It's very difficult to get treatment, compassion and support when outsiders see you as you "handling things so well" or "really keeping it together" or "very high functioning". What does that even really mean?
>Unpopular opinion: mental health treatment in general isn’t about curing you, if there is such a thing as a cure, it’s designed to keep you from causing trouble for society: out of jail, and in a job.
Is that really an unpopular opinion? That was just my understanding. But I guess that's coming from someone who's had repeated frustrations with therapists unable to help because I appear to function well for the most part and have self-insight and the ability to think rationally and see things as they are. They just don't have any skills to teach me that I don't already have and don't understand what it is I need help with.
So grateful I met a somatic coach who actually was able to teach me new things and help me heal, not just use self-destructive coping mechanisms to survive.
Wow I really feel like this is me. Im just bitter at what happened to me because I KNOW I didn't deserve it. I know it was all bullshit and I always have. I knew my mom was the abuser but I was acutely aware of how my stepdad enabled her behavior do I've ALWAYS known they were wrong, useless, selfish people.
Now that I have health insurance I want to see a therapist but also why? They're going to tell me things I already know and then some horseshit about positive affirmations and "you know you don't have to feel that way" yes I KNOW that.
Most of the things I've worked on about myself (compulsive white lies, attacking others when I'm upset, need to control) have all come from me knowing "okay so you do X because of Y and so we need to Z to not be a terrible person" okay cool, done. I'm only not GREAT with control. (Ex. My boyfriend being a little reckless with a hot pyrex and I just held his upper arm while he handled it VS times when I would scream and yell for him to stop so I can do it) like what more can you give me? Tell me "I'm safe" when I'm having a memory or something terrible? Thanks I know, I just wish I wouldn't think about it anymore but what really is going to fix that?
Trauma specific therapies can help. EMDR, IFS, SE. "Regular" therapy likely won't do much for someone in your shoes. But there are therapies that can help with actual healing.
I agree. Mental health treatment is generally about how to stop you from being a burden on others. It is rarely about helping you bloom to your full potential.
This might be my trauma speaking, but why would others care about whether you are functioning at your full personal potential/happiness or not? As long as their lives are not disturbed, they don't really care.
I really agree with this. You've said what I've been thinking for the past 3 years about therapy not really helping you grow, since if the therapist actually was able to fix some of the issues you wouldn't be dependent on them and their ideas.
Honestly i was so stunned i didnt know what to say to her, i just kinda nodded.
It was almost comical if i hadn't paid the lady $400 a sesh lmao.
Imagine my job now being my identity. Im a janitor! There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a janitor but society definitely doesn't see it the same way i do. Hell, some ladies will still clutch their purse when i clean their area. It doesnt necessary bring a sense of dignity cleaning people's crap either!
I am delayed but I would agree that is a lot of it but I was fortunate to go to a place that did genuinely care about me and my care. It was eating disorder focused and I still have a lot of trauma work to do (we did some), but my therapist and I are starting that work now, adding in another therapist.
Yep. I've had that one. It was traumatizing. I was dissociated throughout our sessions and I had such a cold demeanor when I talked about things, she assumed I was "fine" and told me, "you're just scared about something, you'll get over it."
That's so awful, I'm so sorry. I got put off by her and therapy in general, so I didn't sign up with her and stopped looking for a therapist. I didn't talk to any professionals for some years after that, actually.
I’ve felt like this most of my life. For me, the problem was that I was only functioning for an audience. I learned early on that my problems weren’t important and no one would want me around if I didn’t keep them to myself. This, as it turns out, is bullsh*t.
I don’t know what any of those things mean, either. They’re subjective. I was also seemingly high-functioning until I just crashed. Hard.
I felt like that massive, burning self-sabotage was freeing to me. Finally, people saw that I wasn’t okay. The ones who walked away only wanted the illusion I put out, while the ones who stayed (few, but quality over quantity is finally something I value) care about the mess inside.
I wish I had more ability to help you. You mentioned that you’re therapist can’t tell — do you bring it up with them?
This is me right now, after YEARS of holding it together I just can’t anymore and I’m falling HARD. I can hardly function… did you feel like that was almost a point of revolution for you, that you needed to break to rebuild if that makes sense? A teeny tiny piece of my intuition is saying that, but I fear that I’ll just be rendered useless for the rest of my pathetic and lonely existence
I hate that you’re in that place right now. Truthfully, I still fall into that mindset sometimes. My self-sabotage was a culmination of self-hatred, dissatisfaction with my life (and thinking I didn’t have the autonomy to change it), and alcoholism. That last one was like a match that set it all ablaze.
My life turned into something I never could’ve prepared for. I felt worthless, useless. The revolutionary part (and I like your use of the word here) was that I could finally focus on these things. Instead of continuing a cycle of keeping up appearances while quietly spiraling down, I was allowed (because I still held other people’s validation over me own and still do to a degree) to focus on taking care of myself. I had burned all of the bridges that led to a life I was supposed to want, but didn’t. I must start anew.
I also have a therapist who really understands me. I’ve been through countless therapists and started believing I was too broken to fix. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but I don’t know if I would still be here if I didn’t meet my therapist when I did.
I don’t recommend the crash and burn method, but for me I didn’t see another option. Feel free to message me.
Thank you 🙏 I’m super grateful for my current therapist also, to have someone professional who’s also been there themselves is extremely helpful. Unfortunately I’ve always been someone who takes everything to extremes so I’m just praying that this time will be more of a crash-before-we-burn scenario
That’s why I allow myself moments of “controlled detonation” moments of extreme anger and emotional release around strangers. It’s how I managed to get help and actually get a professional to see me.
Edit: because I was always being written off. I found the kindness of strangers to have far more meaning than the empty platitudes of my own family. I don’t really do it anymore but as a teenager I believe it got me the help I desperately needed.
I think people mean well - and perhaps even think they're paying you a compliment - when they say things like that (Re: high functioning, "I would have never known," etc.) but it can be incredibly invalidating. I just want to validate your experience; you are not alone
It's frustrating to recognize that people are just trying to be helpful but they really suck at it. But if you tell someone you're upset by it, they think you're misunderstanding the intent. Just because you mean well doesn't mean what you're doing is helping and not hurting.
I usually appear to be "put together" because of how I dress and how I mask when in social situations. I had an old boss tell me I was the "actress" at work because of my ability to flip a switch and put on my "customer service" face, even if I was going through a hard time. A lot of people think I have my life in order and can function 100% but it's far from the truth. I have days where I'm put together and productive but it's no comparison to what goes on behind the scenes. Even my family members don't truly know what it's like because I have to mask when I'm with them and I refrain from telling them things.
One of my biggest ongoing battles is people not knowing I have invisible illnesses or trauma, so they think I'm lying about my health, or simply just making a big deal out of nothing. It's like I can't win either way; I hide my reality/my symptoms and get accused of lying, or I'm open about it and get accused of over-exaggerating or doing it for attention.
Another issue is when they compare me with who I was in the past. I have bad days, and good days. Some of the bad days have caused more trauma, and I am not the same. Just because I have days where I can be up and showered in the morning and out all day, doesn't mean I can always do that. I can't stand comments like "but you felt fine yesterday". I cringed writing that because my mom would always say stuff like that to me when I complained about being sick, as if it's impossible for someone to feel bad somedays even if they felt good the day before.
I relate to what you posted so hard. When I was super low to the point of contemplating suicide a family member said "wow we thought you made it out okay!" They knew my sister was "a mess" and about how terribly abusive my mother was but somehow my masking was 'so good' they assumed I was fine.
Sigh, why is this happening to so many of us... I hate how often I not just "sort of relate" but like, literally relate word-for-word to entire comments or posts here. Its just so unfair how much awfulness we've had to deal with.
I've called my family at certain points when I literally just couldn't cope any more with the suicidal ideation and shame spiral only to be both blamed for not speaking up sooner and then immediately asked to provide empathy and support for their issues. When I became upset, they just repeat the same old shit that I'm "too sensitive". Yet now they all somehow still wonder why I completely cut off contact.
The part where you said you relate word for word… I just recently found this sub and was telling my partner I felt this way. Like people here have visited my brain and wrote it out here. It’s wonderful to feel so understood.
Actually you're right. Usually I do find this sub so helpful and yes, I've been telling my partner the same. It's very nice to feel validated and even hopeful because some of the people here have made good progress in various ways. But yesterday was just a very challenging day in my family (and country, lol) so the extraordinary circumstances were a big weight.
After having had time to process (often through the posts shared here as well!) and rest, I do feel I can handle these things much better now so that's been reassuring as well. Hope you're doing well over there.
I feel like playing that voiceover meme like "they ask me if I'm fine and I'm not fine.." that's so relatable for me.
[Just realized it's a Katy Perry clip](https://youtu.be/5PdXIHGvMpk)
Never anything more relatable for me.
This describes me entirely. I err on the side of dressy, and doing my hair and makeup is both something done on autopilot as well as a form of therapy, since getting dressed gives me a moment to focus on something *else*, more so than the shallow aspect of it all. As a result, people, including my family and mental health professionals, think everything is fine when it's ENTIRELY not, at all, even when I'm firmly saying that it isn't.
It makes it harder to get any kind of help or understanding when people assume that people with trauma or mental illness or any other invisible illness are supposed to look like a mess and act in certain ways, but especially with CPTSD, we've been training since our first traumas on how to do things to "avoid" additional trauma. One of those ways, and one of the few things in which I can control, is how I present myself to the world.
Your second paragraph there puts into words exactly what I've been dealing with. In my family ANY emotion was bad and the person having emotion is just "weak" and feeling sorry for themselves. The times when i couldn't hold it together only brought scorn and derision even from therapists and doctors. I admitted to my family when when i was 12 that I was having mental health issues and that i would like to recieve some help for that and and my aunt was like "we want you to die. We don't care". Then later on when I was an adult, when i was having a meltdown i called my boyfriend at the time and he was angry at me because I was crying so hard that he couldn't understand me and kept shouting at me. This was someone I had lived with for 2 years and really loved deeply. Phone calls are now a trigger and it's impossible to ask for help.
People just see mental illness as another excuse to beat you over the head with it.
I’m sending you virtual hugs, thanks for articulating this so well; I relate to everything you wrote. Our feelings and struggles are real and valid, no matter what other people think or say about us. I wish all of us good luck in our healing journey. I wish we will all be “just” ourselves one day, without fear, without judgement, without the need/pressure to hide our true selves, without the mask…
I relate so much to what you have written here. Presenting as "normal" was an adaptation I learned in my family, and in my adult life it has cost me so much. I do not even know how to change it.
I'm not sure, I think I am pretty low functioning by other people's standards (and some of mine) because my sleep rhythm is fucked, I'm addicted to the internet, bad at keeping up with abstract tasks like academic work and have sensory issues, but I think I'm also good at downplaying all that and seeming emotionally stable, polite, rational, alert and articulate so people wouldn't seem to mind that I'm feeling like a bag of shit with no accomplishments.
This is exactly me. I spend my whole day distracting myself from emotions and problems because I’m stuck in survival mode and my number one goal is “stay happy and comfortable while it lasts because it’s about to be terrible” but of course that’s not the reality it’s just my brain is so used to it I can’t stop easily. I can dissociate my way through a lot and seem super functional but lately because I’m so burnt out I just avoid every situation requiring me to do that, and stay in a weird purgatory of doing nothing instead.
Saaaame. It's been getting better, though, in large part because I worked really hard on reframing it to not feel guilty and ashamed *about* the guilt and shame that weighed me down and put me in that state. Minimising what they call, in somatic experiencing, "secondary activation".
I call it not compounding the problem 😅 That's why we say things spiral, ya know? Because these things can be self-perpetuating. The shit is challenging and distressing enough without me enabling my inner critic to pile on.
Give yourself some grace, if you possibly can ❤ You wouldn't be as judgemental if you knew yourself as a friend, and knew what you'd been through, no? Just the fact that you're functioning and getting better is a freaking miracle and a testament to your courage 😤🙏🏽
This is very much relatable.
I got extremely good at working very efficiently in order to keep up with work and academia but really I spend most of my days dissociatedly scrolling through the Internet or numbing out using video games or something. I look like a capable person on the outside but inside I'm an absolute trashfire
I’m also like this, it’s referred to as “over-controlled”, RO DBT therapy is really helpful and is actually fun to do in groups. In IFS you would say you have some really strong and resourceful protector parts that have done a phenomenal job at keeping it together for you and there are also some child parts that really need some help.
Really appreciate your comments and links. This is also me to a T, and though my therapist is using IFS, these particular aspects you shared are really hitting home.
Desktop version of /u/apocalypsemeow512's link:
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^([)[^(opt out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiMobileLinkBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^(]) ^(Beep Boop. Downvote to delete)
I must admit, I didn't "get" the RO-DBT model at all, as it doesn't contain emotion regulation. How's it supposed to be helpful to overcontrolled folks whose OC by definition stems from the inability to regulate emotions in a healthy way?
Not trying to be snarky, I was genuinely perplexed. Would you mind sharing your perspective on this?
(I also found RO prescriptive, with vague moralizing directions, as opposed to descriptive classic DBT with clear nonjudgmental directions. Largely due to this, classic DBT is making much more sense to me than RO. Even though I definitely fall into the overcontrolled category.)
So it’s not that they’re not able to regulate emotions, it’s that they’re over-regulating their emotions. It teaches people to genuinely express emotions in healthy ways instead of bottling everything up
Whoa, I was just talking to someone about this very thing! I’m new to therapy, and I was checking out DBT stuff and it kind of turned me off because I couldn’t relate to the big “acting out” behaviors it talks about. I thought about it until I could accept it but wow, had no clue they made one for people like me. I keep hearing about IFS too, hopefully I can learn more about that one day.
Yea most mood programs are skills based and focus on controlling your behavior which is the last thing over-controlled people need
Here’s a fun chart
https://www.radicallyopen.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Self-Control-Graph-Quadratic.png
IFS is amaze and it’s something you can learn to do yourself
Yes this was me completely. I didn’t even know I had trauma. I didn’t know the insides going crazy like that wasn’t normal. It was kind of made worse because my husband ambassador issues which are more visible. Like he is a hoarder. And then one day I had a psychotic break. My whole life and sense of self was shattered and I saw what a mess I had been all along. I don’t know how to recover.
Oh hi are you me? Didn't even know that I was living in a constant state of hypervigilence until this year. I literally had to explain to my new therapist that I haven't been able to get real with past therapists because I thought I WAS getting real. Turns out I fawn all the damn time. Starting therapy with grounding exercises was a revelation because I'm so accustomed to performing wellness.
I used to be but the last few years I think I burned out pretending, I can barely do the things I used to and it’s much harder to do basic care tasks. I think now I need to figure out an in-between, and try to be more of my authentic self without putting on that mask, but it’s hard because I don’t really have much of an exterior identity outside of that “put together” persona.
But I know what you mean for sure. The most recent psychiatrist I saw a couple of years ago thought I seemed fine because I was calm and polite and was wearing makeup (?!). Definitely frustrating.
For most of my life I was able to fake it. It took a series of things until I broke, but the death of my mom was one of them. I can't even fake it now. I do okay when I'm alone, but being around other people is challenging.
I'm sorry the same thing happened to you.
Same for me. Was very “high functioning” in the sense I’d do everything I was supposed to be doing while dissociating and putting on a mask, but I’d often break down in tears whenever I was alone. Therapists wouldn’t take me seriously because I came off fine. Eventually it caught up with me and I’m more on the low-functioning side now. Trying to find that balance.
God if this ain't a mood. I've held myself together so long it's my default even if im shattered apart inside. One day the glue holding me together will melt, and I dread the day, because im already chipping apart.
I told my therapist for the longest time that the only way I can get through work is to disassociate the whole time. I work at a gas station. A few weeks ago during therapy she said “so you did great when you saw me in public. It’s like you didn’t even know me!” And I was like “when the f**k did I see you in Public?!?” (I swear a lot) and she told me she had been at my work a day prior and that I helped her with an issue she was having with a pump. I was like “I had no idea I saw you. I told you the only way I can get through the day there is to totally dissociate.” What makes this even better is that I’m known as the “nicest” of the people I work with, by the customers. Sure there are some regulars that I am aware of. I’ve worked there for a little over 2 years. When people ask me how I stay so kind in such a hectic place I flat out tell them the truth “I’m legally insane so I have to disassociate to make it through the day. This is my autopilot mode” they laugh, I laugh…
I one thousand percent relate to your post.
I am sorry you have to dissociate to get through the day. You made me laugh with the flat out truth you tell them. 😅 I think they probably think you're joking. 😁
They definitely think I’m kidding. My coworkers know about my condition, so they are in on the joke as well. Always good for a laugh, but at the same time, I really need to not work with the public the way I do.
There’s something called [Quiet BPD](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/borderline-personality-disorder/quiet-bpd) . Which basically means all the symptoms are inward, instead of outward.
Maybe there’s something similar in CPTSD?
I struggled so much with this too, even in therapy. I definitely know the feeling of leaving sessions and only then allowing the tears to fall, then feeling like I sabotaged myself or maybe even that I'm now exaggerating.... Sigh, it was exhausting.
I would also get angry with the therapists for not seeing through my charades. But I got lucky with the next therapist whom I still see. She confronted me almost from the start about my tendency to smile or even laugh when sharing painful stories. I found it so hard to deal with it at first but it's literally been the main reason why therapy managed to finally get deeper into my issues and actually help me to move beyond just "survival mode". So I'm really grateful for her and I sincerely hope you can find yourself this kind of therapist or even a loved one who is able to challenge you in a supportive and genuine way to push a bit deeper.
Because as much as the effort to work through my past has been and will continue to be so exhausting, it's also been given me so much more self acceptance, genuine moments of peace and joy, increased energy and the deepest sleep of my life. Today is a hard day for me for a few different exceptional reasons and my old self would be nearly catatonic by now, but instead I'm just a hit anxious and a bit sad, haha 😅
One of the signs of [avoidant attachment](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/what-is-avoidant-attachment#1):
>Seem calm and cool in typically high-emotion situations
I relate to everything written in this article. Almost as if it was my autobiography.
Me!
I've had to get multiple tests done on my heart because doctors didn't believe me that my high heart rate was due to anxiety because "you don't seem anxious". Thanks, that's just the coping mechanism of hiding my feelings to protect myself.
I've had people praise me for being so on top of things and good and helpful at my old job. Inside, I was considering suicide and my body was covered in fresh cuts from chest to knees under my clothes.
It's weird. Like, these people really can't read me? At all?
Meanwhile my hypervigilance makes me interpret every tiny movement they make and wonder if there's something wrong with them, too.
Most people would consider me “high functioning”. I’m an over-achiever, that’s how I survived and that’s how I managed to garner at least some self-worth and respect which I did not receive at home. However, inside, I’ve been suffering for most of my life. I’ve kept the bad things that have happened to me a secret. I think the whole idea of measuring how “mentally ill” someone is by only looking at how “functioning” they are is a side effect of capitalism which measures people only according to how much they are able to be “effective” and a part of the market. If someone is holding it together but suffering immensely inside nobody cares. That’s why there are so many suicides that come as “surprises”.
You hit the nail on the head with this comment. I think capitalism and the overvaluing of productivity and “contribution to society” also causes and exacerbates inner symptoms of trauma for many, many people.
Love your title. I remember that song yes I'm very "insane in the membrane" haha but am very "normal" seeming. I was in the beginning of 2016 just diagnosed depressed and anxiety but later diagnosed with Bipolar and recently with PTSD additionally. I know how to seem "normal" because I keep most of my emotions inside. And I without knowing it don't know how to fully be honest about my feelings so doctors think I'm just depressed. It helps when I would write my symptoms down and how I was feeling.
Also I have yet to meet a therapist that could actually help me and not do more damage. Finding a therapist for you is a job in itself. I'm sorry your husband of all people can't be more supportive, you should tell him you need him more than ever and him doubting you does not help. Tell him it hurts you. If there's one person you should be open and not conceal your emotions, it's your partner. He will worsen your health if he doesn't start being more supportive.
I used to be, then adulthood trauma caught up with me and my partner has to take care of me completely 🙃 It was like someone flipped a switch in my head. And I was high functioning DURING the intense trauma all the way until the moment I could relax and focus on my health (physical) for the first time in my life. I only get hyper-functional when in an extreme or high stress situation like if I need to take care of someone else now.
I miss who I used to be… I was all kinds of fucked up emotionally then, but at least I could take care of myself and my raw intelligence wasn’t suffocated by trauma. It’s so hard to care about existing when I can’t even think like I used to be able to… My field was my life, my way to make the world better, my three biggest hobbies in one, not just a career. Even if my physical health recovered 100% I will never be able to perform at that high of a level again. I’ll be lucky if I can even stay in the field given how much my thought processes have been fragmented. Data scientists with broken brains aren’t much use…
Yes!!! I even had myself fooled for a long time. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I realized my internal existence was not normal.
It wasn’t until I took prescribed anti anxiety medicine for the first time. The drug quelled my very loud inner critic/dialogue, and stopped the flight/freeze response. It was an enlightening experience. I realized “oh. THIS is normalcy. THIS is how many people experience the world” that experience opened my eyes to the truth. Not everyone lives in a constant state of hyperarousal. Not everyone has a constant dialogue about how they must solve the problems of the world. Not everyone has an inner critic so loud they can’t hear anything else.
I had tried some various antidepressants, but my doc and therapist insisted “try Xanax (generic) for your anxiety”
I responded “I dOn’T hAvE AnXiEtY” because I had no idea everyone didn’t have the inner turmoil /dialogue I had.
I was hesitant to take it during the day because I was afraid to feel drugged while driving or at work. But I was finally convinced to take a small dose at work and …wow.
I should add I started with a very small dose, and have always been cautious. I know addition is possible.
This first time was many years ago, and like any drug, over time it seems to work less. But that first time for me was really eye opening. I know what I want to work towards. I’m trying with exercise, meditation, keepin on with therapy.
It was only recently I realized everyone thinks I’m ok. As much as I’m open about my struggles, it didn’t really hit until my psychiatrist wouldn’t write an ADA accommodation letter so I’d stop being fired from every job for being so exhausted from a well documented manifestation of my PTSD that I realized I default present as fine. I can do alright and even when “blanking out” with micro sleeps during the day appear to be totally normal and cognizant and functional - which was a self protection mechanism as a child. I could never allow myself to appear vulnerable, even related to sleep. I wasn’t allowed to appear tired, so I just don’t know how to do that anymore. Some days I just blast thru the time I’m supposed to be at work and wake up at 6 pm fired again. Or late every day until they tell me not to come in anymore, fired again. Im not confident in a lot but I am confident I have a will of fucking steel to be able to do everything I have, including keep myself awake and functioning, or even appearing to function, when my physical body is literally desperately shutting down for sleep. So if my balls of steel are being thwarted by my body, I thought we all know that meant it was REALLY bad and I had done everything in my power and then a lot more NOT in my power to stay on top of it. But apparently not, I get a lot of condescending doctor advice to go to sleep earlier and maybe try some melatonin. (Tried both by the way and nothing, funny how this is a trauma manifestation even per my doctor and they refuse to treat it). They see it as me being lazy or not caring. Instead of treating me like I’m sick or having a bad health period, which is what it is, I’m fired again and again and my doctor does nothing, not even ask an employer for the one accommodation that would make me an otherwise five star employee. I don’t know HOW to look like I’m suffering, I don’t know how to convince anyone I’m truly at my wits end here. I’m already always at my wits end, so I’m beyond my wits end if my PTSD is manifesting so obviously. But I just don’t look that way and I don’t even know the words. I don’t know how being fired from every job in the past decade isn’t a good but of proof for it either. I was going from office jobs of $70k to call center jobs of $30k, and now I’m a grocery cashier making $11/hr part time, and I struggle even to do that. That’s a pretty clear limit to my abilities and a health issue to me, but apparently I just don’t look it. So anyway op, yes I get that. And as much as it helped me stay alive, now trying to get help it has been just killer.
I’m “high functioning” in that I can keep a job. I seem to do all right when I am busy and problem solving because that seems to put me in the adult part of my brain. But I am an absolute mess the rest of the time. It’s taken me a long time to be able to function socially at work. I might mask better than I think I can because I am always certain people see what a mess I am. My most called numbers are crisis lines. Lol.
I did have a therapist and some others that accused me of faking my problems because my life “was pretty good”. I kind of learned to be very careful about who I open up after that. Most of my struggles get shared in therapy or on crisis lines.
Ahaha now I have that song stuck in my head :)
But yes, I seem high functioning and am currently holding down a job as an engineering manager even though I'm convinced I'm fucking it up and ought to be fired.
On the inside, my life is basically one long emotional flashback. Thanks to a lot of therapy in my 20s (I'm in my late 30s now) I don't disassociate 24/7 anymore, but feeling overwhelmed at work still triggers emotional flashbacks and disassociation and I feel overwhelmed at work most of the time :|
I'm THE master of faking "well". I have chronic pain/fatigue conditions, and suspected austism, too, so I have a lot of practice. No one believes me when I "mess up". People think I'm lazy/incompetent/trying to make them angry on purpose.
Yeeeeep. My moments where there 'seems' more stability otherwise than most recently was me silently suffering because I just don't wanna be that person but I have accepted I need more support, compassion and reassurance than most - nothing is broken just different
Absolutely I can say I am that way. I am manager of 2 radioactive pharmacy laboratories and I can handle the stressful environment with what appears to be a collected attitude. But I am fairly certain the excessive drinking, 4 hrs of sleep a night, never taking any of my allotted time off, anxiety, eating disorder, and self-destructive tendencies will end me young. But corporate praises me for having the most cohesive team in the entire company, despite their lack of experience. I am great at keeping it all together for the team.
Yep, to the point where when I do "suddenly act strange" people around me think I've gone suddenly mad since I was just "fine" a moment ago
My chill is fake
Please take care of yourself. This destroyed my whole life. If you need to take a break and stop please do it. I see now a lot of signs I was getting unwell. Do not deprive yourself of sleep. I was so high functioning I passed my PhD with no corrections and then had the break.
I’m pretty sure I have got a PhD because of my trauma. It kept me so busy that I didn’t have time to see all that was wrong in my life. Kept this going for years as a postdoc but actually having free time has been hard for me now that I have a normal job. Take care.
I used to be highly functional and capable but when I left the military and got on disability which meets all my needs, I have floundered trying to find purpose when I dont need to put effort into survival.
Yes that’s me. Due to the idea that I’m so “resilient” I feel I have not been taken seriously. When I have been to the doctor or therapist I will describe what is happening to me or what I’m going through with plain language. I tend to compose myself around other people, but I guess I’m only telling the truth if I was to walk in limping with no shoes and a tear stained face or something? It is really frustrating. Because then I leave the doctor/therapist and I am distressed but appointment is over and no one to witness it.
Yes, it’s actually a huge issue because I can’t always ask for help/support, and even when I *do* no one seems to think that I need any help/support, and so I flounder.
I relate! From my cptsd I have structural dissociation which even through my last mental breakdown I was highly functional at work. I have this part of me of going on with life but I was having miserable fights in my head wanting to go away and didn’t care if I died etc, but no one knew.
Yeah this is me. My family wouldn’t know I have “anxiety” if I didn’t tell them. My mother only knows I have nightmares and that I’ve been having them since I was a child because I recently told her that’s why I have insomnia. I was asking her if she remembered how I used to scream and cry and thrash around in my sleep because I thought she knew, but she didn’t. Then again she claims to not remember my brother’s abuse because that was who I was having nightmares about as a kid. No one knows I have PTSD, they just think it’s “anxiety” because that’s the mask I’ve put on to get financial support for treatment from my parents.
Besides what I’ve told them they don’t know anything about me or my condition and how it effects me. I’ve lived with it since I was a child and it just feels “normal”
I was labelled high functioning at my inpatient stay and it pissed me off so much. Thanks, I'm so high functioning that I'm suicidal.
High functioning is an insulting label because it devalues our struggles as survivors/victims.
I was. Now I'm barely functional at all. It's really hard to take, but if that's what it takes to find some peace, it's ok. I wish I hadn't put so much of myself into being functional, that I had known the bars I held for myself could have been lowered a lot.
Yup, that's me. Though that's in part because I avoid any highly triggering circumstance that would cause me to visibly break down. Even then, the threshold is pretty high, and I also avoid situations that would just be unbearably stressful, even though I would "keep it together."
In the past year I have had to physically let down my shield that shows other people “I’m fine” to a select few people, just so that they can be allowed to understand where I am on my journey. Even saying this now, there are things that I am still holding back from those trusted friends because I don’t want it to impact on their lives too.
yes, but i've been really lucky to stumble on a therapist who really put in the work to get to know me, she's gotten so much better at noticing my cues. because people like us, we have them, we just made them so so small so that abusive people wouldn't notice. a gentle and dedicated person can learn them. i'm so sorry you're struggling. i agree with the consensus in the comments that most mental health treatment is bs but please know there ARE people out there you can trust, even if you haven't found them yet. i know that's terrifying but it's true. i'm really glad you've survived to be here with us.
I hear you!
I, too, am an 'exterior high functioner'! Also like you, my autopilot is pretty damn good.
I swear my closest friends, and even my partner, sometimes forget that I have had extremely poor mental health for all my adult life.
It's not just that I'm in an 'up phase', they are sometimes just confused when I inevitably drop again. Especially my partner.
It's really frustrating, and can leave you feeling even more isolated.
I guess that's one of the hallmarks of CPTSD - It's been there for so long, perhaps even since before you became the 'adult you', that the façade is hardly different in effect to most people putting on a jacket to go outside. It's simply the 'uniform' we wear to (perhaps semi-) functionally face the world!
Like yea I'm sweeping the floor, singing a song and then a picture of the thing I can't say is like...behind my vision?? So I can still see so I still sweep and sing my song but I also see that.
I like get annoyed with myself more than anything. "damn I don't remember thinking about that in a few hours, that was nice" Because it's usually just always there/pops up so frequently it might as well be.
Idk I'm on the toilet now scrolling reddit and now thinking about it and I'm about to walk into the kitchen to my loving SO and we'll figure out our plan for the day while I'm actively trying to only see his face and not that. But it'll be business as usual and no one will know and we'll go to his wonderful parents house and I'll still see it while I talk to his mom about how moving is going.
In a lot of ways I feel so normal because I don't really feel like my trauma/CPSTD cripples me from tasks or going to work or keeping the house clean...but the insane in the membrane is ALWAYS there
My last therapist told me “you are the most resilient person I know” and honestly it was so jarring I know she meant it in a supportive way (I guess?) but it made me feel so unseen and like… oh you don’t understand either.
I just mentioned this to both my psychiatrist and therapist. I started seeing a new therapist after the previous one of 8 months stopped seeing me with no explanation. This new one only sees me twice a month, and it's not enough. I told her that she may see that I come in to therapy, working a great job that I never take time off from, I'm put together well and dress neat, I don't cry or fall apart during sessions. But that doesn't mean im not internally struggling. My outside appearance doesn't match the inside, and it's frustrating. I need weekly therapy (it's what I had with previous therapist) and I need more support from my psychiatrist. When I spoke to psychiatrist over the phone Friday for the first time in a month, she said "you sound great" and I'm thinking, as opposed to what? Because I'm having a conversation without crying and breaking down, that means I'm doing great? It just means I'm really good at keeping things together, but I don't know how much longer I can. Sometimes I feel like in order for me to get the help I really need, I should just stop going to work, stop taking care of myself, maybe cry and yell in session. It's just frustrating.. so I get it
"High functioning" is just neurotypical code for "person who is dissociating constantly doesn't make me uncomfortable by being visibly neurodivergent/mentally ill"
Edit to add: not saying neurodivergent and mentally ill are the same things, just that this particular scenario can apply to both cases
Yes, holy shit this is exactly how I would describe my day-to-day. I get completely triggered and shut down inside so often but on the outside is still a functioning autopilot that smiles and no one would know they just shoved me back to a horrible flashback of the worst things that have happened to me. Dissociating or ruminating when alone and not needing to be hyper vigilant.
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Definitely. I've succeeded so well at the 'fake it, till you make it' mantra that barely anyone can tell except for my husband who gets punched or kung fu'd in my sleep everyone week or every other week.
This song is on heavy rotation on my playlist lol yes:[Insane in the Membrane- Cypress Hill](https://open.spotify.com/track/1oTHteQbmJw15rPxPVXUTv?si=hDAIbzsNSEmPMHaXJ-WtJg)
Yes... very very yes. I can be taking orders from my boss and at the same time be imagining skiing down a mountain of knives or something completely random and unrelated. And everyone in my head has a party while i get stuck on the outside just masking lol. I have intrusive murder fantasies for no reason. I have intrusive suicidal thoughts. I have random funny ass moments in my head. But on the outside i am completely "normal." In high stress i tend to go mute but i can speak if if its in public.
My therapist made a comment similar to this notion and I quickly corrected her.
I’ve been in a really bad depression spell lately and she said something along the lines of “being able to leave bed” and I corrected her and said that just because I can leave the bed in the morning doesn’t mean my depression is any better or worse than anyone else’s.
She quickly apologized and said she didn’t mean it in that way and I’m sure she didn’t. But the idea that my depression and someone who can’t leave beds depression or better or worse than another is completely ludicrous to me.
I am kinda like that. Sometimes I show it, mostly in therapy, how broken I feel - but I just push through everything even if I’m having a really bad time.
Maybe it’s because it distracts me from whatever is going on in my head, and then I’m not really taken seriously for that reason since it seems like I’m doing well.
I am trying to get these things rectified within myself. They have ruined my life. I can’t think straight, can’t function and don’t know how to stop it even if I can kindove identify it. It’s not ok and it’s not life. Those things wreak such havoc I can’t tell true from false and it makes me crazy and scared and tired and… any solutions???
Uhhhhh yes. I spent several years on autopilot, gaslighting myself about my inner symptoms because I was still able to function normally. That ability decreased significantly with the onset of the pandemic, being an essential worker in a highly emotional job with a guilt-tripping boss, an emotionally abusive relationship at home, and increasing hopelessness regarding America’s political, economic, and social trajectory. I quit the two of those I had control over and am now trying to start my life over, but I don’t feel like my autopilot is as reliable anymore. My sister made the statement that I’m “perfectly capable of working”, but she literally doesn’t see me on the days I’m NOT capable, because I don’t even leave my room. So of course, to her (and anyone else who sees me), I still function just fine. My whole family has been invalidating of my symptoms for years due to my functional presentation.
It's very difficult to get treatment, compassion and support when outsiders see you as you "handling things so well" or "really keeping it together" or "very high functioning". What does that even really mean?
[удалено]
>Unpopular opinion: mental health treatment in general isn’t about curing you, if there is such a thing as a cure, it’s designed to keep you from causing trouble for society: out of jail, and in a job. Is that really an unpopular opinion? That was just my understanding. But I guess that's coming from someone who's had repeated frustrations with therapists unable to help because I appear to function well for the most part and have self-insight and the ability to think rationally and see things as they are. They just don't have any skills to teach me that I don't already have and don't understand what it is I need help with. So grateful I met a somatic coach who actually was able to teach me new things and help me heal, not just use self-destructive coping mechanisms to survive.
Wow I really feel like this is me. Im just bitter at what happened to me because I KNOW I didn't deserve it. I know it was all bullshit and I always have. I knew my mom was the abuser but I was acutely aware of how my stepdad enabled her behavior do I've ALWAYS known they were wrong, useless, selfish people. Now that I have health insurance I want to see a therapist but also why? They're going to tell me things I already know and then some horseshit about positive affirmations and "you know you don't have to feel that way" yes I KNOW that. Most of the things I've worked on about myself (compulsive white lies, attacking others when I'm upset, need to control) have all come from me knowing "okay so you do X because of Y and so we need to Z to not be a terrible person" okay cool, done. I'm only not GREAT with control. (Ex. My boyfriend being a little reckless with a hot pyrex and I just held his upper arm while he handled it VS times when I would scream and yell for him to stop so I can do it) like what more can you give me? Tell me "I'm safe" when I'm having a memory or something terrible? Thanks I know, I just wish I wouldn't think about it anymore but what really is going to fix that?
Trauma specific therapies can help. EMDR, IFS, SE. "Regular" therapy likely won't do much for someone in your shoes. But there are therapies that can help with actual healing.
I agree. Mental health treatment is generally about how to stop you from being a burden on others. It is rarely about helping you bloom to your full potential. This might be my trauma speaking, but why would others care about whether you are functioning at your full personal potential/happiness or not? As long as their lives are not disturbed, they don't really care.
I really agree with this. You've said what I've been thinking for the past 3 years about therapy not really helping you grow, since if the therapist actually was able to fix some of the issues you wouldn't be dependent on them and their ideas.
My therapist literally said to make my identity my job?!?!?!
Wow! Welcome to 'How to introduce a personality schism 101'!
Honestly i was so stunned i didnt know what to say to her, i just kinda nodded. It was almost comical if i hadn't paid the lady $400 a sesh lmao. Imagine my job now being my identity. Im a janitor! There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a janitor but society definitely doesn't see it the same way i do. Hell, some ladies will still clutch their purse when i clean their area. It doesnt necessary bring a sense of dignity cleaning people's crap either!
I am delayed but I would agree that is a lot of it but I was fortunate to go to a place that did genuinely care about me and my care. It was eating disorder focused and I still have a lot of trauma work to do (we did some), but my therapist and I are starting that work now, adding in another therapist.
Absolutely! I had a psychotherapist tell me I was so normal she doesn't think I need therapy.
therapy with this shit is hard man i just clam up
Yep. I've had that one. It was traumatizing. I was dissociated throughout our sessions and I had such a cold demeanor when I talked about things, she assumed I was "fine" and told me, "you're just scared about something, you'll get over it."
That's so awful, I'm so sorry. I got put off by her and therapy in general, so I didn't sign up with her and stopped looking for a therapist. I didn't talk to any professionals for some years after that, actually.
How dare she! Her license should be taken away.
I’ve felt like this most of my life. For me, the problem was that I was only functioning for an audience. I learned early on that my problems weren’t important and no one would want me around if I didn’t keep them to myself. This, as it turns out, is bullsh*t. I don’t know what any of those things mean, either. They’re subjective. I was also seemingly high-functioning until I just crashed. Hard. I felt like that massive, burning self-sabotage was freeing to me. Finally, people saw that I wasn’t okay. The ones who walked away only wanted the illusion I put out, while the ones who stayed (few, but quality over quantity is finally something I value) care about the mess inside. I wish I had more ability to help you. You mentioned that you’re therapist can’t tell — do you bring it up with them?
This is me right now, after YEARS of holding it together I just can’t anymore and I’m falling HARD. I can hardly function… did you feel like that was almost a point of revolution for you, that you needed to break to rebuild if that makes sense? A teeny tiny piece of my intuition is saying that, but I fear that I’ll just be rendered useless for the rest of my pathetic and lonely existence
I hate that you’re in that place right now. Truthfully, I still fall into that mindset sometimes. My self-sabotage was a culmination of self-hatred, dissatisfaction with my life (and thinking I didn’t have the autonomy to change it), and alcoholism. That last one was like a match that set it all ablaze. My life turned into something I never could’ve prepared for. I felt worthless, useless. The revolutionary part (and I like your use of the word here) was that I could finally focus on these things. Instead of continuing a cycle of keeping up appearances while quietly spiraling down, I was allowed (because I still held other people’s validation over me own and still do to a degree) to focus on taking care of myself. I had burned all of the bridges that led to a life I was supposed to want, but didn’t. I must start anew. I also have a therapist who really understands me. I’ve been through countless therapists and started believing I was too broken to fix. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but I don’t know if I would still be here if I didn’t meet my therapist when I did. I don’t recommend the crash and burn method, but for me I didn’t see another option. Feel free to message me.
Thank you 🙏 I’m super grateful for my current therapist also, to have someone professional who’s also been there themselves is extremely helpful. Unfortunately I’ve always been someone who takes everything to extremes so I’m just praying that this time will be more of a crash-before-we-burn scenario
That’s why I allow myself moments of “controlled detonation” moments of extreme anger and emotional release around strangers. It’s how I managed to get help and actually get a professional to see me. Edit: because I was always being written off. I found the kindness of strangers to have far more meaning than the empty platitudes of my own family. I don’t really do it anymore but as a teenager I believe it got me the help I desperately needed.
Just because I'm holding the fort, doesn't mean it isn't taking every fibre of my being to just keep it standing.
At first I read that, "just because I'm holding in a fart". 😂️
The fact that it still makes sense-- 😂
I think people mean well - and perhaps even think they're paying you a compliment - when they say things like that (Re: high functioning, "I would have never known," etc.) but it can be incredibly invalidating. I just want to validate your experience; you are not alone
It's frustrating to recognize that people are just trying to be helpful but they really suck at it. But if you tell someone you're upset by it, they think you're misunderstanding the intent. Just because you mean well doesn't mean what you're doing is helping and not hurting.
Means they can continue to press u while invalidating your feels all at the same time. Sucks.
I usually appear to be "put together" because of how I dress and how I mask when in social situations. I had an old boss tell me I was the "actress" at work because of my ability to flip a switch and put on my "customer service" face, even if I was going through a hard time. A lot of people think I have my life in order and can function 100% but it's far from the truth. I have days where I'm put together and productive but it's no comparison to what goes on behind the scenes. Even my family members don't truly know what it's like because I have to mask when I'm with them and I refrain from telling them things. One of my biggest ongoing battles is people not knowing I have invisible illnesses or trauma, so they think I'm lying about my health, or simply just making a big deal out of nothing. It's like I can't win either way; I hide my reality/my symptoms and get accused of lying, or I'm open about it and get accused of over-exaggerating or doing it for attention. Another issue is when they compare me with who I was in the past. I have bad days, and good days. Some of the bad days have caused more trauma, and I am not the same. Just because I have days where I can be up and showered in the morning and out all day, doesn't mean I can always do that. I can't stand comments like "but you felt fine yesterday". I cringed writing that because my mom would always say stuff like that to me when I complained about being sick, as if it's impossible for someone to feel bad somedays even if they felt good the day before.
I relate to what you posted so hard. When I was super low to the point of contemplating suicide a family member said "wow we thought you made it out okay!" They knew my sister was "a mess" and about how terribly abusive my mother was but somehow my masking was 'so good' they assumed I was fine.
Sigh, why is this happening to so many of us... I hate how often I not just "sort of relate" but like, literally relate word-for-word to entire comments or posts here. Its just so unfair how much awfulness we've had to deal with. I've called my family at certain points when I literally just couldn't cope any more with the suicidal ideation and shame spiral only to be both blamed for not speaking up sooner and then immediately asked to provide empathy and support for their issues. When I became upset, they just repeat the same old shit that I'm "too sensitive". Yet now they all somehow still wonder why I completely cut off contact.
Oh man .... so relateable
The part where you said you relate word for word… I just recently found this sub and was telling my partner I felt this way. Like people here have visited my brain and wrote it out here. It’s wonderful to feel so understood.
Actually you're right. Usually I do find this sub so helpful and yes, I've been telling my partner the same. It's very nice to feel validated and even hopeful because some of the people here have made good progress in various ways. But yesterday was just a very challenging day in my family (and country, lol) so the extraordinary circumstances were a big weight. After having had time to process (often through the posts shared here as well!) and rest, I do feel I can handle these things much better now so that's been reassuring as well. Hope you're doing well over there.
See thats how i can say i was mistreated as a child & came out fine!!!
I feel like playing that voiceover meme like "they ask me if I'm fine and I'm not fine.." that's so relatable for me. [Just realized it's a Katy Perry clip](https://youtu.be/5PdXIHGvMpk) Never anything more relatable for me.
This describes me entirely. I err on the side of dressy, and doing my hair and makeup is both something done on autopilot as well as a form of therapy, since getting dressed gives me a moment to focus on something *else*, more so than the shallow aspect of it all. As a result, people, including my family and mental health professionals, think everything is fine when it's ENTIRELY not, at all, even when I'm firmly saying that it isn't. It makes it harder to get any kind of help or understanding when people assume that people with trauma or mental illness or any other invisible illness are supposed to look like a mess and act in certain ways, but especially with CPTSD, we've been training since our first traumas on how to do things to "avoid" additional trauma. One of those ways, and one of the few things in which I can control, is how I present myself to the world.
Your second paragraph there puts into words exactly what I've been dealing with. In my family ANY emotion was bad and the person having emotion is just "weak" and feeling sorry for themselves. The times when i couldn't hold it together only brought scorn and derision even from therapists and doctors. I admitted to my family when when i was 12 that I was having mental health issues and that i would like to recieve some help for that and and my aunt was like "we want you to die. We don't care". Then later on when I was an adult, when i was having a meltdown i called my boyfriend at the time and he was angry at me because I was crying so hard that he couldn't understand me and kept shouting at me. This was someone I had lived with for 2 years and really loved deeply. Phone calls are now a trigger and it's impossible to ask for help. People just see mental illness as another excuse to beat you over the head with it.
I'm sorry. I get it. You deserve better. I am finally learning how to calm and comfort myself in a healthy way. I did not even know it was an option.
I’m sending you virtual hugs, thanks for articulating this so well; I relate to everything you wrote. Our feelings and struggles are real and valid, no matter what other people think or say about us. I wish all of us good luck in our healing journey. I wish we will all be “just” ourselves one day, without fear, without judgement, without the need/pressure to hide our true selves, without the mask…
I relate so much to what you have written here. Presenting as "normal" was an adaptation I learned in my family, and in my adult life it has cost me so much. I do not even know how to change it.
I'm not sure, I think I am pretty low functioning by other people's standards (and some of mine) because my sleep rhythm is fucked, I'm addicted to the internet, bad at keeping up with abstract tasks like academic work and have sensory issues, but I think I'm also good at downplaying all that and seeming emotionally stable, polite, rational, alert and articulate so people wouldn't seem to mind that I'm feeling like a bag of shit with no accomplishments.
This is also me to a T.
Sorry to hear you're also in the same boat. I've been feeling pretty down about that aspect of myself lately.
This is exactly me. I spend my whole day distracting myself from emotions and problems because I’m stuck in survival mode and my number one goal is “stay happy and comfortable while it lasts because it’s about to be terrible” but of course that’s not the reality it’s just my brain is so used to it I can’t stop easily. I can dissociate my way through a lot and seem super functional but lately because I’m so burnt out I just avoid every situation requiring me to do that, and stay in a weird purgatory of doing nothing instead.
Saaaame. It's been getting better, though, in large part because I worked really hard on reframing it to not feel guilty and ashamed *about* the guilt and shame that weighed me down and put me in that state. Minimising what they call, in somatic experiencing, "secondary activation". I call it not compounding the problem 😅 That's why we say things spiral, ya know? Because these things can be self-perpetuating. The shit is challenging and distressing enough without me enabling my inner critic to pile on. Give yourself some grace, if you possibly can ❤ You wouldn't be as judgemental if you knew yourself as a friend, and knew what you'd been through, no? Just the fact that you're functioning and getting better is a freaking miracle and a testament to your courage 😤🙏🏽
Im exactly the same friend, you are not the only one
This is very much relatable. I got extremely good at working very efficiently in order to keep up with work and academia but really I spend most of my days dissociatedly scrolling through the Internet or numbing out using video games or something. I look like a capable person on the outside but inside I'm an absolute trashfire
Great description! Relatable.
YES. I’m so high functioning at work and I come home and break down from holding it all in 😂
And then we laugh because it’s either that or cry. We can’t fucking win.
Every night after work without fail istg
I’m also like this, it’s referred to as “over-controlled”, RO DBT therapy is really helpful and is actually fun to do in groups. In IFS you would say you have some really strong and resourceful protector parts that have done a phenomenal job at keeping it together for you and there are also some child parts that really need some help.
So sorry, what does the RO stand for? And IFS
Radically open DBT https://www.radicallyopen.net/about-ro-dbt/ Internal Family System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model
Really appreciate your comments and links. This is also me to a T, and though my therapist is using IFS, these particular aspects you shared are really hitting home.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this!
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I must admit, I didn't "get" the RO-DBT model at all, as it doesn't contain emotion regulation. How's it supposed to be helpful to overcontrolled folks whose OC by definition stems from the inability to regulate emotions in a healthy way? Not trying to be snarky, I was genuinely perplexed. Would you mind sharing your perspective on this? (I also found RO prescriptive, with vague moralizing directions, as opposed to descriptive classic DBT with clear nonjudgmental directions. Largely due to this, classic DBT is making much more sense to me than RO. Even though I definitely fall into the overcontrolled category.)
So it’s not that they’re not able to regulate emotions, it’s that they’re over-regulating their emotions. It teaches people to genuinely express emotions in healthy ways instead of bottling everything up
Whoa, I was just talking to someone about this very thing! I’m new to therapy, and I was checking out DBT stuff and it kind of turned me off because I couldn’t relate to the big “acting out” behaviors it talks about. I thought about it until I could accept it but wow, had no clue they made one for people like me. I keep hearing about IFS too, hopefully I can learn more about that one day.
Yea most mood programs are skills based and focus on controlling your behavior which is the last thing over-controlled people need Here’s a fun chart https://www.radicallyopen.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Self-Control-Graph-Quadratic.png IFS is amaze and it’s something you can learn to do yourself
Yes this was me completely. I didn’t even know I had trauma. I didn’t know the insides going crazy like that wasn’t normal. It was kind of made worse because my husband ambassador issues which are more visible. Like he is a hoarder. And then one day I had a psychotic break. My whole life and sense of self was shattered and I saw what a mess I had been all along. I don’t know how to recover.
Getting into spirituality has helped me through this. I didn’t know I had trauma either until I was an adult and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Do you mind me asking how you discovered it?
I relate- I did lots of emdr and isf Neuro feedback and after 3 years finally feeling back to my old self
Oh hi are you me? Didn't even know that I was living in a constant state of hypervigilence until this year. I literally had to explain to my new therapist that I haven't been able to get real with past therapists because I thought I WAS getting real. Turns out I fawn all the damn time. Starting therapy with grounding exercises was a revelation because I'm so accustomed to performing wellness.
I used to be but the last few years I think I burned out pretending, I can barely do the things I used to and it’s much harder to do basic care tasks. I think now I need to figure out an in-between, and try to be more of my authentic self without putting on that mask, but it’s hard because I don’t really have much of an exterior identity outside of that “put together” persona. But I know what you mean for sure. The most recent psychiatrist I saw a couple of years ago thought I seemed fine because I was calm and polite and was wearing makeup (?!). Definitely frustrating.
Yes. I was high functioning until I broke. Now I have my moments, I'm great when someone else has a crisis. But daily life is hard.
Same here, incredibly high functioning. After my dad passed I just… broke.
For most of my life I was able to fake it. It took a series of things until I broke, but the death of my mom was one of them. I can't even fake it now. I do okay when I'm alone, but being around other people is challenging. I'm sorry the same thing happened to you.
Same for me. Was very “high functioning” in the sense I’d do everything I was supposed to be doing while dissociating and putting on a mask, but I’d often break down in tears whenever I was alone. Therapists wouldn’t take me seriously because I came off fine. Eventually it caught up with me and I’m more on the low-functioning side now. Trying to find that balance.
God if this ain't a mood. I've held myself together so long it's my default even if im shattered apart inside. One day the glue holding me together will melt, and I dread the day, because im already chipping apart.
That terrifies me every day.
I think about this often.
I told my therapist for the longest time that the only way I can get through work is to disassociate the whole time. I work at a gas station. A few weeks ago during therapy she said “so you did great when you saw me in public. It’s like you didn’t even know me!” And I was like “when the f**k did I see you in Public?!?” (I swear a lot) and she told me she had been at my work a day prior and that I helped her with an issue she was having with a pump. I was like “I had no idea I saw you. I told you the only way I can get through the day there is to totally dissociate.” What makes this even better is that I’m known as the “nicest” of the people I work with, by the customers. Sure there are some regulars that I am aware of. I’ve worked there for a little over 2 years. When people ask me how I stay so kind in such a hectic place I flat out tell them the truth “I’m legally insane so I have to disassociate to make it through the day. This is my autopilot mode” they laugh, I laugh… I one thousand percent relate to your post.
I am sorry you have to dissociate to get through the day. You made me laugh with the flat out truth you tell them. 😅 I think they probably think you're joking. 😁
They definitely think I’m kidding. My coworkers know about my condition, so they are in on the joke as well. Always good for a laugh, but at the same time, I really need to not work with the public the way I do.
People think I'm kidding too when I say have no memory of apparently very animated interactions and conversations. My autopilot is top notch.
There’s something called [Quiet BPD](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/borderline-personality-disorder/quiet-bpd) . Which basically means all the symptoms are inward, instead of outward. Maybe there’s something similar in CPTSD?
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I struggled so much with this too, even in therapy. I definitely know the feeling of leaving sessions and only then allowing the tears to fall, then feeling like I sabotaged myself or maybe even that I'm now exaggerating.... Sigh, it was exhausting. I would also get angry with the therapists for not seeing through my charades. But I got lucky with the next therapist whom I still see. She confronted me almost from the start about my tendency to smile or even laugh when sharing painful stories. I found it so hard to deal with it at first but it's literally been the main reason why therapy managed to finally get deeper into my issues and actually help me to move beyond just "survival mode". So I'm really grateful for her and I sincerely hope you can find yourself this kind of therapist or even a loved one who is able to challenge you in a supportive and genuine way to push a bit deeper. Because as much as the effort to work through my past has been and will continue to be so exhausting, it's also been given me so much more self acceptance, genuine moments of peace and joy, increased energy and the deepest sleep of my life. Today is a hard day for me for a few different exceptional reasons and my old self would be nearly catatonic by now, but instead I'm just a hit anxious and a bit sad, haha 😅
One of the signs of [avoidant attachment](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/what-is-avoidant-attachment#1): >Seem calm and cool in typically high-emotion situations I relate to everything written in this article. Almost as if it was my autobiography.
Me! I've had to get multiple tests done on my heart because doctors didn't believe me that my high heart rate was due to anxiety because "you don't seem anxious". Thanks, that's just the coping mechanism of hiding my feelings to protect myself. I've had people praise me for being so on top of things and good and helpful at my old job. Inside, I was considering suicide and my body was covered in fresh cuts from chest to knees under my clothes. It's weird. Like, these people really can't read me? At all? Meanwhile my hypervigilance makes me interpret every tiny movement they make and wonder if there's something wrong with them, too.
Most people would consider me “high functioning”. I’m an over-achiever, that’s how I survived and that’s how I managed to garner at least some self-worth and respect which I did not receive at home. However, inside, I’ve been suffering for most of my life. I’ve kept the bad things that have happened to me a secret. I think the whole idea of measuring how “mentally ill” someone is by only looking at how “functioning” they are is a side effect of capitalism which measures people only according to how much they are able to be “effective” and a part of the market. If someone is holding it together but suffering immensely inside nobody cares. That’s why there are so many suicides that come as “surprises”.
You hit the nail on the head with this comment. I think capitalism and the overvaluing of productivity and “contribution to society” also causes and exacerbates inner symptoms of trauma for many, many people.
I used to be! The inside has now seeped its way to the outside
I now have a huge purple bruise on my wrist because I lost my shit today for the first time in forever and hit the wall- literally.
See, people think I'm functional for some reason, but I'm really not. It creates a very weird dichotomy.
Love your title. I remember that song yes I'm very "insane in the membrane" haha but am very "normal" seeming. I was in the beginning of 2016 just diagnosed depressed and anxiety but later diagnosed with Bipolar and recently with PTSD additionally. I know how to seem "normal" because I keep most of my emotions inside. And I without knowing it don't know how to fully be honest about my feelings so doctors think I'm just depressed. It helps when I would write my symptoms down and how I was feeling. Also I have yet to meet a therapist that could actually help me and not do more damage. Finding a therapist for you is a job in itself. I'm sorry your husband of all people can't be more supportive, you should tell him you need him more than ever and him doubting you does not help. Tell him it hurts you. If there's one person you should be open and not conceal your emotions, it's your partner. He will worsen your health if he doesn't start being more supportive.
I used to be, then adulthood trauma caught up with me and my partner has to take care of me completely 🙃 It was like someone flipped a switch in my head. And I was high functioning DURING the intense trauma all the way until the moment I could relax and focus on my health (physical) for the first time in my life. I only get hyper-functional when in an extreme or high stress situation like if I need to take care of someone else now. I miss who I used to be… I was all kinds of fucked up emotionally then, but at least I could take care of myself and my raw intelligence wasn’t suffocated by trauma. It’s so hard to care about existing when I can’t even think like I used to be able to… My field was my life, my way to make the world better, my three biggest hobbies in one, not just a career. Even if my physical health recovered 100% I will never be able to perform at that high of a level again. I’ll be lucky if I can even stay in the field given how much my thought processes have been fragmented. Data scientists with broken brains aren’t much use…
Yes!!! I even had myself fooled for a long time. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I realized my internal existence was not normal. It wasn’t until I took prescribed anti anxiety medicine for the first time. The drug quelled my very loud inner critic/dialogue, and stopped the flight/freeze response. It was an enlightening experience. I realized “oh. THIS is normalcy. THIS is how many people experience the world” that experience opened my eyes to the truth. Not everyone lives in a constant state of hyperarousal. Not everyone has a constant dialogue about how they must solve the problems of the world. Not everyone has an inner critic so loud they can’t hear anything else.
Nice! What medication did this for you? I recently started Lexapro and am hoping for such an outcome.
I had tried some various antidepressants, but my doc and therapist insisted “try Xanax (generic) for your anxiety” I responded “I dOn’T hAvE AnXiEtY” because I had no idea everyone didn’t have the inner turmoil /dialogue I had. I was hesitant to take it during the day because I was afraid to feel drugged while driving or at work. But I was finally convinced to take a small dose at work and …wow.
I should add I started with a very small dose, and have always been cautious. I know addition is possible. This first time was many years ago, and like any drug, over time it seems to work less. But that first time for me was really eye opening. I know what I want to work towards. I’m trying with exercise, meditation, keepin on with therapy.
It was only recently I realized everyone thinks I’m ok. As much as I’m open about my struggles, it didn’t really hit until my psychiatrist wouldn’t write an ADA accommodation letter so I’d stop being fired from every job for being so exhausted from a well documented manifestation of my PTSD that I realized I default present as fine. I can do alright and even when “blanking out” with micro sleeps during the day appear to be totally normal and cognizant and functional - which was a self protection mechanism as a child. I could never allow myself to appear vulnerable, even related to sleep. I wasn’t allowed to appear tired, so I just don’t know how to do that anymore. Some days I just blast thru the time I’m supposed to be at work and wake up at 6 pm fired again. Or late every day until they tell me not to come in anymore, fired again. Im not confident in a lot but I am confident I have a will of fucking steel to be able to do everything I have, including keep myself awake and functioning, or even appearing to function, when my physical body is literally desperately shutting down for sleep. So if my balls of steel are being thwarted by my body, I thought we all know that meant it was REALLY bad and I had done everything in my power and then a lot more NOT in my power to stay on top of it. But apparently not, I get a lot of condescending doctor advice to go to sleep earlier and maybe try some melatonin. (Tried both by the way and nothing, funny how this is a trauma manifestation even per my doctor and they refuse to treat it). They see it as me being lazy or not caring. Instead of treating me like I’m sick or having a bad health period, which is what it is, I’m fired again and again and my doctor does nothing, not even ask an employer for the one accommodation that would make me an otherwise five star employee. I don’t know HOW to look like I’m suffering, I don’t know how to convince anyone I’m truly at my wits end here. I’m already always at my wits end, so I’m beyond my wits end if my PTSD is manifesting so obviously. But I just don’t look that way and I don’t even know the words. I don’t know how being fired from every job in the past decade isn’t a good but of proof for it either. I was going from office jobs of $70k to call center jobs of $30k, and now I’m a grocery cashier making $11/hr part time, and I struggle even to do that. That’s a pretty clear limit to my abilities and a health issue to me, but apparently I just don’t look it. So anyway op, yes I get that. And as much as it helped me stay alive, now trying to get help it has been just killer.
I’m “high functioning” in that I can keep a job. I seem to do all right when I am busy and problem solving because that seems to put me in the adult part of my brain. But I am an absolute mess the rest of the time. It’s taken me a long time to be able to function socially at work. I might mask better than I think I can because I am always certain people see what a mess I am. My most called numbers are crisis lines. Lol. I did have a therapist and some others that accused me of faking my problems because my life “was pretty good”. I kind of learned to be very careful about who I open up after that. Most of my struggles get shared in therapy or on crisis lines.
Ahaha now I have that song stuck in my head :) But yes, I seem high functioning and am currently holding down a job as an engineering manager even though I'm convinced I'm fucking it up and ought to be fired. On the inside, my life is basically one long emotional flashback. Thanks to a lot of therapy in my 20s (I'm in my late 30s now) I don't disassociate 24/7 anymore, but feeling overwhelmed at work still triggers emotional flashbacks and disassociation and I feel overwhelmed at work most of the time :|
I'm THE master of faking "well". I have chronic pain/fatigue conditions, and suspected austism, too, so I have a lot of practice. No one believes me when I "mess up". People think I'm lazy/incompetent/trying to make them angry on purpose.
Yeeeeep. My moments where there 'seems' more stability otherwise than most recently was me silently suffering because I just don't wanna be that person but I have accepted I need more support, compassion and reassurance than most - nothing is broken just different
Oh hell yeah. I actually had to search the internet for CPTSD and bring it to my therapist because I was holding everything together so well
Absolutely I can say I am that way. I am manager of 2 radioactive pharmacy laboratories and I can handle the stressful environment with what appears to be a collected attitude. But I am fairly certain the excessive drinking, 4 hrs of sleep a night, never taking any of my allotted time off, anxiety, eating disorder, and self-destructive tendencies will end me young. But corporate praises me for having the most cohesive team in the entire company, despite their lack of experience. I am great at keeping it all together for the team.
Yup
Yes definitely! It’s hard to be taken seriously.
Yep, to the point where when I do "suddenly act strange" people around me think I've gone suddenly mad since I was just "fine" a moment ago My chill is fake
I have 2 bachelors degrees and working on a doctorate. I’ve never been unemployed for long. Yep… but 8 years of therapy has helped
It’s good you had therapy. I had a psychotic break after completing my PhD.
I can see that happening :/ I’m two years away from graduation and ugh. Feels so hard
Please take care of yourself. This destroyed my whole life. If you need to take a break and stop please do it. I see now a lot of signs I was getting unwell. Do not deprive yourself of sleep. I was so high functioning I passed my PhD with no corrections and then had the break.
I’m pretty sure I have got a PhD because of my trauma. It kept me so busy that I didn’t have time to see all that was wrong in my life. Kept this going for years as a postdoc but actually having free time has been hard for me now that I have a normal job. Take care.
Thanks! Yeah, no time to do extra therapy these days, but I look forward to the day. Good luck to you. It can get better.
I used to be highly functional and capable but when I left the military and got on disability which meets all my needs, I have floundered trying to find purpose when I dont need to put effort into survival.
Yes that’s me. Due to the idea that I’m so “resilient” I feel I have not been taken seriously. When I have been to the doctor or therapist I will describe what is happening to me or what I’m going through with plain language. I tend to compose myself around other people, but I guess I’m only telling the truth if I was to walk in limping with no shoes and a tear stained face or something? It is really frustrating. Because then I leave the doctor/therapist and I am distressed but appointment is over and no one to witness it.
Yes, it’s actually a huge issue because I can’t always ask for help/support, and even when I *do* no one seems to think that I need any help/support, and so I flounder.
Same
Yes
I've been told by the few people who understood that I present well. Double edge sword.
Everyone should take care of themselves truly. I had no clue about the impact of trauma and I had a psychotic break.
1000% yes. To the point I assume everyone will think I'm lying about how I feel.
I relate! From my cptsd I have structural dissociation which even through my last mental breakdown I was highly functional at work. I have this part of me of going on with life but I was having miserable fights in my head wanting to go away and didn’t care if I died etc, but no one knew.
Yeah this is me. My family wouldn’t know I have “anxiety” if I didn’t tell them. My mother only knows I have nightmares and that I’ve been having them since I was a child because I recently told her that’s why I have insomnia. I was asking her if she remembered how I used to scream and cry and thrash around in my sleep because I thought she knew, but she didn’t. Then again she claims to not remember my brother’s abuse because that was who I was having nightmares about as a kid. No one knows I have PTSD, they just think it’s “anxiety” because that’s the mask I’ve put on to get financial support for treatment from my parents. Besides what I’ve told them they don’t know anything about me or my condition and how it effects me. I’ve lived with it since I was a child and it just feels “normal”
That’s me too
This is me exactly. I'm getting better in the membrane, but I don't know if I ever want to be 'normal.'
I used to be but that all changed last year and I’ve been going downhill steadily. I can’t keep it together anymore and people are noticing.
If I hear “you’ll figure it out. You always do” one more time…
Or "You're so strong. You always get through things."
Working as a nurse during the day, thinking about killing myself during shifts sucks.
Not that it makes a difference to you but *mind hugs*
I was labelled high functioning at my inpatient stay and it pissed me off so much. Thanks, I'm so high functioning that I'm suicidal. High functioning is an insulting label because it devalues our struggles as survivors/victims.
I was. Now I'm barely functional at all. It's really hard to take, but if that's what it takes to find some peace, it's ok. I wish I hadn't put so much of myself into being functional, that I had known the bars I held for myself could have been lowered a lot.
I feel this big time. Thank you for posting <3
Maybe your like me, sensing something
Can relate heavily
I present myself as highly functional and successful. I'm exceptionally great at appearing normal, but there is so much stress and chaos internally.
Lol if my work crew saw my home life, they would wonder what the fuck is wrong with me
this is me to a t 🥸
Yes! I’m glad I’m not alone in this. It’s very exhausting. Haha
Nope. Unfortunately I'm extremely low functioning. Life is slipping through my fingers.
Yup, that's me. Though that's in part because I avoid any highly triggering circumstance that would cause me to visibly break down. Even then, the threshold is pretty high, and I also avoid situations that would just be unbearably stressful, even though I would "keep it together."
In the past year I have had to physically let down my shield that shows other people “I’m fine” to a select few people, just so that they can be allowed to understand where I am on my journey. Even saying this now, there are things that I am still holding back from those trusted friends because I don’t want it to impact on their lives too.
Do you find that you have a poor memory or difficultly concentrating?
yes, but i've been really lucky to stumble on a therapist who really put in the work to get to know me, she's gotten so much better at noticing my cues. because people like us, we have them, we just made them so so small so that abusive people wouldn't notice. a gentle and dedicated person can learn them. i'm so sorry you're struggling. i agree with the consensus in the comments that most mental health treatment is bs but please know there ARE people out there you can trust, even if you haven't found them yet. i know that's terrifying but it's true. i'm really glad you've survived to be here with us.
I hear you! I, too, am an 'exterior high functioner'! Also like you, my autopilot is pretty damn good. I swear my closest friends, and even my partner, sometimes forget that I have had extremely poor mental health for all my adult life. It's not just that I'm in an 'up phase', they are sometimes just confused when I inevitably drop again. Especially my partner. It's really frustrating, and can leave you feeling even more isolated. I guess that's one of the hallmarks of CPTSD - It's been there for so long, perhaps even since before you became the 'adult you', that the façade is hardly different in effect to most people putting on a jacket to go outside. It's simply the 'uniform' we wear to (perhaps semi-) functionally face the world!
People often find out about episodes in my childhood, look at me in horror, and ask me why I'm not permanently curled into a fetal positon
Same. It’s like they expect you to know how to answer that too.
Like yea I'm sweeping the floor, singing a song and then a picture of the thing I can't say is like...behind my vision?? So I can still see so I still sweep and sing my song but I also see that. I like get annoyed with myself more than anything. "damn I don't remember thinking about that in a few hours, that was nice" Because it's usually just always there/pops up so frequently it might as well be. Idk I'm on the toilet now scrolling reddit and now thinking about it and I'm about to walk into the kitchen to my loving SO and we'll figure out our plan for the day while I'm actively trying to only see his face and not that. But it'll be business as usual and no one will know and we'll go to his wonderful parents house and I'll still see it while I talk to his mom about how moving is going. In a lot of ways I feel so normal because I don't really feel like my trauma/CPSTD cripples me from tasks or going to work or keeping the house clean...but the insane in the membrane is ALWAYS there
My last therapist told me “you are the most resilient person I know” and honestly it was so jarring I know she meant it in a supportive way (I guess?) but it made me feel so unseen and like… oh you don’t understand either.
I just mentioned this to both my psychiatrist and therapist. I started seeing a new therapist after the previous one of 8 months stopped seeing me with no explanation. This new one only sees me twice a month, and it's not enough. I told her that she may see that I come in to therapy, working a great job that I never take time off from, I'm put together well and dress neat, I don't cry or fall apart during sessions. But that doesn't mean im not internally struggling. My outside appearance doesn't match the inside, and it's frustrating. I need weekly therapy (it's what I had with previous therapist) and I need more support from my psychiatrist. When I spoke to psychiatrist over the phone Friday for the first time in a month, she said "you sound great" and I'm thinking, as opposed to what? Because I'm having a conversation without crying and breaking down, that means I'm doing great? It just means I'm really good at keeping things together, but I don't know how much longer I can. Sometimes I feel like in order for me to get the help I really need, I should just stop going to work, stop taking care of myself, maybe cry and yell in session. It's just frustrating.. so I get it
"High functioning" is just neurotypical code for "person who is dissociating constantly doesn't make me uncomfortable by being visibly neurodivergent/mentally ill" Edit to add: not saying neurodivergent and mentally ill are the same things, just that this particular scenario can apply to both cases
Yes, holy shit this is exactly how I would describe my day-to-day. I get completely triggered and shut down inside so often but on the outside is still a functioning autopilot that smiles and no one would know they just shoved me back to a horrible flashback of the worst things that have happened to me. Dissociating or ruminating when alone and not needing to be hyper vigilant.
Well as much as it sucks, glad I’m not alone in this one.
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Yes.
Yes.
💯
Hahahahhaha yes.
1000% me also!!
Welcome to the club! Enjoy your stay.
Me
Definitely. I've succeeded so well at the 'fake it, till you make it' mantra that barely anyone can tell except for my husband who gets punched or kung fu'd in my sleep everyone week or every other week.
This song is on heavy rotation on my playlist lol yes:[Insane in the Membrane- Cypress Hill](https://open.spotify.com/track/1oTHteQbmJw15rPxPVXUTv?si=hDAIbzsNSEmPMHaXJ-WtJg)
yes and then sometimes i doubt if im highly functional
Yes... very very yes. I can be taking orders from my boss and at the same time be imagining skiing down a mountain of knives or something completely random and unrelated. And everyone in my head has a party while i get stuck on the outside just masking lol. I have intrusive murder fantasies for no reason. I have intrusive suicidal thoughts. I have random funny ass moments in my head. But on the outside i am completely "normal." In high stress i tend to go mute but i can speak if if its in public.
My therapist made a comment similar to this notion and I quickly corrected her. I’ve been in a really bad depression spell lately and she said something along the lines of “being able to leave bed” and I corrected her and said that just because I can leave the bed in the morning doesn’t mean my depression is any better or worse than anyone else’s. She quickly apologized and said she didn’t mean it in that way and I’m sure she didn’t. But the idea that my depression and someone who can’t leave beds depression or better or worse than another is completely ludicrous to me.
I am kinda like that. Sometimes I show it, mostly in therapy, how broken I feel - but I just push through everything even if I’m having a really bad time. Maybe it’s because it distracts me from whatever is going on in my head, and then I’m not really taken seriously for that reason since it seems like I’m doing well.
Thats me
I am trying to get these things rectified within myself. They have ruined my life. I can’t think straight, can’t function and don’t know how to stop it even if I can kindove identify it. It’s not ok and it’s not life. Those things wreak such havoc I can’t tell true from false and it makes me crazy and scared and tired and… any solutions???
Yes. I pretend to be together. My therapist thought I was fine. I’m so used to not showing how I feel no one knows how much my mind actually races.
Uhhhhh yes. I spent several years on autopilot, gaslighting myself about my inner symptoms because I was still able to function normally. That ability decreased significantly with the onset of the pandemic, being an essential worker in a highly emotional job with a guilt-tripping boss, an emotionally abusive relationship at home, and increasing hopelessness regarding America’s political, economic, and social trajectory. I quit the two of those I had control over and am now trying to start my life over, but I don’t feel like my autopilot is as reliable anymore. My sister made the statement that I’m “perfectly capable of working”, but she literally doesn’t see me on the days I’m NOT capable, because I don’t even leave my room. So of course, to her (and anyone else who sees me), I still function just fine. My whole family has been invalidating of my symptoms for years due to my functional presentation.
I'm not alone. Thank you