Why I dread “R U OK” day

Have you ever sat in a meeting and worried that if the wrong thought popped into your head, you would burst into tears?

I have.

I’m not telling you this just to brag, I’m attempting to paint a picture. A picture of what it is to be brittle. To be just holding it together. And particularly I’m referring to holding it together in the workplace.

I have sat in a room full of people and felt the bad thoughts stirring. I have felt my forehead go red, that ominous choking feeling. I have asked a question that I knew the answer to just to give my mind something else to focus on — a gamble that words would come out at all.

Well, the words did come out, my mind was suitably distracted, and the moment passed. I survived.

I survived the next day, too. And the one after that. That’s what my life is, a series of days that I survive.

Some days, I feel like the sadness is just below the surface. I worry that surely it must be visible, surely someone must see through this ruse of Happy Alex.

But things are pretty good right now. For the last few months, the sadness has been deep below. Hibernating. I don’t spend much time worrying that something is going to go wrong. I feel robust.

And I’m glad that I’m feeling robust, because it’s fucking R U OK day.

The worst of all the days.

Last year I was not the perky sunflower that I am today. Last year I was not at all OK, and the thought of the looming R U OK day made me feel sick to my core. I knew that there were no good outcomes.

Maybe someone I half-know would ask me — genuinely — if I am OK.

This would definitely have broken me. Kindness of strangers? Fuck that.

This was only a few weeks past my planned final day on earth (which obviously I didn’t go through with), so if I had been asked if I was OK, the word “No!” would have exploded within me. I would have been along for the ride.

I don’t know if words would have been at my disposal, but I know tears would have been on the scene in a flash. I would probably just have been stunned, and numb. It’s hard to imagine and quite frankly I don’t want to.

This is not a scenario that I want. That’s obvious, right? I don’t want someone I don’t know making me cry at work. Or scream, or vomit, or whatever would have happened. It’s the observer effect: by asking me if I’m OK, in the office, with other people around, you are instantly making me a lot less OK than I was before you opened your cake hole.

It’s a great way to nudge someone over the edge.

But what if no one asks me? In a way, this is better.

In a way, this is worse.

Last year, no one asked me if I was OK. Not work people, not friends, not family.

I heard a lot of people around the office asking each other and having a grand old time in the process. I must have heard “R U OK” echoed around the office a dozen times that day, the ripples of playful banter pushing me further out to sea.

I sat with my headphones on and felt the unpleasant warmth fill me. Were they about to ask me? Were they purposefully not asking me? Perhaps someone suggested to someone else that they ask me, but no one wanted to do it. Perhaps I was being spared. “Oh, maybe don’t pick on Alex, guys, alright?”

And what if the happy people had asked me, just messing around. “Hey, are you OK Alex? Are you? You sure? Ha ha haaaa”. I would like to think that I could have returned fire quickly enough to appear normal. “I’m fine, but are you OK? Really? Are you sure? You’re not going to take your own life?” — I would undoubtedly use my words wrong, strike an off chord. The laughter would stop and I would be left standing naked and afraid.

I thought a lot about the exits that day. I have traced the path in my mind a thousand times, from where I might be standing when someone asks me if I’m OK. The ground zero where I wail “NO” for all the office to hear. The path to the doors, past the lifts, into the bathrooms, to precious privacy and tear-drying materials.

My god I hate R U OK day.

After last year, I decided that I would not leave the house on subsequent R U OK days.

It’s just too much, I’m too brittle. I work too hard at appearing to be a normal, emotionally stable person to have it all smashed to pieces by Arthur from accounts putting his hand on my shoulder, looking me in the eye, and asking if I am OK.

But despite my hatred for this tortuous mental annuity, it did offer me the occasion to be pleased today.

Because I left the house.

I went to work. It was a stark, glorious juxtaposition to the same day last year. It was nice to take stock — this year I can handle the R U OK nonsense without fear of falling apart.

I am happy for that.

Then, at around 2pm, my boss asked me if I was OK and the world went cold.

I wouldn’t have thought that question would have had any effect on me. Not this year. But by golly it did and it was a weird nasty feeling, maybe like a tire popping when driving at high speed. Unexpected and violent and terrifying. That’s a shit analogy but it was a shit feeling and I can’t think of a better one. Every hair on my body stood up, like it wanted to get the fuck out of there.

Then my boss’s phone rang and I was alone again. It was sitcom timing and I was glad for it. I’m 90% sure I could have answered. I could have said “yes” and really that would have been close enough to the truth.

I mean, obviously I’m not OK; the sadness is down there, sleeping, waiting to kick my ass one day. But I’m OK enough.

I think to be safe, no more leaving the house for me on R U OK days.