High Functioning Anxiety: What is it?
Do you often feel worried but manage to go on with your life? You may have high functioning anxiety — Read more to find out.
About 18% of people in the US live with an anxiety condition each year. It means that every day roughly 40 million people go through their daily routine coping with a high degree of stress and anxiety. Many of these people might have what we consider “high-functioning anxiety.”
In the past decade, a shift in the perception of mental conditions was observed. Priorly, mental conditions were considered as a pathology that must be solved. Now we are rather focusing our efforts on dealing with its symptoms.
The concept of “high functioning anxiety” explains the situation of people who fulfill their career and relationships obligations to keep moving forward in their lives despite their anxiety.
These are people who are busy but still going at it.
Feeling burned out but still showing up.
Most days their thoughts are filled with endless worries, nervous energy but is often well hidden behind giggles.
Although high functioning anxiety is not an officially recognized disease, most therapists like Lynne Siqueland, Ph.D. of the Children’s and Adult Center for OCD and Anxiety admit that they have plenty of patients who “are diagnosed with anxiety disorders, yet are doing really well in their jobs and family life”.
People with high functioning anxiety don’t come to a point where they are hospitalized because of their anxiety levels, but they may be in need of therapy to help them manage their symptoms better.
Someone who deals with severe anxiety can experience panic attacks or anxiety attacks, can regularly miss deadlines and find themselves even hospitalized. So, this type of anxiety is the one which does not interfere with daily life as much.
For example, your stress may be resulting from work. You may be feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work you have or you may be feeling undeserving of your current position. Or maybe it’s that imposter syndrome.
So, what are the symptomes of high functioning anxiety?
Overthinking.
Anxious people have a constant state of mental exhaustion weighing on their shoulders because they’re constantly thinking. These intense feelings of worry require a lot of energy to battle the thoughts of what could go wrong, has gone wrong, or may go wrong in the far future.
On top of that, anxiety is really hard to explain. To those who don’t experience it, it can come off as irrational or immature.
Statistics show that only 25% of those suffering from a mental health disorder feel like others understand what they’re dealing with.
While a person with high-functioning anxiety can appear as though in control and actively engaged in the daily tasks of life, underneath this confident exterior, it is a fight to make it through the day.
If you have high functioning anxiety, it may be worth asking for help. Seeing a therapist can help you overcome it or learn how to deal with your situation better, so that it doesn’t get any worse.
Meditation, mindfulness practices and yoga are great alternatives to cognitive behavioral therapy.
If you are suffering from anxiety, you can download Ashley: AI friend to help you feel better. Ashley is an therapist-trained AI friend available anytime, anywhere. https://bit.ly/AshleyIn
