I will go to great lengths to avoid "Are you okay?"
However, I am having to learn to communicate about pain more freely. I've almost died several times due to an inability (not just unwillingness) to discuss or describe pain. Even as I try harder and harder to learn, another situation always comes up where I get into deep medical trouble because I was unable to communicate about it. Also it seems like discussing pain is a taboo among many nondisabled people (they assume it's not real or you just want attention or you're improper or something) and as someone with a number of severe pain conditions I feel like that taboo prevents people from understanding the reality of the life of people like me. So I do try to communicate about it more for that reason as well. One of my big things is being open about things that most people hide regarding disability, in order to make it more okay for more people to be open about it. It seems like often we're pressured into hiding things about ourselves, as if it's private, or dirty somehow, or just something people don't want to hear.
But about wanting to avoid the "are you okay" thing I totally completely understand and have also (when possible) gone to great lengths to avoid it. I say when possible because it often never occurs to me that a scar means people will ask about it. Even after it happens several times. But throughout my life I've nearly barked at people when they ask me questions like that and get all gooey sympathy all over me and YUCK it makes me physically shudder just thinking about it. So when I do talk about it I often make it clear that I'm not out for sympathy, I can't stand that kind of sympathy, I just want to be able to be open about it without it being a big deal. (Because when you live with severe pain every day of your life, it can seep into your personality, perceptions of the world, and many other aspects of a person. And I want to be able to be open about things that affect my life that drastically.)
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams