“How are you doing?”

Does anyone really want to know the answer to that question?

Quite often it’s asked by some well-meaning person who really has no desire to hear anything more than, “Okay.” If you say anything else, their reaction is often uncomfortable because they only wanted reassurance that you’re functioning, not an actual explanation of your life.

I spoke a long time ago about the difference between what a “friend” is in this country versus a friend in Germany. If you ask someone in Germany how they’re doing, you may get an in-depth answer about their day, what’s weighing on them, and the general state of their life. I remember in both high school and college German classes being warned about the length and detail of the answer you might receive if you asked that question casually.

Here in the United States, it’s often much more superficial, and honestly that’s understandable. People live busy lives and rarely want to spend more than a fleeting moment checking in. The question becomes more of a social reflex than a meaningful inquiry. It gives the impression of caring without necessarily requiring emotional investment.

Okay, okay… I know there are already friends reading this getting ready to say, “No, I really want to know how you are.”

And to be fair, some people genuinely do.

But I’ve learned over the years that I have very few true friends and a great many acquaintances. Real friends are the people who actually want the answer to that question, even when the answer is complicated.

I’ve always disliked the question for another reason as well.

The truth is, I’m never really “okay.” The answer is always more complex than that and usually depends on how life around me is functioning at that particular moment. When I say I’m okay, what I really mean is that things are not currently so out of control that I’m unable to manage them. That does not mean there aren’t problems teetering on the edge of becoming unmanageable. It simply means I’m surviving comparatively better than I have at other times.

I equate “okay” with the word “fine.”

Sometimes “I’m fine” is simply a socially acceptable mask that gives someone your basic status report without forcing them to hear your entire life story.

After the events of the last three years, many well-intentioned people began asking that question a little less casually and a little more frequently. In many ways that was their attempt to make me feel seen, and there’s honestly nothing wrong with that.

But when someone is truly struggling, repeated concern can become emotionally confusing. It can create a false sense of hope that people are more deeply invested in your recovery than they really are. That’s not cruelty; it’s just reality. Most people eventually return to their own lives, while the person in crisis remains stuck trying to rebuild theirs.

I tend to look at all of this through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

At the base of that hierarchy are the most primal necessities: food, shelter, safety, survival. If those needs aren’t being met, higher levels of function become difficult or impossible. Asking someone in that state, “How are you doing?” may not produce an honest or even coherent answer because their executive functioning is overwhelmed by survival itself.

There are people who remain at that lowest level of functioning for so long that they adapt to it. I refer to that as survival mode.

Survival mode is dangerous.

It creates a constant level of stress that forces decisions to be made from a more primal place than a rational one. Larger decisions become driven more by fear, uncertainty, and emotional preservation than by clear executive function.

I know many times in my life — not just during the last three years — that I have operated in survival mode. Honestly, I said and did things simply to survive emotionally. Many of those decisions were made with that distorted survival-based executive function.

That doesn’t excuse bad decisions. Consequences still exist. But understanding why you reacted the way you did can sometimes help you reclaim some level of perspective afterward.

I think coping mechanisms become particularly difficult in survival mode because your future feels uncertain. You become trapped in a state where you no longer know what tomorrow, next week, or next month is supposed to look like. That uncertainty becomes all-consuming.

I know my own fear stripped away any realistic sense of normalcy.

After everything happened, life became rapid-fire decision making while simultaneously existing in constant crisis. One moment you’re functioning at one level, and the next you’ve been psychologically dropped down to basic survival. That transition is deeply unsettling. In many ways it feels almost identical to losing the foundational necessities of life because suddenly your stability, identity, future, and sense of security all feel uncertain.

Trying to make sense of your reactions afterward can become obsessive. You replay events over and over searching for logic in your own behavior. Ironically, that search for understanding can itself become unhealthy.

Survival mode also makes you thin-skinned.

You begin misinterpreting polite concern as genuine emotional investment because you desperately want connection and reassurance. Meanwhile, life has already moved on for most people around you.

You keep your true friends, of course. The people who quietly watch for signs that things may not be okay and step in when needed. But many acquaintances drift away, not necessarily out of malice, but because difficult situations make people uncomfortable.

And honestly?

That’s okay.

How does someone fix that?

The brutally honest answer is that sometimes you find new friends. You engage with people who may know nothing about your past and build relationships outside the shadow of old events.

I have.

That doesn’t mean I abandoned old friendships. Some people stayed, and I am incredibly grateful for them. Even from a distance, they still notice when something feels off and check in without making it performative.

But locally, my social life is nearly nonexistent now.

Anyone who knows what happened at my house may understandably feel uncomfortable coming over because stigma has a long shelf life. Honestly, I rarely go out socially anymore anyway, and I’ve definitely not become the party animal I once was.

And maybe that’s okay too.

Or at least okay enough.

It’s an adjustment. In some ways it’s even been welcome. A lot of people from my former life quietly disappeared, and while that can hurt sometimes, it also clarified who was truly there and who was simply nearby.

Why am I writing this?

Because anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I’ve walked down this road before.

But I’m writing it again because I’ve finally come to understand something important: in many ways, it really isn’t them. It’s me.

People move on from situations they don’t understand. Some only knew me professionally. Some only knew me casually. Some simply didn’t know what to say anymore. I still receive polite comments and occasional responses, but many of those relationships belonged to another version of my life.

And honestly, that’s fair.

As Madeline Kahn once said in Blazing Saddles, “I’m tired… tired of playin’ the game.”

That doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. It just means I’m walking a different path than the one I imagined three years ago. Considering how difficult this path has already been, I can only imagine what the others might have looked like.

In true wasteland fashion, the only things consistently walking beside me now are my faithful dog and the memory of an amazing mother.

Otherwise…

I’m fine.