Living With A High Functioning Mental Illness

Being told you're high functioning when you're mentally ill can be one of the most frustrating things ever. It feels so invalidating, so humiliating and down right makes you feel like shit, like yeah you're ill, but you cope with it well so well done you. It doesn't take away your illness, it doesn't make the symptoms any less painful and hard to deal with, just means that you can take a shower, look after yourself and turn up to psychiatrist appointments not looking like a bedraggled depressed demon.

High functioning is a term adopted for mental illness to mean you are a fully functioning human despite your illness. It means you go undetected, you live with a debilitating illness but you cannot see it, you haven't got 'depressed', 'anxious', 'BPD' written on your forehead like a broken leg or a physical disability. It's essentially a psychiatrist or mental health professional telling you "wow, you're doing so well and functioning despite your illness" but what it feels like they're saying is "wow, you're a fucking fraud you may as well not even be here you don't need help" and that's what is so hard to swallow.

My day to day life is pretty regular, I wake up, have an existential crisis and twenty minutes in my duvet saying "do I really need a job/money", trying not to burst into tears and then finally get up, get myself ready and head off to work. I look after myself, I go out and see my friends and family, I drive my car around running errands, I keep down a relationship, I do all the regular things a 21 year old does. Yet despite all this, I still struggle from borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety everyday of my life.

The worst part about being high functioning is the second-guessing in yourself and how you show yourself. I often sit and think "I wonder if this or this would have been different if I'd have presented myself differently the that professional". I have made three attempts on my life, and never once have I been sectioned, I frequently think about this and been told I'm not at at that stage of needing inpatient help, but what exactly does that person look like if not someone who desperately wants to end their life? Because I was out drinking with friends? Because I spoke eloquently about my struggles and presented as well and fine? Because I wasn't covered in self harm marks anymore?

Whenever I see a new mental health professional I am reminded of how high functioning I am. I live with a complex mental illness and yet I am a support worker in a psychiatric hospital full time, I have a group of friends, I go out regularly, I can and do hold down a romantic relationship, I don't self harm anymore, I don't gamble, do drugs or abuse alcohol. So to them, I am not a typical sufferer. But I am suffering.

It's hard not to feel like a complete fraud in your own illness when you're told you're coping well, it's almost as if doing well is a bad thing? Which makes no sense, like being told your broken leg is healing and being distraught about it. I think the worst thing for me is that they don't see how much you actually are suffering under your guise of health and coping, I feel like professionals don't listen to me when I say I'm feeling suicidal or extremely low because of the fact I work and have friends etc, which is completely backwards, as surely someone who typically has their shit together telling you they still don't feel complete, whole or worthy of life should stand out? I just can't wrap my head around it.

 It almost makes me think I have to pretend when I go to see a professional just to feel listened to. I once went in full makeup, dressed properly and didn't burst into tears in an appointment and was told how stable I seemed and how I seemed to be doing well when in fact the words that I'd literally just said to her was "I don't want to be here anymore". I wasn't listened to because of how I looked and presented myself to the world and that makes no sense to me.

Amongst this waffle of an essay what I really want to say is; just because you're told you are coping well with your illness and what you've been dealt with in life, doesn't mean you're not entitled to be struggling, finding it difficult or needing to ask for help. You don't have to fake who you are and prove yourself to be ill just because it's not written across your forehead in blaring red letters. You are doing the best you can in a really shit situation and you should be amazingly proud of yourself, so well done you. Keep trying, keep going and keep fighting, always.

Meg x