“How are you doing?”

March 2, 2022

Hmm… *long pause* I didn’t realize how loaded this question can be to someone. I learned the hard way from my own experience that this casual greeting could trigger a whole lot of emotions to someone. It certainly did to me.

Unexpected and unfortunate events happened to me and my family one after the other since the beginning of last year, and along the way I lost my health to the point where I couldn’t walk. It all happened pretty quickly – from an active person to bedridden; not only having to deal with physical challenges but also facing mental struggles with myself, having difficulties accepting what has happened to me.

For years if someone said to me “How are you?” I would respond casually – “I am good. How are you?” with smiles on my face. Often it was like an automatic response – as if that’s the only way I knew how to respond to such question. That was no longer the case this time. I found myself struggling how to answer this question… Do I say ok so that I don’t need to explain anything? Should I be honest and say I am going through hell? But then what? It triggered all kind of emotions – sadness, frustrations, anger, feeling so vulnerable and helpless, confused…made me even feel speechless at times, simply not knowing what to say. With all these overwhelming emotions, I started shutting down and isolating myself more and more to avoid any kind of interaction.

But lately, I started feeling better and the feeling of wanting to respond came back. I wanted to respond and say thank you, thanks for just thinking of me and saying “Hello!”, and asking me how I am doing. I realized that my physical and mental struggles was overwhelming at times, and this question reminded me of the normalcy I was missing so I chose to flight and that’s what I did. However, it did also reminded me that you are there and show that you do care when I was feeling most vulnerable and helpless.

It’s been 9 months of countless hours spent in dr appointments and rehab trying to regain my health back. I am still dealing with pains everyday and unsure how long it will take for me to fully recover from this injury, but I want to believe that I am going to be ok. I can walk, able to work and slowly started doing things that I used to enjoy doing, so I know I will be ok.

So, I want to ask you “How are you doing today?” and that I really hope you are in good health and doing ok. If you are struggling, my thoughts are with you and I hope you feel better soon! ❤️🙏