High-functioning depression is not visible at first glance. It has the face of a person who does his job well, who does sports, who uploads photos to social networks greeting everyone with a smile. However, behind this apparent normality, he masks a type of depression that can drag on for years with quite serious episodes.
There is a very common image that most people have in mind when we talk about depression. It is easy to visualize someone lying in bed, with the windows down, unable to face the challenges that circumstances present to them. Few people would be able to imagine that their co-worker, cashier at the supermarket, or even their mother suffers from a type of psychological condition that plunges them into a state of permanent suffering. Of masked helplessness.
High-functioning depression characterizes people who, at first glance, appear to be performing normally in any area of their lives. They work, socialize, smile, communicate… However, they have been dragging around a deep malaise for some time. This is evident, for example, as soon as they get up in the morning.
The first hours of the day have the flavor of galloping anxiety. The kind where a suffocating pressure to “be able to do everything” takes hold, with “I have to continue being perfect, appearing normal, fulfilling every obligation.” Sooner or later, these situations end up becoming chronic and leading to major depression .
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
-Confucius-
High-functioning depression: what is it and what are its symptoms?
High-functioning depression describes what is clinically known as dysthymia. However, it has a peculiarity that differentiates it from the more classic diagnosis: in this case, a lack of energy does not appear. The reason for this is that these patients show a high feeling of perfectionism. Stopping or being fallible in some aspect is something they cannot tolerate.
Thus, someone who deals with dysthymia can get up every day and fulfill his obligations. What’s more, sometimes we even have successful professionals and highly competent people who no one would suspect that deep down, they struggle with anxiety, despair, and unhappiness.
Beyond what we may think, high-functioning depression is a serious condition. Sometimes, we can find cases where a person has committed suicide without their environment knowing the reason. No one can explain how someone with a seemingly perfect life has opted for such a dramatic outcome.
We cannot forget an important aspect. Studies such as those carried out at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (United States) show that dysthymia affects almost 6% of the population. Failure to detect it or to seek expert help will lead to major depression with serious consequences.
Let us therefore find out what symptoms high-functioning depression presents.
Difficulty experiencing joy, excitement, and motivation
A person with this psychological condition is capable of expressing positive emotions. However, expressing them does not mean feeling them. Because this type of patient is unable to feel that joy of yesteryear, that motivation to achieve goals, to enjoy their hobbies.
And this undoubtedly generates an exhausting ambivalence, because if there is one thing they need, it is to appear normal, to simulate efficiency, well-being, and competence.
Relentless self-criticism
We pointed this out earlier. High-functioning depression characterizes people who are very demanding of themselves. They are perfectionist profiles who do not hesitate to criticize themselves for almost any aspect. They do not allow themselves to fail, doubt, or appear fallible.
And, as if that were not enough, there comes a time when this self-criticism is also displaced to the outside. They end up processing their entire reality as an environment full of errors, irritating, annoying, and empty aspects. All of this increases the suffering even more.
Small things are magnified.
Someone being late, the subway being too crowded, our partner forgetting something, the kids making a mess in the living room, there being no hot water… These little things of the day that we always have to deal with in the best way possible, are obstacles of exponential magnitude for a person with high-functioning depression. Let’s think that they have to overcome it by carrying the burden they drag around.
Thus, it is easy for them to overreact. They do so with high levels of stress, where far from showing despondency or inactivity, they initiate exaggerated responses where in many cases they manage to solve these problems, but the psychological cost that it generates for them is immense. Until they can no longer bear it.
Using one’s own (ineffective) coping strategies
The curious thing about these types of patients is that they carry around their dysthymia for years, managing it in their own “way.” They are aware of their discomfort, their anguish, and their unhappiness. However, far from seeking professional help, they choose to apply their coping strategies.
However, these are resources that act as an escape route. They are ways of camouflaging the problem, of displacing it. That is why they choose to binge-watch their favorite television series, do intense sports, eat, or even, in the most extreme cases, end up consuming alcohol or drugs.
In conclusion, high-functioning depression characterizes anyone unable to stop, to become fully aware that they need psychological help. The need to live fast, to demand more from themselves, and to show that we are efficient often hides an implicit reality that is as serious as it is worrying.
That is when we realize that if we stop, the real truth will emerge: that we cannot cope with our lives, with ourselves, with that depression that we have been driving for too long. So let’s put on the brakes and ask for expert help. Dysthymia can be treated and we deserve to feel better, to live better.
All sources cited were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, timeliness, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- American Psychiatric Association. (2002). Mood disorders. DSM-IV-TR Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (pp. 79–81). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2013.09.028
- Spanemberg, L., and Juruena, MF (2004). Dysthymia: historical and nosological characteristics and its relationship with major depressive disorder. Revista de Psiquiatria Do Rio Grande Do Sul , 26 (3), 300-311. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-81082004000300007