“Have You Recovered?”

“How are you?”
“Have you recovered?”
“Ok tak tu?”
“Kak Mel ok?”

I have been getting a lot of these kind of questions lately. It is expected lah kan, since I have been absent from my (public) Instagram account for almost a month now.
While I am grateful for people who are genuinely concerned, it’s a real struggle for me to answer truthfully, specifically to those who do not really know what’s going on.

Most of the time, the response that passes through my head immediately is “No.”
But that would just open up room for more questions I do not want & have the energy to entertain.

And all this while, my automatic answer to the general masses is “Alhamdulillah, OK.” even when things are not. I guess these days I am just tired of faking it.

Especially today when I was asked whether I have recovered.

I immediately felt annoyed.
And thought to myself, “Do you think this is something I can just snap out of??”

But then, I quickly realised that the person meant well and probably thinks I have been experiencing some sort of a physical ailment. 😅

How do we actually answer these questions?

A close friend suggested that I reply, “In progress, InshaAllah.” – which I did and I think that’s a pretty good answer!

Because, that is the truth.

I am a work in progress.
It is not something I can just get over. (note to self)

But I am learning that there are many things that I can do to help myself navigate through this experience (of depression and anxiety) which I plan to write in another post, InshaAllah.

Have I recovered?
I am in progress.

xoxo