What High Functioning Actually Hides | Ep321

What High Functioning Actually Hides | Ep321

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So the other night I was watching Nightline, and they ran a segment on something called scream clubs, which are groups of people who get together, usually somewhere outside, and scream as loud as they can on purpose.

And my first reaction, the therapist one, was " Have they tried therapy?" And then I thought about it a little longer because when grown adults are going out looking for a place to scream, it tells me how much we're all carrying around and have nowhere to put it.

And the people I worry about are the ones who look like they have everything handled, , since what high functioning actually hides doesn't look anything like what most of us picture. Here we go.

You're listening to the Free To Be Mindful podcast, the space for high-achieving women who give their best to everyone and are ready to keep some of it for themselves. I'm Vanessa, licensed therapist, speaker, and mom coach. I know what it takes to build a life you're proud of without losing yourself in the process.

Each week, we get honest about ambition, identity, and the parts of ourselves that we [00:01:00] quietly set aside. Here we go

Hello, and welcome to episode 321 of the Free to Be Mindful podcast. I hope that you're feeling good, looking good, and doing better in this world than you were yesterday.

So October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and this year's theme from the World Federation of Mental Health is about lived experiences being heard.

And let me tell you, when I read that, I thought about the experiences I hear most in my office and see least outside in the real world. Because the women living it are so good at making it look easy. So today, we're talking about what high-functioning actually hides and where all of it goes when we don't have anywhere to put it.

And I'll start with sharing mine. You may have heard me mention that I recently joined a yoga studio that I've been looking at for a number of years, and now that my daughter is a little older, I'm finally able to make that commitment.

And I go for the physical workout more than anything, but I [00:02:00] know that I'm also getting that time and that space where I'm not thinking about anybody else except for improving myself in that very moment. And on more than one occasion, I'll share with you that lying in the end resting pose in savasana, I've realized that a couple of times there are tears coming down my face without much thought behind them.

And I can't help but connect that to everything that I hold on on a day-to-day, and that sometimes all that stuff just has nowhere to go.

And I know that I'm not the only one, because the women I work with try to describe what they're carrying, And a lot of them just use the same phrase, and that is high-functioning anxiety.

And you may have heard about this all over social media, and I want to start there because I need to make one thing clear. It is not an official diagnosis. You won't find high-functioning anxiety in the DSM-5 that we use as clinicians. However, we do hear it quite often.

And what it looks like [00:03:00] is at work, it's the woman who's leading the meeting while answering the email that came in during that meeting instead of waiting until later. It's catching the typo in a slide deck before anyone sees it. It's already planning the next quarter while everyone is still trying to figure out the one that they're actually in.

And at home, it's the mom who's cooking dinner, while making sure that homework is actually getting done, while prepping tomorrow's lunches and somehow still noticing that they're down to the last roll of toilet paper. And she's the only one in the house who notices it.

And plenty of us are both of these women before lunch, right?

From the outside, they look like they've got it covered. We look like we've got it covered, which is exactly why nobody thinks to ask them how they're really doing. 

So what is it that all of this actually hides? Most of the time, it shows up in our bodies first, Beginning with our jaws, we don't realize that we're [00:04:00] clenching until someone points it out to us. My dentist asked me, "Do you grind your teeth?" And I didn't realize until years after that that's what I actually do when I'm stressed. Sometimes it's in our shoulders, right? They're living somewhere up by our ears by 3:00 in the afternoon.

And sometimes it's us sitting in the driveway for a few extra minutes before going inside, scrolling nothing in particular, because the second we walk through the door, we know that somebody in our household is gonna need a whole lot of things from us. And it also hides how we answer people, " i'm good," comes out automatically that we don't even stop to check if it's actually true. And it hides at night when the house is finally quiet and our brain decides that that's the perfect time to replay a conversation from earlier in the day.

I read a piece this week where a physician described this so well. She said that a five-minute emotional conversation at home might take five minutes on the clock, but then she carries it around for [00:05:00] hours and hours. And I think a lot of us probably know what she means.

Then there's the snapping, and I'm all about real talk. I keep it real with you, so I'll be the first to admit to this one. I hold a lot of space all day for heavier things, but the simple things in my home particularly drive me insane.

The socks on the floor used to be the trigger, and I've finally come to accept that. But the loud chewing or the dirty clothes sitting right next to my son's hamper instead of actually inside the hamper, let's just say that my reactions are definitely bigger than the moment actually is.

And everything we hold doesn't just disappear because we're too busy to deal with it. No. Instead, it waits. One way I explain it to clients is that when we're in go mode all day long, our bodies don't feel safe enough to let anything surface, so it just holds it in.

And then the moment that we finally slow down, whether it's lying [00:06:00] on that yoga mat or standing in a hot shower, then that's like when Pandora's box opens. That's room for all of it to come up, which is why so many of us end up crying in places perhaps that we didn't quite mean to.

When it doesn't come out as tears, it often comes out as anger aimed at all the wrong places. The chewing or the clothes by the hamper are usually the last straw on a whole day's worth of things that just had nowhere to go. And the people who catch that anger are typically the ones closest to us or the ones who love us the most. And over time, that displaced anger can drive a wedge between us and the people who we love the most. And most of the time, it had nothing to do with what we're actually carrying in the first place.

And that brings me back to the Screams Club where we started. Now I don't want us going around screaming everywhere in the grocery stores, online at Trader Joe's, or in the school pickup line.

But I do understand the appeal because what these groups [00:07:00] offer is the permission to let something go on purpose. And that's the thing that high-functioning women almost never give themselves the space to do. And there's real science behind the why it feels so good too. A psychiatry professor at Harvard explained that screaming switches on our fight or flight response, and once the screaming stops, then the body goes back to rest.

And that's the same cycle we go through after a hard workout, right? When our hearts are racing and when we're out of breath, and then the calm comes in.

And that Nightline segment also covered ecstatic dance, and that works on a similar idea Since anything that lets the body go up and then lets it come back down to rest can really help, whether that's one loud song in the kitchen or a fast walk around the block.

So if you need to scream it out in the car, go for it. Nobody's stopping you. , Just maybe roll up the windows first so that the neighbors don't have any more [00:08:00] opinions.

And that same professor I just mentioned was also clear that research has not shown that scream therapy, I use that loosely, works as a treatment for mental health conditions.

And as a therapist, that's a part where I wanna spend a moment on. A good scream or a good cry in savasana can let off the pressure for an afternoon, which is great. Therapy, though, is where we need to figure out why the pressure keeps building every week, and then what we can do to cope better.

There are a couple of things I'd pay attention to if you're needing those release moments more and more often, and if the relief doesn't last the way that it used to. That's data or information that we can really use. If your sleep or your patience has been off for weeks instead of days, or if the people who love you have started gently asking if you're okay, that's really worth taking seriously, too. That's when it's time to reach out to a therapist, , [00:09:00] and there's nothing dramatic about doing that before things truly fall apart. You don't wanna wait until then.

And if you're unsure where to start, you can always find a therapist at psychologytoday.com.

And if you're looking specifically for a Latinx therapist, you can search the connecttherapydirectory.com, which is a directory I helped create for exactly that reason. Both links will also be in the show notes.

And while most of this episode is about us, I'd bet that someone probably came to mind as you're listening. Maybe a friend, a family member, a sister, a colleague who always seems to have everything handled, and 'I'm good' is probably her automatic answer, too. Instead of asking her, "How are you?" Try asking something that she can't answer on autopilot, Like, what's been taking up most space in your brain this week?" And instead of, "Let me know if you need anything," because you know she never will, offer something specific, like grabbing her a coffee before a meeting or dropping off dinner on a [00:10:00] night that you know she's busy. You don't need to fix anything or be her therapist, but letting her know that you see past this functioning can mean more than you think. And if this episode made you think of her, please be sure to send it to her.

The more women I work with, the more I see what drives all of this high functioning is usually our expectations. The standards that we hold for ourselves in every single room that we walk into.

And when we expect ourselves to perform At the same level everywhere, running on overdrive starts to feel like the only way to be able to keep up.

So ask yourselves, what would happen if we put some of these expectations down for a moment, just for a moment?

And maybe we can't do that at work where the deadline is the deadline, but do we really have to do it in every single part of our lives? Do we have to cut the bread into our hearts for our toddler's peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or can we just hand her over two regular [00:11:00] slices and trust that she's gonna eat it anyway?

Does the laundry need to be folded the way that we fold it, or can it be folded the way our partner folds it? Maybe it's not as good as you would do it, but can we just let that be enough? When we give ourselves a little bit more room on purpose, the pressure has less reason to find its own way out Whether that's on a yoga mat or at the kitchen table.

And sometimes there's no diagnosis at all. Sometimes you're functioning and you're fine on paper, but you're tired of living up to the expectations that nobody else even asked for. And that's exactly the kind of work that we work through in my coaching for high-achieving women, and you'll find that information in the show notes.

And if you want a few more ways to let some of that pressure out during the week, I did put together a free list of 120 coping skills, which are good for kids and for adults alike, and a lot of them are small enough to fit into your everyday that's already really full. And that link is in the show [00:12:00] notes too.

So before we wrap up, let's just take a few minutes, and if you're driving, obviously, please keep your eyes on the road. And if you're somewhere where you can let your eyes close, I invite you to do that. And just start by noticing where your body's holding onto things today. Check your jaw, check the middle of your eyebrows, your shoulders.

And wherever you find that tension, just take one slow breath and let the breath reach those areas as you exhale. And now think back to the last time that something came out sideways. Whether it was a few tears in the shower or whether it was snapping at someone you love. Ask yourself what had been building up in the hours before that breaking point.

And then think about one expectation at home that you can just put down this week, that you can put to rest, that you don't [00:13:00] have to fulfill. And picture what it looks like done the simpler way or having someone else take it over. And notice how your body feels when you're imagining that be enough.

As for me, I'm keeping my yoga classes on the calendar this week, And if the tears show up in savasana again, I'm gonna let them, but I'm also going to take a look at what has happened before then and where I can let things go a bit.

And if you happen to drive by a woman screaming in her parked car this week, just wave. I can promise you it won't be me, but it may be one of you.

And as always, amigas, remember that in a world where you are free to be anything, you are always free to be mindful.

Catch you next time. 

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