[Crook32]

Why We Need To Talk About High-Functioning Depression | Huffington Post

Interesting article. I think it just brushes the surface though. I know that I am high functioning most of the time until my depression gets to the point where I need to be in the hospital.

What else can people add to this article?

[QueenCopper]

Can't really add anything but I can relate. Because of the type of job I do and I try really hard to mask it all from my daughter; this is all to familiar.

[unhappydaze]

Originally Posted by Crook32

Why We Need To Talk About High-Functioning Depression | Huffington Post

Interesting article. I think it just brushes the surface though. I know that I am high functioning most of the time until my depression gets to the point where I need to be in the hospital.

What else can people add to this article?

First - I am sorry you have ended up in hospital, and I thank you for posting here. No matter how many people open up here it still takes a certain amount of courage to open up as you did.

The article is from the perspective of a young woman. Speaking as a male, this:

how do you talk to a friend who you believe is masking her depression? Landau says to ask if she is okay, pointing out that she hasn’t been herself lately. Leventhal echoes that sentiment. “Just little things, like asking, ‘How are you doing?’” she says. “Just be there to listen and ask them what they need. Different people will need different things.” Landau says it’s best to be able to come armed with a suggestion, like a reputable therapist, or an app like Headspace, used for meditation. “There are so many different types of therapists, medications, apps, and other tools,” Landau says. “That’s why it’s tragic that so many people don’t seek help.”

is unimaginable to me. Men do not by and large open up to that degree, nor anything close to it in my experience. I am not saying men have it "tougher" than women - society loads a whole other set of expectations on women that mostly don't apply to men.

That said, there's a reason men are about four times as likely as women to commit suicide. My own opinion, wholly uninformed by any studies or empirical data that I know of, is that if we could break down the barriers of male and female, and do better at supporting each other as people rather than dividing along gender lines, we could improve the quality of life for so many of us who feel so isolated. Flame me for a sexist, but for a variety of reasons men just don't open up to each other the way women do. I also believe some men can provide a different perspective to women that they might not get from their own friends. (And vice versa, of course.)

[Fizzyo]

Interesting article. And thanks Unhappydaze.

Maybe most people who live with depression fall into the "high functioning" group for much of their illness, but maybe after years, people run out of energy to keep pushing themselves?

I found I could mask higher levels of distress when I was younger with the energy of youth than I can now. Maybe I have had more disappointments and the energy it takes just isn't there anymore.

Best wishes and hugs to anyone who lives with depression or any other mental health problem. No one else can know how much of an achievement it is to do whatever you do in a day, however small or great.

[Fuzzybear]

[PenguinExMachina]

I, myself, just got out of the hospital where I was in the "high functioning" ward. One of the program specialists made the comment that high functioning depressives can actually be the most dangerous.
Her example was in the hospital setting. You take someone from one of the lower functioning wards and place them in front of the doctor, and the doctor decides to put them on medication. The person might just sit back and say, "okay." But with a high functioning depressed person, they are more aware of what is going on, their illness, their cognitive operations, etc, and will sit there and argue against the med, even if it's against their own best interest.