When my mom feels like crap but doesn't want to discuss it she always responds "I'm just peachy dewy" to our inquires of how she is feeling. At this point we know it means to lay off. You don't need the pressure of having to be okay for anyone else.

Feel what you feel and perhaps answer that you WILL BE fine and leave it future tense if you don't want to discuss it further.

What Suzi and Laura said. I'm sorry if I added to it.

I know it is fine to not be okay right now, but I still feel people are expecting me to reassure them that I'm fine.

Fuck them and their expectations. Not your problem! (...life would be easier if we could all manage that, eh?)

I'm sorry if I added to it.

What? No, absolutely not.

We're still doing Father's Day at our house. I really don't want to, but TCG does. I did however reschedule our theatre tickets for tomorrow to a couple of weeks from now because I don't have enough spoons for that too.

Laura - I've used the "will be" when I didn't have the spoons. If people pressed, they usually ended up with a teary Suzi and quickly learned to just leave it be.

I know it is fine to not be okay right now, but I still feel people are expecting me to reassure them that I'm fine.

Reassuring other people is NOT your priority right now. It's not even close to the top of your list.

sj, you're going through major mess. Take care of yourself!

Other people can wait.

I know it is fine to not be okay right now, but I still feel people are expecting me to reassure them that I'm fine.

What everyone else says. I like using the "No, but I will be" line to gently push people away and hopefully shut the conversation down.

This reminds me of the post that Allie Brosh did about depression after she came back to Hyperbole and a Half after a long hiatus:

I was also extremely ill-prepared for the position of comforting people. The things that seemed reassuring at the time weren't necessarily comforting for others...I had so very few feelings, and everyone else had so many, and it felt like they were having all of them in front of me at once. I didn't really know what to do, so I agreed to see a doctor so that everyone would stop having all of their feelings at me.

Nora, I just read that book recently, and I love her writing about depression. But I never truly understood the numb/not feeling anything that she was talking about, until now. Usually my depression is all about the feeling too much.

sj, I am so sorry about all of the uncertainty. So much love to you and TCG.