What does it mean to be functional? Commonly, it means that a person is capable of independently managing their day-to-day life, personal care and work. That they can maintain normal daily behaviors. We tend to judge the severity of how ok or not ok a person is (even how healthy they are) by their level of functionality. But with this, we are in the dark ages. Functionality should not be used as the metric for how ok or not ok someone is and it should not be used as the metric for how healthy someone is. In fact, functionality is blinding us to the reality of ourselves and the reality of others.
Let’s start this discussion with two truths. The first truth is: Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean that they are using healthy strategies to be functional. The second truth is: Many people remain functional despite being really bad off. Even potentially worse off than other people who become nonfunctional.
Let’s dive deeper into truth number one. Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean that they are using healthy strategies to be functional. Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean they are actually doing what is good/right/what actually works for them and others. We so often think that someone is doing something good and right (something that works), because at face value, they are high functioning. They can perform daily activities, they can live independently from others, they can hold down a job, maybe even a difficult job and they can keep their emotions under control, all despite fill in the blank with some factor that challenges a person’s capacity to do so. Such as despite losing a loved one or despite being ill or despite being harmed by others. But here is the thing, functioning is not about thriving. It is about surviving. And as if this were not bad enough, surviving is often accomplished through dysfunctional means.
A nervous system that is severely out of whack can get stuck in fight or flight mode and push someone to power through and stay functional, bulldozing past internal red flags and depleting energy reserves to the point that illness manifests. Cardiovascular strain, burnout, systemic inflammation, gastrointestinal distress, serious decline in mental health etc.
People often use functionality as a mask to hide what is going on with them from the world. When they do this, they rely on demonstrations of functionality such as high performance or non-reactivity to hide underlying physical, emotional or mental health problems. By doing this, they consciously or subconsciously deflect attention away from their difficulties. Over time, this intense pressure to look "fine" causes a disconnect from the authentic self and often leads to a particular type of collapse of functionality which we know as burnout.
People often use functionality as an avoidance mechanism in and of itself to avoid facing the actuality of what is going on with them. When people do this, they tend to focus all of their energy into executing highly controlled, productive behaviors so as to get away from the distress they are experiencing. This creates the illusion of stability. For example, a person may immerse themselves entirely in a job to avoid confronting personal grief, relationship issues, a serious health issue or loneliness. This tangible functionality acts as a shield. It makes the person appear highly driven rather than escapist or emotionally overwhelmed. It means they can avoid the reality of themselves and no one will be reflecting to them that anything is off, rather they will be praised and commended.
Often times functionality requires a kind of internal detachment. It often means disconnecting from one's own internal cues. If someone is constantly overriding their body’s need for rest, boundaries, or emotional processing, they are not doing what actually works for them long-term.
Functionality is SO often accomplished through unhealthy and dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Here are some examples of what I mean. A person may suppress their emotions so as to be functional. A person may use toxic positivity and reframe everything, so that they are wildly out of reality so as to be functional. Meticulous scheduling, constant organizing, or controlling external environments provides a false sense of security that everything is "handled," allowing the person to be functional at face value but to ignore deeper emotional vulnerabilities. A person might over-analyze their feelings or read endless psychology books in order to mentally distance themselves from actually feeling the emotional pain they are in, but it makes them appear very functional. A person may channel all of their available time and energy into fixing the problems of others or even on focusing excessively on a partner, child, or pet. This outwardly noble behavior, which makes someone seem very functional serves as a distraction; keeping the focus away from their own unmet needs. A person may stay busy constantly. When someone is busy, thy are functional by definition, even overly functional. But they are dismissing uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and truths by constantly staying busy. While this protects their ego in the short term, it creates additional stress, keeps them stuck in the wrong situations in life and prevents their personal growth. A person may totally disown their temporal self, identifying entirely with a spiritual persona which appears not only functional, but enlightened. Way more than ok. But really, it is an extreme form of self-abandonment. A person may doom scroll every day, which causes them to slip into a mild shutdown state to avoid overwhelm. Each swipe delivers a small surge of dopamine, keeping the brain in a state of perpetual anticipation. This chemical reward feedback loop keeps the individual hooked on their device in a way that mimics productive activity. These strategies may get a person to the next day but it leads to issues and you can’t truly call it functional or healthy. We need to get in the habit of looking at the strategies that a person is using to appear or even to be functional and question whether that strategy is actually in alignment for them and for the people around them.
Now, let’s dive deeper into truth number two. Many people remain functional despite being really bad off. Even potentially worse off than other people who become nonfunctional. It is actually not true that the person who has a full collapse and becomes nonfunctional is the person who is in the most amount of pain, was the most damaged and is worse off. There are a lot of factors that play into a person being nonfunctional vs. another person being functional despite what they are struggling with.
When overwhelmed by chronic stress or trauma, the nervous system enters different survival states. Some people’s nervous systems completely shut down to protect itself. Other people’s shift into a high energy sympathetic dominance state. If the brain thinks that stopping, collapsing and becoming nonfunctional will result in immediate destruction (e.g., a terrifying parent's wrath, abandonment, loss of something dear, starvation), it will force a functional freeze to keep the body moving. If the brain thinks that no amount of effort can change the outcome, it gives up and drops into a full collapse. Even the specific nature of a person’s crisis and what emotions it gives rise to changes whether the person remains in hyper arousal or collapse.
Each person has drastically different conditioning and childhood experiences, which really play a role in how their nervous system in conditioned and which dictate their responses to challenges, distress and functionality in general. These early experiences shape how a person handles stress and therefore how functional they behave. For example, if a person was only praised for achievements, good grades, or being "the strong one," their brain views non-functioning as an existential threat. They will destroy their health to maintain their functionality. Also, some children experience high functioning trauma. Say a child grew up in a home environment that was structurally or financially unstable with an explosive, unpredictable, or highly critical parent. They learned to read micro-expressions and anticipate needs to prevent an emotional blowout. In adulthood, this person enters relationships (both romantic and professional) where they act as the therapist and fixer. They are highly functional at managing crises, reading rooms, and de-escalating tense situations, no matter how they feel or what they are going through. This adult is praised for being incredibly organized, detail-oriented, and excellent at project logistics. However, their functionality is fueled by terror.
If a child grew up in an environment where they needed to be the “strong one” because failing to be strong meant the situation becoming worse, they learn over time to handle immense amounts of pressure and pain without crying or flinching. However, they possess a severe inability to ask for help, receive care, or show vulnerability. They view their own tears or needs as a dangerous weakness that will cause everything around them to collapse. So, they will remain functional where others would buckle under the ½ the pain and ½ the struggle.
If the childhood home was one of dysfunction, chaos, violence, immature parents, role reversals between parents and children or high-needs siblings. A child may realize that adding any demands (like expressing sadness, needing school supplies, or being sick) caused the system to break. They learned that the safest way to exist was to require zero maintenance. In their life, they are the employee who gets all their work done flawlessly, never complains, never asks for a raise, and never creates conflict. While highly functional, they often remain functional despite being a complete mess.
It is important to remember that people who grew up feeling they could only rely on themselves often become high-functioning adults. They link their safety to functionality and force themselves far past limits to maintain functionality.
To the contrary, if a child frequently tried to stand up for themselves, voice their needs, or fix a problem, but was repeatedly overpowered, ignored, or severely punished for doing so, the brain learns that mobilization equals danger. This means, even when faced with far less difficulty, pain and struggle than perhaps another person, their brain skips fight/flight entirely and goes straight into a helpless, non-functional collapse because it assumes effort is futile. In families where parents are emotionally absent or checked out, a child's cries and bids for connection go completely unanswered. Without an active, responsive caregiver to help co-regulate, the child's nervous system learns to handle overwhelming stress by numbing out and shutting down to save energy. As adults, they run out of energy very quickly and default to a collapsed state, even in response to comparatively very little. When parents are hyper-controlling, overprotective, or constantly tell a child, "You can't do anything right," "Let me do it," or "Why are you so stupid," they systematically erode the child's sense of self-efficacy. Because they never developed internal trust in their own capability, even relatively mild adult stressors trigger a massive wave of shame and overwhelm. And this instantly impacts their functionality.
On top of this, people experience different levels of support. It is a reality that certain people face privileges others do not which influences how much they feel they MUST function at all costs. External resources often dictate how long someone can afford to keep forcing functionality. Some people have access to resources others do not have, which takes pressure and distress off of them. This acts as a buffer that allows them to remain more functional than those without these resources. To the opposite, because some people have access to resources in the form of some kind of support, they can actually afford to collapse and be non-functional. In fact, these individuals have never been in a position where the stakes are so high, they are forced to “do or die”. They can fall apart at level six or seven and experience that as their absolute limit because they never HAD to reach level ten and stay functional. For others, the financial or social stakes of collapsing and becoming nonfunctional are too high. If pausing or collapsing means immediate homelessness, losing custody of children, or total abandonment, the survival instinct will force the body to function long after it has run out of fuel. They will push past level ten. Any resource that acts as a buffer for a person can add to a person’s ability to stay functional and to the opposite can allow for a person to collapse when under stress, rather than push through to stay functional.
People who cannot function hit a visible breaking point that forces them to get help. Functional people keep pushing forward, allowing internal damage, chronic stress, or trauma to accumulate long past safe limits. Because a person still goes to work, pays the bills, and cares for others, society assumes they are fine. This lack of validation leaves them incredibly isolated, with friends and family missing the warning signs completely. This is all too common with people who commit suicide, especially when the people around them say they “never saw it coming.”
When someone is non-functional, the struggle is outward. It is disruptive, but it signals an immediate need for intervention. Their crisis is visible, forcing them or others to seek support. When someone remains functional while being really not ok, the struggle is entirely inward. It allows the underlying issues to quietly rot away at a person's well-being while everyone around them thinks they are thriving. Their struggles stay invisible and they do not get the support they actually need.
There is another dimension to this that must be mentioned. We often assume that if someone is functional, they are a thumbs up. I see this all too often when it comes to parents. We get that a parent that is nonfunctional due to illness or cognitive impairment or drug addiction or severe poverty is not able to be a good parent. But we think that a parent who is functional (even more so if they are successful) is able to be a good parent. When this is the case, we are using functionality as our metric for whether someone is a good parent or not. Many parents are functional. They hold secure jobs, they keep up appearances, they have success habits, they can provide their children with food and clothes and toys and a roof over their head. And yet, this functionality is hiding profound dysfunctionality, destructive patterns, neglect and abuse. Super functional people can be horrible parents. But it becomes a gaslight where no one can see the damage being done to the children because the parents appear to be so functional.
The moral of the story is just because someone is functional does not mean they are ok. Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean they are healthy. Just because someone is functional and another person is not, doesn’t mean that the functional person is better off than the one who is not. Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean that they are using healthy strategies to be functional. Functionality tells you that a person is successfully meeting the external demands of their environment, including human society. How functional someone is tells you absolutely nothing about the internal cost, suffering, health or sustainability of how they are meeting those demands. Just because you are striving to be like that functional person you see online doesn’t mean they are actually doing well in life. Just because someone is functional, doesn’t mean they are actually doing what is good/right/what actually works for them and others. The moral of the story is throw away functionality as your metric for wellbeing. And most of all, don’t let functionality be your blind spot.
