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Im fine12/17/2023 Imagine the disingenuous phone calls across Britain as grown adults in distress reassure their mothers that they’re "fine, Mum". The survey showed that we are three times more likely to lie to our mothers about how we are than to our fathers. But it’s a dire situation if we’re lying to our friends, family, partners and parents. It can be a good, efficient shield in a professional situation and it can maintain your privacy among strangers. Now, sure, there are times when saying "I’m fine" is, well, fine. Friends have to communicate to each other that it’s OK, that it’s safe to talk about mental health and that as a friend, you’d welcome that conversation." We’ve got to keep asking the question ‘How are you?’ until people feel safe to give their real answers. You might not know the cause of their distress but it’s important to know that they could be suffering. "It’s about understanding that when they say they’re fine, they might not be. "If a friend or loved one says they’re fine, I would say it’s about asking how they are with more persistence and compassion," says Mark. That starts – like so many cultural shifts – with amping up our compassion. To do so, Mark says, we have to question why we’re so insistent on being ‘fine’ all the damn time. We have a disclosure problem in this country and we must address it." "It’s the fear of being discriminated against or the fear of not being safe that stops people from talking about it. "This cultural trend of not discussing mental health has a real impact," says Mark Rowland, director of fundraising and communications at the Mental Health Foundation. It’s become a greeting a call-and-response ritual we perform several times a day with people we know, people we love and people we meet. 59% of people told the survey that they don’t even expect a truthful response to the question "How are you?" – which makes it about as interrogative as saying "Hello". We no longer want to know, genuinely, how someone is – or at least, we’ve reached a stage where the enquiry has lost its meaning. What’s perhaps even more interesting, to me, is our intention when we ask the question. Almost a third of those surveyed said they often lie about how they are feeling to other people, while one in 10 went as far as to say they always lie about their emotional state. The Mental Health Foundation conducted a survey of 2,000 British people and found that 85% of us have lied in answer to the question "How are you?" and 75% feel uncomfortable talking about our emotions. That’s a twice-daily lie for most of us – all because we’ve lost the ability or the desire to be sincere with one another. On average, we say "I’m fine" 14 times a week, but only 19% of us actually mean it. It’s also the fastest way to shut down any genuine conversation about how we really are. It’s the easiest way to stop follow-up questions and the simplest way to signal to the world that you’ve got your shit together. We say it as a matter of habit and, especially, when we’re anything but fine. Like a chorus of mundanity: "I’m fine", "I’m fine", "I’m fine". Every day, all over the world, people are answering the question "How are you?" with a casual, non-committal "I’m fine".
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