Functionality

Functionally, I feel like I'm on a decline.

I'm currently high functioning, but not as high functioning as I was 7 years ago, when I first started college. I'm not sure if my meds make me feel this way or if this illness naturally progresses into something worse. However, I've heard many of you say that you used to have wonderful jobs, but no longer have those jobs due to this illness.

On the other hand, I do wonder sometimes if meds slow down the process of this decline (if I truly have a decline at all).

It'd be interesting to know how you guys feel about this

Well I used to do avionics on choppers back in my army days before I had a manic episode (just major depression). Now I am pretty much a looser, I doubt I could hold a job because either the anxiety would do me in or id just go manic and get fired anyway. So I guess I am not all that of a high functioning person now.

Here's an interesting article from USA Today that's related to this topic.

'Bleak picture' for mentally ill: 80% are jobless

I'm also high functioning for the most part but I also worry that at any moment this could change. Hang in there my friend

Wow, that article is pretty sobering.

I understand your concerns!

My history is full of rather severe autoimmune illnesses, too. I'm not the typical example.


WC

I thought I used to be high functioning.

I don't really know what I am anymore.

I think I might be medium functioning. lol

I'm feeling the exact same thing. For the most part I'm high functioning, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up the masquerade. I just made a post about telling a lie to get out of going to lunch with coworkers.

I think it takes a lot of energy, mental and physical, to keep up this masquerade of high-functionality. I think it eventually takes a toll and we become more likely and vulnerable to letting the mask slip. Maybe knowing this we need to take some extra time somewhere, somehow, sometime to recharge our batteries.

I've been on the same meds and dosages for years. I don't know, maybe it's time for a change. I'm on Welbutrin 450 and Lamictal 200. Maybe we adapt to these meds the same way we can adapt to opiates and opioids. Which btw do give me a kick in the butt to get motivated; not high, but as anxiolytics. That's the addictive part... feeling good and functioning.

Btw, here's something that describes me as if the author climbed into my head. High-Functioning and Low-Functioning ? Out of the FOG

Especially this "Another common occurrence is for a personality-disordered individual to live with a kind of "split-personality" where in certain environments or situations they behave in a high-functioning manner and in others in a low-functioning manner." Yes indeed, that's me.

I get the split personality thing, sometimes I do feel like two different people. Right now I'm doing good but last week was another story

I have been back and forth on the functionality scale all of my life. The trend over the years has been to be in worse shape mentally, with shorter periods of high functioning, and longer stretches of low functioning. I have not had a normal job in 7 months (that one lasted 2.5 months preceded by 8 months unemployed). I spend most of my time in my room these days.