What Is High-Functioning Anxiety?

High-functioning anxiety is a popular term on social media for those who feel the effects of anxiety but are still fully functioning in their daily lives. In this video, we talk about who high-functioning applies to, what it is, and 6 tips to help.

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Disclaimer:
This video was created by Barbara Heffernan, LCSW for educational purposes only. These videos are not diagnostic and provide no individual consultation. Consumption of these materials is for your own education and any medical, psychological, or professional care decisions should be made between you and your primary care doctor or another provider that you are engaged with. Barbara Heffernan is not available for individual consultation via YouTube, social media, or email, and provides services only in the manner mentioned above.

☀️☀️CHAPTERS☀️☀️
0:00 What is high-functioning anxiety?
3:04 The risks of high-functioning anxiety
4:00 Who does high-functioning anxiety apply to?
7:01 The importance of self-care

[snowbunny]

Meds make me exhausted and my anxiety causes a lack of sleep. It’s not easy to manage anxiety

[zoeathomson]

This is me I
Have PTSD because of my parents a place I should have been safe but they put me in so much horrible things from day 0 till I was 11 talking to my therapist Sue has helped me overcome somethings I didn't realise I just had with me.
It's a daily learning challenge I am getting there x ❤

[Long_May_They_Raine]

What is high-functioning anxiety? My everyday life 😭

[DonPurvis]

My wife and I are glad to have stumbled upon your channel. It's awesome! You have a very soothing voice

[faces_of_japan]

Love the content, nice to listen to somebody who is qualified. Probably as high functioning as it gets, and currently Johnny spot with both depression and GAD. All stems from childhood. Personally, when I get into anxiety mode, it is all about redlining on stress and overcoming whatever it is come hell or high water. A great strategy right up until the wheels fell off. Finally, to anybody who reads this comment and feels they have an issue, try and get help because not doing so not worth it.

[andreabuntpercy]

I'm newly self-diagnosed at the cusp between autism and neurotypical. All people on the spectrum are born with some level of anxiety, and the high-functioning label applies to many people with aspergers. I've spent a lot of time looking at videos about autism lately. Interesting to me, this video sounds very familiar in places.

[gandrea]

Thank you for another insightful video. Yes, I identify with this mental health issue. I was much more affected by and panic attacks before retirement. However, it never really goes away. I have experienced some episodes recently, and they took me by surprise. Looking back on it, I now realize the symptoms were building, but I did not identify them soon enough to diffuse them.

[ranc]

Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety. During management of appearing in The Simpsons - the producers came to his villa and the main producer was late - so instead of hanging around with the Simpsons team - he hid in his room until Matt Groening came. Michael was too scared to chat and talk to the other team small chat and non business related social themes.
So he could socialize if there was a project, a task, something to talk about other than personal informal leisure talk with adults. Something that is very easy to do for neurotypicals.

His social anxiety condition got worse after Pepsi commercial incident - after that he become addict to pain killers and his fear of embarrassment was running loose afterwards. To third party he became "weird".
Yet even though he suffered from crippling social anxiety - he still performed concerts in front of billions of people, without any problem. He made movies, music videos - without any problem. That is example of high functional social anxiety.
High functional does not mean healthy. High functional does not mean that problem is gone. In his case - unprocessed trauma ended up in tragedy. The same story applies to Prince and Whitney Houston.



Social anxiety is repressed anger issue. Caused by ACE and ACoA in childhood. Michael was abused in his developmental years and this is where he learned to suppress his own anger and to develop social anxiety as adult.

[fayerichards]

The normalize of it and coping with it mixed with being high flyer/overachiever good grades etc= imposter syndrome

Sigh- productive in unrealistic sense because it's a productive level that can't be kept up or happy long term.

Largely with anxiety was learning boundaries, and emotional processing really helped. But took a long time even with anxiety attacks for me see how impactful it was because on day to day I was ' fine'... but ' fine' was impactful on quality of life and relationships even if I could ' keep it together and be fine'

Great video and very informative!

[_crive_]

At the core its all rooted in separation anxiety due to emotional neglect during childhood....then chasing validation from the external reality all their life...but never getting enough to resolve the emotional wound which is still active at it's core.

[faces_of_japan]

Misinformation on social media? God forbid!!!!

[b-six-twelve]

I was high functioning until I crashed and burned, mostly because the related insomnia had finally depleted my sleep bank past doable. Have not yet been able to find a combo of therapist and psych who can help me get on top of it.

[Tanya-diep]

This lady is sayi g so much with saying not a damn thing at all!! Definition of hogh functioning anxiety oh my gosh! Waist of time.