It’s okay not to be okay… isn’t it?

We say it all the time. It’s okay not to be okay. We tell people to reach out. We tell them they don’t have to struggle alone. We tell them we’re there if they need to talk, that we’ll listen without judgement, that nobody should have to put on a brave face when underneath it all they’re falling apart. They’re beautiful words. Important words. But I sometimes wonder how well they actually translate into reality.

But what happens when the person who isn’t okay is the person you rely on? What happens when the one who normally listens doesn’t have the capacity to listen today? When the person who always turns up can’t? When the one who usually holds everything together is struggling to hold themselves together? Are we still quite so comfortable saying, “It’s okay not to be okay”? Or, somewhere underneath our concern, is there a little voice saying, “Yes… but I need you”?

There are people in our lives who quietly become our constants. The person we ring when something goes wrong. The one we vent to. The one who sorts things out, remembers, checks in and somehow finds the time, even when they don’t really have it. Often, this isn’t something we consciously decide. Roles develop within relationships without us ever discussing them. Someone becomes “the strong one”, “the dependable one”, “the listener” or simply “the one who copes”.

The trouble is, when somebody fulfils that role for long enough, we can stop seeing what they do as something they are giving and begin to see it as simply who they are. We forget that the listener sometimes needs to be listened to. The strong one sometimes needs somewhere to fall apart. The dependable one sometimes needs to cancel. The person who always answers might occasionally need to let the phone ring. None of that makes them any less caring, dependable or loving. It simply makes them human.

And perhaps part of the problem is that we are very good at judging how somebody is doing by what we can see. They look great. They’re smiling. They’re working. They’re posting on social media. They’re laughing, making plans, getting things done and carrying on as normal. So they must be okay… right?

But looking great on the outside doesn’t mean everything is great on the inside. We never really know what it has taken for somebody to get dressed that morning, to walk through the door, to smile, to answer the message or simply to keep going. Some of the people who appear to be coping brilliantly may be using every bit of energy they have just to maintain the version of themselves that everyone else expects to see. Perhaps that is another reason why we need to stop assuming that because somebody looks okay, they are okay.

And then there is the question we all ask: “How are you?” Except… do we actually ask it? Or have we started replacing it with, “I hope you’re well”? They sound very similar, but I’m not sure they always mean the same thing. “How are you?” leaves a space for an answer. “I hope you’re well” can sometimes feel as though the answer has already been decided. It is almost easier to reply, “Yes, fine thanks,” than to say, “Actually, I’m not.” Perhaps sometimes “I hope you’re well” really does come from a place of genuine care. But perhaps sometimes, without even realising it, we use it because we don’t actually want to deal with the answer. We want to acknowledge someone without necessarily opening the door to what might come through it. Because if we genuinely ask someone how they are, we also have to be prepared for them to tell us.

And what if the answer isn’t “fine”? What if they tell us they’re exhausted, overwhelmed, frightened, angry, grieving or simply not coping? What if there isn’t anything we can fix? What if listening takes time? What if their answer makes us uncomfortable? Real care sometimes means being willing to hear an answer we weren’t expecting.

There can also be something strangely uncomfortable about discovering that the person we lean on has limits, particularly when we happen to need them at the same time they have nothing left to give. Perhaps that is where our words about kindness and understanding are really tested. It is relatively easy to believe that people should look after themselves when they need to do so doesn’t affect us. It becomes much harder when their boundary means we don’t get what we wanted from them. When their “I can’t today” leaves us disappointed, when their need for rest means something doesn’t get done, when their silence means we have to find someone else to talk to, or when their decision to put themselves first means, just for once, they cannot put us first too.

And I think there is an uncomfortable question worth asking here: when did someone being there for us become more important than noticing whether they were okay enough to be there? This isn’t about keeping score. I don’t believe genuine relationships should work like a ledger where every phone call, favour and act of kindness is carefully recorded and returned in equal measure. Life doesn’t work that neatly. Sometimes one person needs more. Sometimes we carry someone for a while because they simply cannot carry themselves. At another point, perhaps they will carry us. There will always be seasons when the balance tips.

But there is a difference between an uneven season and a relationship where care only ever seems to travel in one direction. There is a difference between needing someone and expecting them to endlessly be available to meet that need. And perhaps there is a difference between saying we care about somebody and actually being willing to see them as a whole person, rather than only seeing the role they play in our life.

I think most of us will have got this wrong at some point. We have probably assumed the strong friend was fine because they always seemed fine. We have unloaded onto the person who always listens without stopping to ask whether they had the space for it. We have been disappointed when somebody couldn’t show up in the way we expected because we were so wrapped up in what was happening to us that we didn’t notice what might have been happening to them. Not because we are terrible people, but because we are human too. And maybe being human also means becoming more conscious of it.

Perhaps before saying, “I need to talk,” we occasionally need to ask, “Have you got the space for me to talk?” Maybe when someone behaves differently from the version of them we are used to, instead of immediately wondering what is wrong with them, we could wonder what might be happening for them. Maybe the people who ask for the least sometimes need us to ask a little more. And maybe, when we do ask “How are you?”, we need to make sure we actually have the space to hear the real answer.

Being there for somebody isn’t only about turning up when they ask us for help. Sometimes it is noticing that the person who is normally there for everyone else has gone a little quiet. Sometimes it is looking beyond the smile, beyond the “I’m fine”, beyond the fact that everything appears perfectly normal from the outside and wondering whether there might be something else going on underneath.

“It’s okay not to be okay” cannot only apply when it is convenient. It cannot only apply to our own difficult days. It cannot mean that other people are allowed to struggle as long as they continue to meet our needs while they are doing it. If we truly believe that people are allowed to have difficult days, difficult weeks and difficult seasons, then surely we also have to allow them to be different within them. Less available, less capable, less communicative and less able to carry us. And perhaps, occasionally, needing us to carry a little of the weight instead.

So maybe the real question isn’t whether we believe it’s okay not to be okay. Most of us would immediately say that we do. Maybe the question is whether we still believe it when the person who isn’t okay is the person we were counting on. Because that might be when those words stop being something lovely that we say and become something we actually live.