How are you really?

“How are you?”

Someone asked me that recently and I replied the way I always do with, “I’m fine”.

The truth was I wasn’t fine, and that day I decided to admit it out loud.

“Actually,” I said, holding back tears, “I’m really struggling today.”

It was hard to say those words out loud to another person. It’s hard to type them now, a few weeks later. But the reality is, that day I was struggling. But when asked, my first instinct was to answer the way I always do.

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Sometimes, I am fine and the smile that accompanies my response is genuine. But other days, the smile is forced, hiding the struggle within. A struggle that can be difficult to admit to myself, much less to anyone else.

In truth, I can only admit it out loud now because I’ve had months of therapy. Now I understand that we don’t have to be okay all the time. It’s not realistic, it’s not practical, and it’s not real life. We are going to have bad moments, bad days, and bad weeks. Keeping them inside can make the bad seem even bigger and worse. And that’s what I did for years. I kept the bad moments inside and to myself, for the most part. There were times I would open up but that didn’t help. Then I found myself in counseling.

If I’m being totally honest, I knew I needed to talk to someone months before I did it. I let myself be talked out of it. I didn’t want to be seen as weak.

It’s not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength to admit you can’t carry it all on your shoulders or within your heart and mind. Read that again, and out loud, for all the people in the back.

When I finally went to counseling, it became the thing that saved me.

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If you think a counselor is going to tell you what to do, then you are seeing the wrong one. They are licensed professionals who will actively listen to you and then talk you through whatever is going on. Never once have I been told what to do or how to do it. What I have been given are tools to help me navigate what’s going on in my life.

As women and as moms, we are supposed to have our stuff together. Balancing work, the house, the kids, a significant other, and anything else that comes our way should be second nature (at least I thought so). But it’s not. It’s hard, and this idea of balance is something I don’t think exists.

Then you add in working in agriculture. We have a lot of stress. We face a lot of challenges. There are a lot of demands on our time and energy. There is a lot of uncertainty. And sometimes we aren’t okay. Opening up to a neutral party can be the thing that gets you through the “not okay” times.

These days you don’t even have to sit on a therapist’s couch. With the internet, you can have a session sitting in your own chair, the tractor cab or wherever you are. I’ve never been to my counselor’s office and it’s in the same town I live in.