To the outside world: Everything is fine! – High-functioning depression. A personal story

Unexpressed feelings do not die. They are buried alive – and at some point they come out again in an unpleasant way.

Sigmund Freud

Many of my clients who come to me don’t even think that they are suffering from depression or burnout because, after all, they are not just “hanging around, they are managing a whole company or their job in management!” Nevertheless, “something is wrong” – and that’s how they find me.

The phenomenon is called high-functioning depression. Often found in people in “high-end positions” – they function (as always) – the wheel turns faster and faster. But somehow they freak out super fast and are insanely exhausted after every meeting. Sleep… Not really. They work instead. And they get high on alcohol (to repress and feel less) and other things.

A few years ago, I was able to conduct an interview (in german only) on this topic with the former “high-functioning” entrepreneur Georg Rösl (Just George).

To the outside world, to the environment – and even sometimes to the therapists treating them! they look “healthy” and capable. Almost nobody understands what is going on inside them. You have to ask a lot of questions, analyse very deeply and be able to see through the masks these people have trained themselves to wear over the years. This takes experience, time and intuition. Because they cannot trust. And showing “weakness” is a no-go for them.

One of my clients has written his personal story – from the “ice-cold” high-functioning mode into life. And also that the pull (addiction) into returning to high function is initially very strong. Years of imbalance in the nervous system “need” the “stuff” (here: high-function mode).

But now…

Welcome to Kuschomania

“Shit!” – I thought as my intergalactic space cruiser once again rumbled through an Andromeda nebula. “Can’t the bastard captain be more careful? The night’s fucked again!”

I had planned every minute precisely. Chasing through the galaxies at 20 times the speed of light. Mainly through the nights to land on the right planets at dawn, where my business partners were usually waiting for me on arrival to fly me to their construction sites in their sleek little space cruisers.

Temples of lust – addictions to distract from the essentials

I was an architect.

Not the kind who designed a space globe with a view of the Milky Way for the little cosmonaut and his wife.

I planned… Temples of lust. Of unbridled and unrestrained useless consumer lust. The bigger and more dazzling, the better!

The twenty other Biz’Onauts chasing ahead of time with me in the spaceship were partly lulled to sleep by spherical music, while others, equipped with super-audial media helmets, watched the latest films from the star charts. Special sensors attached to the nose and temples made it easy to experience the emotions of the individual film sequences.

The advantage was simply that our bodies and souls, cooled down to -20 degrees Celsius, could still feel at least a fraction of the emotions that were absolutely necessary for a total movie experience.

Cold heart: high-functioning depression

In my work and private environment, feelings were dangerous: it was all too easy to get emotionally lulled and lose your cool.

Some of us drank strangely sedating liquids in a red or yellowish colour. Some of them bubbled like the fizzy drinks I remembered from my childhood.

I personally loved older space cruisers where you could still get drinks from the distant galaxy of Irlandis. Supposedly this wondrous stuff was stored in oak barrels!

We were mainly men on board.

Only a few women ventured into the emo-free world of work, in which you jetted from planet to planet at the speed of light to do business in the most beautiful oases of distant galaxies, pampered by long-legged Earthlings, curly-haired Klingons and perky Martians, which brought us more and more growth, while the working people were downright exploited and oppressed by us.

“Hey sweetie – some more of the fish eggs please!” – I called out to the smart uniformed Astrodess. Since the Americans had shot a crater into the Earth’s satellite in 2009, which they then didn’t need to store their nuclear fuel rods, the Russians had acquired it cheaply at the time in order to breed a type of fish there whose eggs resembled a species that had long since fallen victim to environmental pollution on Earth.

The moon was used as arable land by farmers who were no longer able to cultivate the earth due to the high temperatures.

“Hey, and a pint of that bubble water, please!” – I called after the Astrodess. It was the only way I could get through another sleepless night. I got an average of 4 hours of sleep a night, which, together with the white powder that was available on Colombia, was no problem.

So once again, the twenty of us high-flyers rumbled through the seemingly endless night, past stars and planets, crossing colourful, shimmering solar systems and planetary belts.

“We are important!”

I shouted cheerfully into the crowd and raised my glass. “Without us, no wheel will turn!” The awake boys looked over at me and nodded in agreement. We were tacitly certain that we were the absolute heroes in our customised Quattroflutschi suits and sharply tailored shirts.

Happiness – feelings – love – security: none of us were interested in that any more. “It’s all for sissies!” our boss liked to shout at the top of his voice at the monthly team meetings.

The Astrodessen brought us all plenty of treats and always smiled in admiration when they saw our speedometers on our wrists, which showed our personal speed of life. I broke all the limits with my speed since I had left my old life behind me, where I was constantly confronted with the annoying feelings of my mucous membrane contactors.

“I’m living life in the fast lane!”

A life of luxury. No meteorite that could have thrown me off track!

So dreamy-eyed and proud of myself, the superhero, I looked into the distance of the night and slowly fell asleep again. An hour later, an Astrodess tapped me gently on the shoulder: “We’ll be landing in 20 minutes,” it whispered sweetly in my ear. “Please fasten your seatbelts and stow your belongings under the seat.”

We were heading for one of the most distant planets in our solar system. I had no idea why I should build a temple on such a remote planet. As far as I was aware, the most basic necessities were lacking here. Creating a proper infrastructure would be a priority. Nevertheless, as part of the universalisation process, I was on my way to build a temple of consumption here too, in order to create a good consumer mood.

I would stay here on Indianapolix for a maximum of two days before flying back home.

Actually, I hated this job

I had been travelling for ten years and no longer knew what a home was or how good sleep could be.

I left Indianapolix as planned. Despite my sleeplessness, my meetings went as smoothly as ever. I just had to cool my temperature down to minus 25 degrees Celsius from time to time, because otherwise I wouldn’t have known how I was going to cope. Tingling sensations shot through my body and my heart could no longer tolerate the shock freezing as 100% as it had years before.

So I hung back in my seat, completely exhausted, and steered through space. After a few hours of flying through the seemingly endless galaxy, I suddenly thought my heart had stopped! A shock shot through all my limbs! Despite the cooling, fear spread and I was paralysed. “Bloody emotions!” I thought as another wave shot through my body.

I leant back and tried to take a deep breath. My Astrodess looked at me: “Hey – are you OK? You look pale. Is there anything I can do for you?” “Wow,” I said, “I think I really need a vitamin injection!” The Astrodess knew her way around BizOnauts and quickly brought a few bottles and devices while she held a sensor to my ear. “The emo-meter is showing red!” she exclaimed. “We need to admit you to a recovery centre immediately. She pressed a button on her suit. “Capt’n, the BizOnaut at number 10 is showing weakness! All hands to red! We urgently need a drop station!”

“Okay,” came the reply from the cockpit, “we’re flying over Kuschomania right now, I think he’ll find a place there.” Before I could defend myself, the hole above the seat tore open and I shot into the dark night.

My senses faded due to the high acceleration forces and I only woke up again to the dull thud on the completely unfamiliar planet. I found myself on a red cloud floating above the ground among many others. Couples were lying on it, rubbing against each other and giggling blissfully as they looked over at me. Before I even realised what was happening to me, a sister came up to me and pressed her two warming energy mounds firmly against me: “Oh dear! He’s so cold!” she said indignantly and immediately rubbed herself harder against my woollen Quattroflutschi suit.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt such mucous membrane-free warmth. I had to admit that the warmth did me good. “So my dear, we’ll probably have to break you open properly emotionally first!” she whispered seductively, while pleasant purring and growling could be heard from the neighbouring clouds. Stretchy bodies rubbed against each other with furtive lust.

I, however, was so exhausted that I soon fell asleep in my angel’s arms.

In hell – of long repressed emotions

“Uah, uah, go fuck yourself, you arse! Not with me! Get out of my head!” I jumped up. “Had I been dreaming? Where was I? No more cuddly masses around me. Instead, the place seemed to be seething. It stank of cold sweat, the temperature was unbearable.

Hell! I thought as the sweat ran down my back. All around me, couples were fighting on blue wrestling mats, kicking, punching and cracking like animals. This is how I had always imagined communication at this time of day. “Were those cries of pain?”

An icy shiver ran through me. I have to get out of here,” it flashed through my mind. “Just get out of here! There must be a way out somewhere!” I groped my way towards the emergency exit when suddenly a long-legged beauty stood in front of me.

“Come with me and discover the emotional wetlands,” she said gently, looking at me tenderly with her big warm eyes. “Great!” I exclaimed delightedly, “just get out of here!” and took her hand. “Is this normal here?” I asked cautiously.

“Well,” she replied, “I haven’t been here that long, but there’s always a party going on here.”

As we spoke, she opened a door to a room off to the side, which smelled deliciously of pine needles. I had missed these natural odours for years. She sat down in a blue cloud of white feathers and spread her arms invitingly. “Come on, lie here in my lap and relax,” she said with an inviting smile. I hesitated for a moment, then pressed my head against her warm, soft chest.

Within seconds, I was dreaming of my childhood. I saw myself as a child climbing trees and swimming in lakes, a world that couldn’t have been more distant to me after years of frozen light-speed accelerated, wandering. Cramps shook me.

After what seemed like hours, I opened my eyes and saw myself and my angel floating in a sea of tears. Everyone seemed to have cried a lot. Even the two older grey gentlemen, who sat on their raft, visibly exhausted and satisfied. White water lilies, stored in rectangular boxes, were distributed and soon adorned the surface of the lake. We floated on the lake for a while as I fell back into a trance-like sleep, completely exhausted.

Lost souls – Functioning takes its toll

A woman appeared to me in my dream, tall and strong, with large, dark eyes. She had a magical look, a sharply cut nose and sensual, soft, red lips. 

I had never seen anything like her before. She was sitting in a large, white armchair, shrouded in a mist of myrrh and incense. Her forehead was slightly tilted forward and she was looking deep into a large glass sphere that glowed in the colours of Saturn. 

Her hands hovered auspiciously above the sphere. The shimmering colours from the depths of my dream were reflected in the smoke. I heard spherical, gentle sounds. “You come from a distant world. You come from the future and have left your innermost self behind in the past. You have lost your soul somewhere between space and time.” 

“Open up,” she called out and looked at me urgently with her large, deep brown, magnetic eyes. As soon as I tried to catch her gaze, the image blurred. 

I lost contact.

In jail – The clinic

“Go to the committee*!” I heard, one last scream and the image disappeared completely. I jumped up, everything was dark.

(*In certain psychosomatic clinics, the committee is a kind of group therapy group.)

I realised that I was lying on a cot that reminded me of the bunks of ancient floating bodies from Earth. “Drugs! Prison!” flashed through my mind. Had I snorted too much of the white powder and got caught up in a checkpoint? Was I in one of the dungeons on Bullonia?

I searched for light. At the foot of the bed I found a lamp that lit up a room I had never seen before. “But prison,” I murmured cautiously and irritated. I switched the light off again and immediately fell back into a dreamless sleep.

When I woke up, I heard a strange noise in the distance. “Soldiers?” I got up and felt my way to the window. Outside, in the pale morning light, there were a lot of figures making strange movements and marching on the spot.

In the centre stood a soldier in a blue uniform and silver helmet. “Faster!” he groaned, quickening his pace. “Faster still!” he panted, trying to increase his pace. Suddenly he paused, panting, looked helplessly into the crowd and shouted “Let’s go!” He grabbed his friend from the wet room by the hand and the horde with the colourful uniforms disappeared in rows of two, holding hands in the direction of the forest.

Fortune teller! 70 dwarves, Snow White and fairies

What kind of stuff did I have in my blood? I no longer understood the world. Completely confused, I crept out of my room to explore the prison further.

There was dead silence in the house. I entered a room flooded with daylight. I poked my nose through a glass door when I suddenly heard “Erscht um 7:30”. “Sorry,” I replied meekly, “I’m new here.” “I’m Gabi, hello,” a friendly voice replied. “What’s your name?” “Gee”, I replied quietly, “from Bizneyland”. I tried to smile. Somehow I felt quite strange.

My world of galaxies, space cruisers and superlatives had been swapped for alpine pastures and cuddly monsters in front of a mountain panorama.

“Damn,” I cursed, “I’m awake. This is not a trip, not a film. This is a reality show. How did I end up here?” I asked myself as the friendly creature put down a bowl of what appeared to be vomit. I flinched reflexively and carefully opened my nostrils to test the odour.

“Fresh grain porridge,” she called out promptly. Then she disappeared. I had never heard that word before. “There’s no end to it,” I moaned loudly to myself as I dipped my spoon into the mixture. “It doesn’t taste like vomit,” I thought. So I dutifully spooned it all up.

It had been days since my last meal. Fish eggs from the moon. Oh, how I missed that.

Suddenly the door flew open and all the hand-holding males and mums rushed in. Just like the locusts that had eaten the earth bare 500 years ago, they were off at lightning speed to feast on everything edible. I went outside to have another look round.

Suddenly, the fortune teller from my dream stood in front of me, looking at me urgently with her magical eyes. “Here, in here, ten minutes,” she whispered to me and pulled me into a room with all kinds of old-fashioned gadgets. “I want to see what your temperature is.

You were minus 27 degrees Celsius when you were admitted. Hard to believe.” She opened my mouth by pulling my chin down, stuck a colourful stick in and pushed my chin back up. “Sit still and don’t talk.”

She waved a red board in front of my nose and tickled something. With an appraising look at the coloured stick in my mouth, she said, “We found you in a sorry state. But we couldn’t find out exactly where you came from. We also couldn’t tell from your language and your clothes from which planet you were sent here.

Planet without love: makes people sick

It must have been a planet without life and love, but with lots of technology. We tried to give you back that feeling by switching off the cooling and taking you back to your childhood at your mother’s breast.”

“The part about the breast…” I tried to start when she interrupted me with a stern smile.

“Fasting!” she shouted.

I only understood space station: “Something’s good for me and then what?”

“Fasting, fasting, fasting. That’s the top priority here.” She continued to scribble on her pad and frowned.

“Fucking game!” I thought. “I really need to get out of here.”

She babbled a lot of unintelligible stuff about “I. Superego” and so on. Meanwhile, I was working on my escape plan. “Healed!” she had said quietly.

So there’s nothing to stop me leaving this place as quickly as possible. I left her in her room, still muttering. “Committee is healing!” I heard behind me as I quietly pulled the door shut.

I stood in a long, bare corridor. A pleasant coolness hit me. One that reminded me of earlier times.

I went back to the room where I had woken up. I opened all the cupboards and found parts of my Quattroflutschi uniform and the speedometer.

“I’m back!” flashed through my mind.

“Back to Bizneyland!”

I shouted and ran out of the clinic with long strides and a shitty feeling in my stomach. 

And now what?

Sustainable support from the high function: I am happy to be there for your personal journey.

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*The personal texts and the drawn image published in this blog article were published with the explicit permission of the respective copyright holder. Many thanks for the kind permission.