I was reading an article in the mighty, an amazing website recommeded by a lovely person here in wordpress, about how is living with a high-functioning anxiety. I felt compelled to ask myself what does even high-functioning means, I have to say I relate with a lot of what she said in the article even tho I’m not always achieve the what so called “high-functioning”, sometimes I just lay in bed and overthink every detail of my life in present, future, and past tense without being able to do a productive damn thing and writhe under my self made misery.
I remember talking with my psychiatrist about my mom (she have bipolar disorder probably type I rapid cycle) and I suggested at this point of her life she might need to be hospitalized, I didn’t say this because I’m tired of my mom, which is not neccesary a lie but definitely no the reason why I suggested such a thing, hospitalization is no joke. My mom, she has done dangerous things in the past, due to delusions and paranoia, involving other people safety incluiding mine and my father’s. In any other country this would be 
consider severe psychosis symptons, a red flag indicating hospitalization, but instead my psychiatrist looked me in the eye and said: “No, I don’t think she need to be hospitalized because she can high-functioning, she go shopping and get things done…” (some words may have been lost in translation but you get the idea). So she can’t get the help she needs because she can do stuff?
Yo… I don’t know about you but I’m confused as fuck. Ok, ok, wait a second I think I get it now, as long as you can make your bed, go to school and talk to people you are just having “little mental troubles” that you can fix with medication and breathing techniques.
This is what I don’t understand about psychology. All it theoretical base is about human behavior, that’s where terms like “high-functioning” come from, but what about individuals who can do their daily stuff but suffer in silence, never being enough or feeling they don’t deserve help, why the most important thing for pyschiatrists is how ‘normal’ you can act, it shouldn’t be instead the answer we should be looking for how can I be happy even tho I don’t fit as ‘normal’? how can I be happy even tho I can’t completly function in society? Mental illness makes us suffer, cry, we can’t sleep, we can’t eat, we can’t fucking breathe, but we learn through experience how to deal with our brains. Can you really categorize our lifes into a low or high, better or wrong type of life?
We keep forgetting functioning doesn’t equal happiness. What we see outside is not by any means what the inside looks like. Maybe that’s the problem we keep judging the book by its cover.
I don't scream 