High-Functioning Anxiety

When your anxiety tends to help propel you forward rather than leaving you frozen in emotions, you may be struggling with high functioning anxiety.

How is it identified?

High functioning anxiety is not a mental health diagnosis one can expect to obtain from a mental health professional.  In fact, it is a characterization that is often used in such a way to self-describe symptoms of anxiety one may be experiencing while also identifying as functioning reasonably well in other aspects of their life.  

Simply: People who experience anxiety but report that they function “okay” in most other aspects of their life.

Characteristics

While it is unknown what percentage of the population self-identifies as having high functioning anxiety, it is suspected that it is quite high.  We often identify these folks as:

And much more.

However, for most of these individuals, what appears on the outside does not match up with how they feel on the inside.  They often actually feel:

• Never Good Enough
• Full of Fear
• Constantly Avoiding Failure
• Afraid of Their Faults Being “Discovered”
• Fraudulent (i.e. that people will find out who they really feel they are versus who they appear to be)
• Out of Control

And much more.

A great article that gives great insight into high functioning anxiety can be found here. (link: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-high-functioning-anxiety-4140198)

Is High Functioning Anxiety a Good Thing?

While many report that their anxiety is harmful, they also often report that it helps “push” them be the person that everyone else thinks they are, and that without it they may be “discovered” to actually be all the bad things they feel about themselves. 

This conundrum can actually prevent people from wanting to seek help for their anxiety out fear.  More fear.  Fear is a common driver for folks struggling with anxiety, and while they identify themselves as “high functioning” it is actually much more detrimental on their lives than they realize.  

At The Bridge to Recovery, we can help you tackle the anxiety, while learning how it actually holds you paralyzed.  Those “bad traits” about yourself are actually symptoms of your unresolved and underlying trauma.  Let us help you heal the “whole person” within, and find relief not just form your anxiety, but from those traits you keep hidden from the world.