High Functioning Hub

“But you seem fine!”

From the outside looking in, this is a totally fair assessment, because we look fine. It is very easy to dismiss what someone is unable to perceive at the surface level. Though, this does not mean that someone isn’t struggling. You get out of bed every day, go to work, go to school, do chores, you get things done, you’re functional. Being able to do these things does not immediately mean that you aren’t suffering from any number of internal crises. This is a very common misconception with mental illness, especially ones that you’ve learned to build your life around. No one sees the internal struggles, or that you break down when you get home, or that you’ve fought with yourself dozens of times today alone to get in the shower. People just see the you that you show to the world. I won’t dismiss the effect of stigma in this regard, but some people are just wired differently. They can rise to a challenge where others cannot. They can be a superior employee, but a total mess at home. They can be an exemplary student, but unable to hold a full-time job. There are all kinds of these apparent contradictions that coexist in one’s life. Just because someone is messy does not mean they do not like cleanliness. Sometimes these things inside our heads are just screaming at us to or not to do things because we cannot handle it any other way. It may look like all I do is lounge on the couch watching television, but in my head, there is an angry symphony of thoughts begging me to get things done, yet I can’t. In the same vein, my thoughts are begging me to stay in bed today, call out of work, but my body simply carries on with the actions and next thing I know, I’m clocking in for my shift.

Mental illness has a wide variety of appearances in people, and some can be purposefully misleading. Some have a way of misdirecting attention away from the parts that truly need help. Though to the world, the person in question can’t have anything wrong with them because they appear to be a fully functional person. In cases like this, the person can be fighting tooth and nail, day after day, to simply keep up appearances, to be the functional member of society that they yearn to be. The thing about mental illness, unlike physical illness, the signs and symptoms can easily cover their tracks and hide from perception of others. In some cases, they can use things like comedy to mask their true intentions while screaming for help, just to fall on deaf ears. That’s their goal though. Mental illness has a way of thriving in isolation and will often lead people to seek it out on their own. Whether that’s because isolation is more comfortable, or it keeps them away from their triggers, or even because it makes them believe that they are a burden on those close to them. The main problem with mental illness in general, and treating it, is that it manifests in an immeasurable variety of ways. More often than not, treatment methods are rather textbook, and “cookie-cutter” in that they are designed to apply to as many people as possible. My understanding is that this is because it’s believed to help more people this way than spending all the time and energy needed customizing a care plan.

When someone develops a high functioning mental illness, things get much more complicated. The illness has taken root and started affecting the person in a way to hide itself. On the surface, the person appears to be perfectly normal (most of the time) and does not show the chaos in their heads for any number of reasons; but deep inside, like me, the person is struggling to get through even the simplest of tasks. It becomes this constant push and pull of what can be done today vs what needs to be put off until tomorrow. It’s a battle of trying to conserve energy, because it often feels like you’re spending more energy than recouping. When you look like you have everything under control, but in reality, are barely holding everything together, you’ll often get careless but unassuming remarks about how “You can’t be depressed, you’ve come to work every day for the last 7 months and have done a great job!” This is only half of the truth, because they haven’t seen the several minutes each morning I spend convincing myself not to call out. That’s only one example of the many things people hear after opening up about their mental illness, and it tends to have an opposite effect of training them to not open up in the fear of being dismissed because they’re “functional“. Function does not prevent existence of issues, but rather masks them, even exacerbates them most times.

I often look in the mirror and think to myself, even out loud sometimes, “What the f*ck is wrong with you? Why can you not struggle with even the most simple of tasks?” The inner critic never eases up, and continues to push me to remain functional. This is for very complex reasons, most of which I don’t even understand. Whether it’s to keep up appearances, because I can’t stand the mess I leave for later, because I need to eat, because I need my job or simply just “because”. Yet, I have been told by any number of people, strangers and those close to me alike, that I don’t seem depressed. I usually laugh it off, make some sort of dark humor joke, and then my brain just crumbles in on itself. I can’t look like I need help and have any chance of remaining in my somewhat normal life. My brain tells me I can’t have my cake and eat it too. I struggle to survive most days, and yet without my direct saying so, people would not even consider how truly severe my mental illness is. Even after spelling it out, clear as day, they look shocked. Part of me is proud that I hide it do well, another is even more stressed out that I am constantly lying to everyone around me that things aren’t that bad. It’s this back and forth in my head that I can’t let anyone know the true intensity of my illness, yet I won’t be able to receive the help I need without doing so. Do I keep up the charade, or do I gamble on letting people close enough to help? This all swirls though my head, day after day, all the while I do my job, cook my meals, go to school, and do the things that need doing. It’s like treading water, nonstop, for my whole life, and some days I get less water in my nose than others, some days I even sink below the surface, only to force my way back up again and resume maintaining the status quo.

If you, or someone you know, struggles with high functioning mental illness, one of the worst things to hear is a total dismissal of whatever the inner demon of the day is. If someone decides you are trustworthy enough to open up to, or maybe they have just had too much and need to open up to anybody, whatever you do, do not dismiss their struggles because they don’t “look” mentally ill. You don’t really even have to say anything, you don’t have to understand or even relate. Just listen. If someone is pouring out their pain to you, it’s either because they trust you, or they are on the verge of collapse. I have been at the latter far too many times, so I can say with full certainty that the last thing I wanted to hear was some variation of essentially “no”. It just goes to show that ultimately, we have no idea what goes on inside someone else’s head, sometimes even if they tell us. So, above all else, be kind.