F U, OK?

Hey, we just had another RU OK Day, and as usual, wasn’t it just the maddest, merriest day of the whole happy new year?

A lot of people seemed to enjoy it, anyway, which, naturally, as someone who loathes the day with every fibre of my being, I found pretty infuriating, as I do every year.

So I’m writing this about how much I fucking hate RUOK. Why aren’t I writing it ON RU OK Day, rather than a couple of days later, when everyone’s over it (and isn’t the speed with which everyone moves on from RU OK Day one of its most endearing characteristics?)?

Well, ON the day, I was feeling much too angry at it to want to devote more time to thinking about it than I had to. Plus, I wasn’t feeling shitty enough about myself to be ready to deliberately bring more awfulness down upon my own head by wallowing in what I knew would make me feel worse.

Now, though, I’m in the perfect state of mind to address the issue: righteously irate and at the same time in a state of sufficiently deranged, self-destructive loathing that I’m perfectly happy to darken my already inky-black mood by wading in up to my elbows.

Now, let’s be clear: some people find RU OK Day useful, or at least they say they do, and who am I to question their sincerity? I mean actually I question everyone’s sincerity all the time, but in this instance I am perfectly happy to accept your word for it if you say you think RU OK Day is a valuable addition to our awareness calendar. But right now, for the purposes of this post, I am going to utterly disregard your feelings — this post is about how *I* feel about the day, and I’m going to write about how I feel and ignore the question of how anyone else might feel, because right now, and again, for the purposes of just this post, I don’t give a shit how anyone else might feel. To dedicate a piece of writing purely to one’s own feelings is of course selfish, narcissistic and deeply boring, and I’d be as ashamed as I usually am when I write about my feelings, but just this once I’m not, because:

a) RU OK Day is a day on which everyone else makes a celebration out of disregarding MY feelings, so disregarding theirs is basically just a case of turnabout being fair play; and:

b) I’m not the one who came up with the idea of dedicating an entire day to the practice of asking people how they feel, and if you, the world at large, insist upon making that inquiry, you deserve to reap the whirlwind of having me answer it. This dumb confessional day was YOUR idea, society, so you can sit down and fucking listen to me for a few minutes here.

Now, here is a fact: people often ask me if I’m OK. This never, ever, ever happens on RU OK Day, and I’m eternally grateful for that fact. The reason people ask me if I’m OK is generally that they have been given some kind of indication that I might not be OK. It’s nice to be asked if you’re OK in that circumstance. It means someone is paying attention to you and someone is interested in your wellbeing. Whether I’ve been giving outward signs of being unwell, or something has happened that could potentially render me unwell, I know that the question has been asked with just cause, and knowing the reason I’m being asked if I’m OK, I can trust the motives of the asker.

This is of course not at all the case if someone asks you “RU OK” on the day designated for that hideously abbreviated phrase. On RU OK Day, it is possible that someone is asking you if you’re OK as a result of some suggestion, but the fact is, the day’s been set up for the asking, and it’s more than likely the reason you’re being asked if you’re OK is that it’s RU OK Day.

What this means is that being asked if you’re OK on RU OK Day is the mental health equivalent of being told to have a nice day by a Big W checkout operator. I’m not saying that none of the ladies at Big W want me to have a nice day, but given they’ve been instructed to wish me one in the terms of their employment, I’d be a moron to assume that this was the most likely explanation for their behaviour. Likewise, with “RU OK” plastered on every wall and website, and “Start a conversation” posters infesting the horizon, how naive would I have to be to think that being asked if I’m OK on RU OK Day is a result of genuine concern on the part of my interrogator?

No, the more likely explanation is that they’re asking the question to tick a box and feel a little bit better about themselves — which is the entire point of the day, after all. This is not a day invented to raise awareness of mental illness, it’s a day invented to raise awareness of people’s need to feel good about themselves. The most charitable interpretation I can place upon the stunning coincidence of you saying “Are you OK?” on RU OK Day is that you care about me, and the publicity of the day has reminded you that you should probably occasionally make a visible show of this fact. The less charitable and far easier-to-believe interpretation is that you are reasonably invested in the self-image of a compassionate and generous soul that you’ve spent years building up, and taking a few seconds out of your day once a year to obey the commands of a public awareness campaign is an important part of keeping at bay the creeping doubts that occasionally threaten the security of that self-image.

What I’m saying is, if you ask me if I’m OK on RU OK Day, I will not believe that you actually give a shit. Hell, I might not believe you give a shit if you ask me on other days, to be honest — I’m fully aware that guilt is a powerful motivator, and taking a good hard look at myself I know I’m more likely to inspire guilt in another human being than actual affection or concern. But at least I find it probably that a spontaneous inquiry after my health on an ordinary day is inspired by some form of human bonding — doing it on RU OK Day would make me almost certain that you’re just doing your I’m A Good Person rounds.

And it’s not as if people tend to ask the question on the day anyway. I’ve seen many more people post earnest social media statuses urging others to ask the question than I have people actually asking it.

I used to work in an office where they dutifully put up the RU OK publicity material each year. Nobody ever asked me. Those co-workers who were aware that I suffered mental health problems never asked me — on that or any other day, in fact. The posters went up, the awareness campaign was disseminated, and not a single person in a large and busy office ever “started the conversation” with me. I never got kind inquiries after my mental health: all I ever got was disciplinary action as soon as I started to show any symptoms.

These days hopefully my friends know me well enough to know I don’t want to be asked if I’m OK on RU OK Day. Fortunately they never asked anyway, so it’s not like they had to change their habits as my antipathy grew.

I don’t want you to ask if I’m OK, because I know you don’t really care. You care about doing the right thing, you don’t care about my OK-ness or otherwise. And you know it. Asking me if I’m OK, on this most artificial of days, would be an act of rather nauseating dishonesty, and you’d be insulting my intelligence to try it on.

Because I know you’re not ready for the answer. Loads of people write about this, of course: how it’s important, when you say, “R U OK?”, that you’re “prepared” to hear an “honest answer”. Basically, we get educated every year that we must always be prepared to hear “no”, and to listen, and to help.

You probably think you are prepared.

I don’t think you are.

I think you’re prepared to hear me say, “No.” I think you’re prepared to hear me say, “Actually I am not OK, I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps.” I think you’re prepared to hear me say, “I am not OK because I am suffering from depression, which is of course an illness like any other, but I appreciate your concern and knowing you care is a little light at the end of the tunnel in itself.” I think you’re prepared to tell me, “It’s OK to not be OK, I am here for you, please tell me how you’re feeling”. And I think you’re VERY prepared to say, “It’s important you seek help for your mental health issues, let me help you get in touch with the relevant services.” You’re prepared for the Life Education talk we all love to imagine.

Are you prepared to hear me say, “No, I’m not OK, and it’s your fault”? Are you prepared to hear me say, “I’m not OK because I think you’ve been ignoring me and giving too much attention to other people instead of me and so I’ve decided you hate me and I’m terrified because I know all our mutual friends will take your side and I’ll lose everyone and right now I’m so angry at you because I don’t think I deserve to be hated even though at the same time I’m so aware of how paranoid and childish and loathsome I am that I DO deserve to be hated and I know it and you have ruined my life”?

Are you prepared to hear me say, “I am not OK, because I just heard you ranting about the kind of people you hate and you didn’t realise I’m one of those people and now I know what you really think of me”?

Are you prepared to hear me say, “I am not OK, because everyone on Facebook keeps linking to an article by someone who really hurt me in the past and it’s making me feel depressed and like I have no real friends and I know that’s stupid and pathetic and I’m feeling even more depressed about how stupid and pathetic I’m being”?

Are you prepared to hear me say, “I’m not OK because I just remembered being humiliated in high school twenty years ago and I’m still not over it”?

Are you prepared to hear me say, “I’m not OK because I have no social life and no sex life and my career is going nowhere and I’m fat and ugly and middle-aged and I’m pretty sure the people I’m most desperate to impress in the world are the ones who find me the most laughable and in all likelihood are literally laughing at me behind my back at every opportunity”? Are you prepared to hear me say, “I think you’re one of those people. Every day I feel crushed by the feeling that you don’t like me as much as I want you to”?

Are you prepared to hear me say, “I am going to die tonight, and it’s for the best, and no matter how many times you tell me that people care about me and that killing myself is a mistake, there is no way you can convince me that that’s a more rational or evidence-based argument than the one that says I am a worthless piece of trash who ruins everything he touches — so I’m going to die, and everyone will be better off after I do”?

Are you ready? Are you ready for me to blame you, and beg you, and break down and crumble to pieces in front of you?

Are you ready to see me die and know there’s nothing you can do about it? Because I wasn’t OK, and nothing could make me OK?

You’re not. I don’t expect you to be, and I don’t believe you are, and I don’t want you to pretend any different.

So I hate RU OK Day, because in the unlikely event that someone asking if I’m OK actually cares whether I am or not, there’s no way they want to find out just how un-OK I am.

But most of all I hate RU OK Day because if I start the day feeling OK, hearing “are you OK” will put a stop to that pretty much instantly.

When I hear the question, it just reminds me that even if I feel OK temporarily, deep down inside I’m not OK and I never really will be.

When I hear the question it reminds me of all the reasons I have to not be OK, and all the ways of being not OK that I’ve discovered over the years.

When I hear the question it reminds me of all the people who’ve asked me if I’m OK before, without really meaning it.

When I hear the question it reminds me of how unimportant my feelings are, in the face of the ego-massaging power of an empty hashtag.

When I hear the question it reminds me that there is nothing more brutally cold than to see your pain paid lip service — nothing more withering than the feigned concern of illusionary friends.

Every year, RU OK Day ensures both that I’m not, and that I receive loud and clear the message that nobody’s particularly interested in changing that state of affairs. And if you find it otherwise, bully for you: all this day makes me want to is throw in the fucking towel.