It's amazing how a buzz word works. I have had no less than a half dozen conversations in the last fortnight about one of either high-functioning depression, high-functioning bipolar disorder, or high functioning depressive.
A quick survey of the Internet sites to which I defer for references and scholarship all show dates from June 2016 to now with the bold headlines of what Psychology Today's Tom Wooton headlines: High Functioning Depression, a New Breakthrough. The article never mentioned the actual term "high-functioning depression" but instead, speaking of hypomania, says, "My breakthrough this year is that even in my deepest depression I can be just as productive as in any other state."
The breakthrough has to do with the fact that there is a depressive state that allows for productivity.
What is it though, this high-functioning depression that's been the recurring one?
Claire Gillespie, in her June 3 article on sheknows.com titled "The burden of the high-functioning depressive", writes: "It's a crazy notion that people with depression are incapable of achieving anything other than another day in a vertical position on the sofa. Don't get me wrong. There have been many depression-induced sofa days in my life. But there have also been many amazing days when I've smashed my goals and bagged that medal and surprised myself with my own tenacity."
That's your clue about this phenomena. That's the one that could explain why people who live with depression do not always appear low, slow, and dragging. Some of us are actually high achievers who seemingly have it all together, whom our friends envy for having so much and accomplishing so much, also.
In 2011, Natasha Tracey spoke of high-functioning bipolar saying "Sometimes people don't believe I'm particularly sick. They meet me, I look fine, I interact, I charm, I (express) wit and all seems–if not normal–at least something reasonably normal-adjacent."
But five years ago, according to Tracey in her www.healthyplace.com article, there was no definition for the term.
"Being a 'high-functioning' bipolar doesn't really have a definition, per se," she wrote. "The term indicates that I'm not in a mental hospital, and I do things like live on my own, pay rent, work and whatnot. I would suggest that being 'high-functioning' seems to indicate that I can fake not being a crazy person."
Amanda Leventhal in themighty.com, writes that, "It's easy to put depression into a box of symptoms, and though we as a society are constantly told mental illness comes in all shapes and sizes, we are stuck with a mental health stock image in our heads that many people don't match."
She speaks of seeing depression and anxiety in adolescents, as teens "struggling to get by in their day-to-day lives" with dropping grades, high levels of involvement instead of the usual isolation.
Of the ignorance and lack of acceptance of the high functioning side of the disorder, Leventhal says, "We don't see the student with the 4.0 GPA. We don't see the student who's active in choir and theatre or a member of the National Honour Society. We don't see the student who takes on leadership roles in a religious youth group."
So what exactly is this high functioning syndrome and how can we define it? While it sounds very much like the manic side of bipolarity, as I engage the literature, I found high functioning scholarship on autism and Asperger's syndrome, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and so on, and discovered that we have been taking about this for quite some time. It's only now buzzing.
Among the nine different types of depression a person can be diagnosed with, high-functioning depression may be the most elusive, says medicaldaily.com. But it is the webpage davidwolfe.com gives four signs/symptoms of the high depressive in attempting to create a definition.
1. Being tough on oneself: High-functioning depressives tend to be overachievers because they expect a lot of themselves. And while this might seem like a great thing to those around the depressive, it can actually push the individual beyond that healthy point of self-criticism into territory where they're constantly beating themselves up for having fallen–perceivably–short.
2. Work becomes a grind: The constant self-criticism mentioned in the last point can lead many high-functioning depressives to feel like their workflow is anything but. Instead, it can feel like dragging a heavy boulder against the tide.
3. Substance-abuse issues: It's no coincidence that many high-functioning substance abusers are also high-functioning depressives. In reality, high-functioning depressives often use things like alcohol as a means of coping with their illness in the absence of healthier strategies.
4. Feelings of wasting time: Despite having achieved a great deal, many high-functioning depressives feel as though they are wasting time. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness and thoughts that one would be better off dead or more appreciated after death. Changes such as switching careers and finding new hobbies seem to offer such individuals little comfort. (https://www.davidwolfe.com/4-signs-high-functioning-depression/)