He’ll be fine.

The other day I watched a silly soap opera that I have been watching since college.  (Yeah, you don’t need to say it, I know!) In the scene, the  parents of a child who had just been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder were crying and talking,  and the father said to the mother, “he’ll be fine.” I sat for a moment and thought, what does this statement actually mean?

Over the years I have heard this statement dozens of times from doctors, teachers, friends, family, therapists and myself. Does it mean in the short run or long run? Is it supposed to make me feel better? Or feel worse, because something is wrong? I’ve heard it as the first statement in a phone call from school: “Hi, Mrs. Lapides, first I just want to say that Ryan is fine.” Great – then the next statement goes something like….but “this” happened today or “he’s in the office because…..” Or from the doctor, “ Well, Ryan has ADHD, but he’ll be fine.”

I know that this statement is just something that is said just to make us feel better. But the reality of it is that no, he or she or they are not going to be fine. Right at this moment they might be fine, or not. Maybe tomorrow they might be fine, or maybe not. Next year they might be fine, or maybe not. But the statement just gets you through the moment. Maybe in each step in the day, your child will be just fine. And then the statement switches around and someone says to you, “You’ll be fine.”

But I’m not fine. And neither is Ryan. He struggles every day to be “fine” . I struggle everyday thinking about whether I’m fine, or Ryan is fine. People ask how I am. And the answer is almost always I’m fine. But the underlying thought of being fine, is that I’m just getting through the day. I’m OK. I’m not happy, I’m not sad, I’m just getting through.

I don’t think we as a society have really thought about the “they’ll be fine” statement. I think it’s a statement of protecting ourselves from the reality of it all. It’s a way of putting on a band aid. Because if we’re truly honest about it, we don’t want to think that we aren’t fine, or our child isn’t fine. Don’t we always tell our kids when they fall that they’re fine? And when we’re asked by others about how we are, or how our children are, most of the time we answer, “I’m fine” or “they’re fine.” We answer this way whether it’s true or not just to make everyone feel ok. When we answer with anything else, it can often throw the person asking, completely off guard.

In the end will Ryan be fine? I don’t know. I hope that he’ll be better than fine. I hope that he’ll be great. That’s what he aims for. That’s what we aim for. Right now he’s fine. Some days he’s great. Other days not so much. Just like the rest of us. It’s just that he has to work much harder at being fine than the rest of us.

So next time you ask someone how they’re doing, or someone asks you how you’re doing, just stop and think for a moment about the answer.

*****On a quick side note, I have to give kudos to “General Hospital”, the soap opera I was watching. They have consistently brought many mental and physical health conditions in the open and dealt with them with compassion. Don’t get me wrong, they get a LOT of medical treatment scenarios wrong, but in the case of the child with autism, it’s been quite brilliant.