High Functioning Anxiety IS NOT "Anxiety Light"
I had spent most of my therapy session lamenting a work project. My obsession with making it perfect had taken over my life.
"Oh yes, that is your anxiety." My therapist said to me.
I remember thinking, sitting there on the black leather couch facing my therapist. What!?!?! How is THAT anxiety?!?!?
In my mind, I struggled with perfectionism and a bit of people-pleasing. I had a constant feeling of being found out that I was doing it wrong and spent most of my days trying to make everyone around me happy to the detriment of myself. Yes, this left me tired and exhausted and totally out of touch with myself--but was it anxiety!?! I mean, I got a lot done in a week! I pushed and pushed myself beyond my fear--I wasn't an anxious person.
It turns out yes, I was. I was stuck in the misconception that anxiety means you function less. Anxiety has four responses flee, freeze, fight, or fawn. Our stereotype of anxiety is to flee or freeze. A Google image search for 'anxious person' shows people with fearful looks, staring out the window with pained expressions, worrying about something. Fear, pain, and doubt are written all over their faces.
High functioning anxiety is the last two fight or freeze. My anxiety presents differently. It propels me forward. When I feel anxious, I don't shut down; instead, I push harder. I believed the answer to my anxiety was to solve all my doubts and insecurities by facing them. It wasn't that the world was scary; I was broken and needed to fix myself, and then the world would be less scary. When anxiety strikes, the response is to function more in the world.
Thank God for my therapist, who continued to kindly talk about my anxiety even though I couldn't see it. Because anxiety is anxiety, whether you have low functioning or high functioning, both are forms of anxiety. Both are debilitating and crushing. But common wisdom would have us believe that high functioning anxiety is less painful. It is the "better" version of anxiety (if there is such a thing).
It is only the "better" version of anxiety because it is more socially acceptable to push harder and view yourself as the problem. But your response to anxiety, whether to function high or function low, is a response to anxiety.
I have seen High Functioning Anxiety presented as anxiety light or not a real issue because it isn't debilitating. Every time I see High Functioning Anxiety presented as not a real problem, I want to scream Bull Shit at the top of my lungs.
I have devoted my career to treating High Functioning Anxiety, because living with it is exhausting. Not just because the anxiety itself is exhausting but because the unhealthy coping methods we have learned to deal with it (throwing ourselves into work, being the responsible one, perfectionism, and people-pleasing) are so valued by society that we struggle in silence and shame.
Helping our anxiety is threefold:
Recognizing when anxiety is running the show
Knowing what works to calm your anxiety.
Having the loyalty to yourself to do 1 and 2 above.
Self-loyalty is the key because it bypasses the anxiety response and allows you to calm your anxiety faster.
However, building self-loyalty takes time because it contradicts all we have been taught. We believe we are broken and need to be fixed, and then the world would be less scary. The world will be less scary when we have our backs and trust ourselves, aka self loyalty.
This is why I created a whole school devoted to Self Loyalty:
Self Loyalty School: A 10-month audio program to Quiet your High Functioning Anxiety
This isn't about offering another hack for your anxiety. This is about changing it at the root—this is all about Self Loyalty.
Here's what's included:
Bite-sized audio lessons so you can listen and integrate immediately.
Time off so you can catch up and practice what you learned.
Monthly Question and Answer sessions to ask questions and receive answers as you move through the school.
Self Loyalty School is everything I know about quieting High Functioning Anxiety, stopping your Monger (that mean inner critic) from running the show, and building an internal sense of loyalty that you can come back to again and again.