried yoga?”

Yoga?! What’s next, I just need to drink more water and my depression will go away?

Either you’re honest, and you’ve made somebody squirm from being confronted with too much information, or you’re honest and you get platitudes: phrases designed to make the phraser feel like they’ve contributed something positive to an otherwise negative discourse, that really don’t do much for the phrasee. I usually just nod my way through a platitude, because it’s crass to cut someone off mid-pep talk to say, “These words do nothing for me, so please save your breath. It’s just making you feel better to say them.”

My therapist does her best. The 4 pills I take every morning work overtime to keep me generally pleasant. And still I can’t help but wish that somebody will just level with me. Someone will be just as honest and say they’re struggling, that things haven’t been great for awhile and it’s harder to get out of bed every morning. Or maybe they’ll just tell me that it’s okay for things to suck right now, that it’s okay to be sad and that they hope I feel better soon.

Maybe I’m asking too much of those around me. Maybe I need to censor myself more. Maybe I should just be less depressed.