What It’s Like To Have High Functioning Anxiety | Sharing My Mental Health Story

This post was originally published on Display Rules as part of their Our Stories project. I’m so thankful to Jenn and the Display Rules team for encouraging me to write about my experience and for gifting me this gorgeous tee from their collection. If you’d like to learn more about their incredible work or shop their other mental health inspired designs, click here.

My High Functioning Anxiety Story

The Early Years

Hi, my name is Julianne, and I had my first panic attack when I was 7 years old. Of course, no one knew it was a panic attack at the time. On the outside, anxiety in a child can look a lot like a tantrum. But inside, I was reeling; heart racing, breath gasping, hands shaking. I can still remember how out of control I felt. I wonder if 7-year-old me realized that first time would be far from the last time that I felt those feelings?

Like so many of us, the signs that my brain worked a little differently from my peers were present from the time I was very small. I was called “too sensitive” and was always quick to cry and worry. But when I was 6, my Mom battled (and thankfully survived) breast cancer, and shortly after my parents divorced. My little world came crashing down around me. It was around this time that I had that first brush with panic. I was suddenly crying all the time, and faking stomach aches to come home early from school. 

It’s easy to brush it off when children are struggling. People often say “they’ll grow out of it” or use their pain as a lesson in “toughening up”. I feel so lucky that that wasn’t the case for me. My Mom, my constant source of support and strength, knew that I was struggling and stepped in to make sure I got the help I needed. I started going to therapy, and I think that intervention at such an early age was so important in helping me thrive later on. I can remember telling my first therapist that my feelings felt like quicksand; the ground below me would open up and suddenly I’d be sinking, unable to pull myself out.

As I got older, that quicksand feeling never went away. But I did get better at noticing when it was creeping up on me and finding more ways to pull myself out. Or maybe, I just got better at ignoring and pretending it never existed in the first place.

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The Quest for Perfection

As I got older, I discovered a love for music, performing, and writing and poured myself into my passions in every way possible. By the time I hit my teens I was in singing lessons, dance classes, performing in musicals and concerts, and teaching myself piano and guitar. I entered public speaking and writing competitions. I got good grades. My entire life revolved around being perfect and being liked.

And despite that perfect mask I tried to wear, I was still struggling in many ways. I was always chasing that one thing that would make me feel worthy without ever really catching it. Despite all my success, I had horrible self-esteem. I was constantly comparing myself to others and placed a huge amount of worth in my body and appearance. I now know that my quest for perfection is a huge indicator of high functioning anxiety. I think that part of the reason I kept myself so busy, besides my desire to be perfect and prove myself, was that it was my way of running away from that quicksand feeling. As long as I stayed just one step ahead of it, it wouldn’t swallow me whole.

Photo by Colton Politte. Tee from Display Rules.

Dealing With Burnout

Throughout high school, I hit a few small roadblocks with my mental health. But it wasn’t until I went to university that I was truly knocked down, and knocked hard, by my anxiety. Music had been my greatest love for so long, it was an obvious choice for me to apply for the music program at Memorial University. But suddenly my biggest source of stress relief became my biggest source of stress. Some people thrive under pressure. For others, it makes them want to flee or fight. But for me, I just froze.

My first semester at university, I was probably sleeping 3 hours most nights. But I wasn’t staying up late doing homework or studying – those small tasks were suddenly insurmountable. I would sit down at my laptop, ready to do work, and then… Couldn’t bring myself to write a single word.

Anxiety often makes us place unrealistic expectations on ourselves. And when I thought that I would never be able to meet those expectations, my brain convinced me that it was better to not try. The further I fell behind, the harder it was to force myself to catch up. Trying to do my homework almost always ended in full-blown panic attacks. A concerned professor cornered me after class one day and let me know that if I couldn’t pull my act together, I would never be able to graduate from music school. Despite the stress, I loved so much about the school and was desperate not to lose my place in such a competitive program. And yet… I felt so powerless to escape the cycle I was stuck in. 

This was me in 2015, completely at rock bottom and completely hiding it.

I barely scraped by in my first year. I promised myself that I would do better. But all of my stress was compounded by a breakup and the sudden death of one of my favorite people in the world, my grandmother. Life had knocked me down hard, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get back up. The quicksand was rising fast, and I had finally resigned to let myself be swallowed by it. I didn’t want to fight anymore. 

Recommended Post: Here’s What A Day With Anxiety is Really Like: Expectations vs. Reality

Seeking Help

Near the end of the year, I confessed to my doctor at a routine visit just how badly I was struggling. Not everyone is as lucky, but she took my problems very seriously. She placed me on sick leave from my part-time job and wrote notes to my professors to accept some late work. It was also around this time that I was officially diagnosed and started taking medication for my mental health.

My diagnosis – generalized anxiety and symptoms of depression – made things easier in a way. I finally had an explanation for the way I had felt for so long. The medication too was helpful for me at first. I started sleeping and studying again, although it was still hard. But seeking help doesn’t flip that switch overnight. I worked really, really hard – but it wasn’t enough. I finished with a 49% in the one course I needed to pass to continue my progress in the program.  

Photo by Colton Politte. Tee from Display Rules.

I was given a grace period, to redo some courses and get a second chance to remain in music school. I did much better that next year, but I always felt that I had a chip on my shoulder. I didn’t just want to prove myself – I needed to. I needed to prove to everyone else that I did deserve to be there, even though I didn’t really believe it myself. 

In my final year (the fourth year for most students, but fifth for me because I took some extra time), I managed to make it onto the Dean’s list. When I got the letter, I collapsed crying on my kitchen floor. I had made it. But… Why didn’t it feel that way?

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What Is High Functioning Anxiety?

High functioning anxiety is the term given to anxiety sufferers who are able to function within society’s expectations of them. They often excel at work, school, or in relationships because they are driven by intense perfectionism and a fear of failure. For most of my life, besides the times where my mental health seriously impacted my ability to function, I would fall into the high functioning anxiety category. But even when you can’t see it on the outside, I’m still dealing with the symptoms of my anxiety every day.

The term “high functioning anxiety” is misleading because functioning labels only describe how someone looks on the outside, not the inside. High-functioning anxiety looks like working hard. Making everyone around you happy. Being a perfectionist. But really, it’s driven by a constant fear of failure. I don’t work hard because of my ambition, but because of my anxiety. I am a people pleaser because I live in constant fear of disappointing other people or making them angry with me. People with high-functioning anxiety appear to be high functioning. But on the inside, it feels like we are barely getting by.

Taking A Step Back

After graduating from university in 2019, I kept up my frantic pace on the quest for perfection. My part-time position teaching private music lessons became full-time, as well as taking on more freelancing gigs. I was working constantly without making the time to take care of myself. I might have been heading for another burnout… But as we all know, early 2020 forced all of us to a full stop. And for me, it was the first time in years. 

Suddenly, lockdown meant I had a lot more time to myself. It was terrifying. I missed the stability of my frantic routine and was filled with health anxiety. But at the same time… It was freeing.

Photo by Colton Politte. Tee from Display Rules.

Spending time in my own little bubble and out of the view of the rest of the world also took away so much of the outside pressure that I was perceiving. And it made me realize that that pressure was never there to begin with – it all came from within, from that anxious voice that told me I would never be good enough. I started to see my anxiety differently than I had my whole life; it is a part of me, but it isn’t all of me. And it became my mission to start shaking off all the insecurities and warped world views that my anxiety had planted in my brain.

 For me, anxiety isn’t just about the panic attacks and late nights spent worrying. It embeds itself in your brain and changes the way you think. I often talk about seeing the world through an old warped windowpane. From behind that window, the whole world is scary. Nothing you do will ever be good enough. But if anxiety can train our brains to see things that way, isn’t it also possible to retrain ourselves to snap out of it, and see things the way they really are? Realizing this helped me start to pull that window open, just a crack, to start seeing past my anxiety.

My Struggles Became My Strength

All these realizations are what lead me to create my blog, www.findingjulianne.com, and start posting more on my Instagram, www.instagram.com/findingjulianne, about my journey. At first, it was terrifying. A huge and obvious part of appearing perfect is hiding your imperfections. I had done that all my life. But suddenly I wasn’t just talking about my imperfections and insecurities, but posting them online for thousands of people to see. My anxiety was screaming. But every post felt like a huge win against that anxious voice. I started my blog to try and help other people. But somehow, they helped me more than I could have ever imagined. 

Photo by Colton Politte. Tee from Display Rules.

I’d love to end this post by saying that my anxiety is cured, that I love my body, and that I’ve finally learned the importance of self-care. And trust me, if I had discovered the secret to beating anxiety, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. But something I’ve learned about mental illness is that it never goes away. Even when we get better at managing them, those feelings still remain. All we can control is how we deal with those feelings. And for me, a big part of that is confronting them head-on rather than running away.

There are some days I still get stuck in that quicksand or have trouble seeing past the warped glass. The anxious voice in my head can get incredibly loud – but I’ve finally learned that I can talk back to it. I know now that I am more than my anxiety. Just like you are more than whatever struggles or challenges life has thrown your way.

The stigma around mental illness has finally started to break down – and it’s thanks to regular people like you who have started speaking up about their mental health. I don’t hide my anxiety behind that high functioning, “perfect” mask anymore; instead, I speak out by being vocal about my mental health experience every day.

Photo by Colton Politte. Tee from Display Rules.

I love Display Rules because of how easy they make it to wear your strength and struggles proudly on your chest. Keeping our pain in the dark only makes it worse. When we shine a light on what we’re going through, it doesn’t just make our struggles easier. It also makes the whole world just a little bit brighter.

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Do you have your own mental health story you’d like to share? I would love for us to connect in the comments below. Thanks again to Jenn from Display Rules for the opportunity to share my story, and to you for reading it! This blog has been a huge part of my healing, and I’m so thankful to you for coming along for this ride. All my love,