[~4 min read]
You can say how you actually are without it turning into a therapy session.
The first ad break had barely started when the director’s voice floated down to the studio floor.
“Mel, you’ve got two minutes if you need to throw up.”
I had food poisoning. I’d turned up anyway, because that’s what you do, and someone had discreetly positioned a bucket behind my chair.
I didn’t throw up. I took a few deep breaths and soldiered on, back to chatting and smiling with the guests, because that was the job.
I’ve done versions of this more than once. A TV day covered in hives, trying to get through the show without scratching myself to bits. A busted muscle in my backside and a gym class waiting to be instructed. Cheerful on demand was something I got paid for.
That’s the dramatic version. The everyday one has no studio lights and no bucket. It’s a colleague, a neighbour or your sister asking how you are, and out comes the answer you’ve given ten thousand times.
“I’m good!”
Sometimes it’s true, and brilliant. Sometimes you’ve had a stinker of a day and it comes out anyway, bright as a button, before you’ve even decided to say it.
What that automatic answer is protecting
On the surface, it’s polite. Underneath, it’s a survival strategy. It keeps the conversation moving, keeps everyone comfortable, and keeps you as the easygoing one, the reassuring one, the person who makes things feel better. The cost is that you’re the only one in the room who knows how it actually is. That’s a lonely place to stand, even in a crowd.
Some people hear “I’m good!” and move on. Others take it as an open invitation and unload their whole week onto you. You’re chipper, so you must have room.
At home it sounds different. “I’ve got it.” “Don’t worry about me.” “It’ll be fine.” Someone’s anxious, so you cheer them up, even when you’re the one who’s anxious.
Most of us know about the practical load: the remembering, the organising, the sorting-it-out. This is the other one. Being the person who keeps everyone’s mood afloat, including when it’s your own that’s sinking. It wears you down just as quietly.
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild gave this a name in her 1983 book The Managed Heart: emotional labour. She was writing about paid work, mostly in service jobs, where managing your feelings so you can show the right ones is part of the role. Her argument was that the gap between what you feel and what you’re required to show can leave you estranged from your own feelings. Most of us aren’t on anyone’s payroll for this. We just got good at it, and nobody ever sent the bonus.
Try this instead
Next time someone asks how you are and the honest answer is “rotten”, skip the automatic “I’m good!” You don’t have to unload your troubles, explain yourself or turn the conversation into a therapy session. You could simply say:
- “Actually, today’s been a bit rough.”
- “I’m feeling pretty flat, to be honest.”
- “Not my best day, but thanks for asking.”
And leave it there.
If they follow up with “Oh no, what’s happened?”, you don’t owe them a story. “Nothing to fix, I just didn’t want to pretend” is a complete answer. A true sentence gives the other person something to respond to. “I’m good!” gives them a choice to move on or offload.
The exhaustion of always being the positive one has little to do with being miserable underneath. It comes from feeling obligated to be upbeat, supportive and emotionally available, regardless of what’s happening in your own life. The shift is recognising you don’t have to manage everyone else’s emotional comfort by disguising your own feelings.
One caveat. A rotten day is one thing. If flat has been your default for weeks, saying it out loud is a start, not the whole answer, and it’s worth talking to someone who can help.
Back in that studio, somebody noticed I wasn’t fine and, instead of pretending otherwise, gave me two minutes and a bucket. (I only needed the two minutes) Most days nobody’s going to thoughtfully position a bucket for you. But you can say the true sentence. Try it once this week.
Practice needs reps, and reps need a nudge. Every week, Hot Flashes lands in your inbox with an unvarnished take on midlife, a story or two, and one small thing to do before the week’s out. Join the list here.
