Depression With High Functionality: Signs To Recognize It

High functionality depression is not visible to the naked eye. It has the face of that person who meets at work, who does sports, who uploads photos to their social networks greeting everyone with a smile. However, behind this apparent normality, it 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, windows down, unable to cope with the challenges posed by circumstances. Few people could be able to think that that coworker, that supermarket cashier or even our own mother suffers from a type of psychological condition that plunges them into a state of permanent suffering. Of masked helplessness.

Depression with high functionality characterizes people who, at first glance, show normal performance in any area of ​​their life. They work, interact, smile, communicate … However, they have been carrying a deep malaise with them for some time. The one that is evident, for example, as soon as you get up in the morning.

The early hours of the day have the taste of rampant anxiety. The one where suffocating pressure is embedded by “being able to do everything” , with “I have to continue to be perfect, appear normal, fulfill every obligation”. Sooner or later, these situations end up becoming chronic until they lead to a major depression.

Depression with high functionality: what is it and what symptoms does it present?

High functioning depression describes what is clinically known as dysthymia. However, it has a particularity that differentiates it from the more classic diagnosis: in this case the 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 way is something they cannot tolerate.

Thus, someone dealing with dysthymia is able to get up each day and fulfill their obligations. What’s more, sometimes we even have successful professionals and highly competent people whom no one would suspect that deep down they struggle with anguish, despair, and unhappiness.

Beyond what we may think, depression with high functionality is a serious condition. Sometimes, we can find cases where a person has committed suicide without their environment knowing the reason. Nobody can explain how someone with a seemingly perfect life has chosen such a dramatic exit.

Also, we cannot forget an important aspect. Studies such as the one carried out at the University of Pittsburgh University of Medicine (United States) show us that dysthymia affects almost 6% of the population. Not detecting it or not requesting expert help will lead to a major depression with its serious consequences.

Therefore, let us know what symptoms depression with high functionality presents.

Difficulty experiencing joy, enthusiasm and motivation

The 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 something they need, it is to appear normal, to simulate efficiency, well-being and competence.

Relentless self-criticism

We pointed it out before. Depression with high functionality mainly characterizes people who are very demanding with 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 pretend fallibility.

Likewise, and as if that weren’t enough, there comes a time when this self-criticism also moves abroad. Finally they end up processing all their reality as an environment full of errors, irritating, annoying and empty aspects. All this increases the suffering even more.

Little things are magnified

That someone is late, that the subway is very full, that our partner has forgotten something, that the children dirty the living room, that there is no hot water … Those little things of the day that you always deal with in the best way, are a obstacle of exponential magnitude for the person with depression with high functionality. Let’s think that he has to overcome it carrying that drag.

Thus, it is easy for them to overreact. They do it with high stress, where far from showing dejection or inactivity, they initiate magnified responses where in many cases they manage to solve those problems, but the psychological cost that it generates is immense. Until they can’t anymore.

Use of own coping strategies (ineffective)

The curious thing about this type of patient is that they carry that dysthymia for years, managing it in their “way”. They are aware of their discomfort, their anguish and unhappiness. However, far from seeking professional help, they choose to apply their own coping strategies.

Now, they are resources that act as an escape route. They are ways of camouflaging the problem, of displacing it. Hence, they choose to compulsively watch their favorite television series, to do intense sports, to eat or even, in the most extreme cases, to lead to the consumption of alcohol or drugs.

To conclude, high-functioning depression characterizes anyone who is unable to stop, to become fully aware that they need psychological help. The need to live quickly, demand self and show that we are effective often hides an implicit reality as serious as it is worrying.

The one in which we realize that, if we stop, the real reality will emerge: that we cannot with our life, with ourselves, with that depression that we have been a co-pilot for too long. So let’s put the brakes on and ask for expert help. Dysthymia can be treated and we deserve to feel better, live better.