Nick Hussey was a thrusting young founder with a successful cycle-wear brand and a young family who, in his early forties, woke up every morning consumed by dread. “I would have to lock myself in the bathroom, blast out heavy metal from my phone and just slap myself repeatedly around the face,” he says. “I would be shouting at my own reflection: ‘Shape up! Do this!’ I had to force myself to be the person I needed to be that day.”
Like many other high achievers, Hussey’s successful image belied his inner pain. He was overstretched, emotionally avoidant and burying himself in work and exercise as a means of self-medication. “The business was thriving at the time my daughter was born,” he says. “But I have hardly any memories of her first year. I was completely detached. Every day, my hand would shake. I had constant brain fog. I couldn’t sleep properly and my mind was filled with self-criticism. I was depressed but wouldn’t allow myself to admit it.”
It’s a story that is becoming increasingly familiar. Earlier this month, US-based therapist Jeffrey Melzer shared a video on Tik Tok and You Tube in which he described the state of “high functioning depression” that an increasing number of his patients are suffering from. The video quickly accumulated over eight million views and five thousand comments including “This describes me to a tee!” and “Can someone tell me how to fix it?” While “high functioning depression” is not a clinically recognised diagnosis, it has become a popular way of describing a set of symptoms that resonate with a generation of outwardly successful people who struggle with their mental health.
“There is a myth that depression always stops you from getting out of bed in the morning,” says Melzer when I speak to him on the phone from his clinic in Bradenton, Florida. “But since I switched from a public to a private practise, I have begun to see numerous people with successful careers and loving families who get up every day, work hard and seem to hold it together. But inside, they are miserable and they don’t know why. This is made worse by a sense of guilt: they tell themselves that they are lucky and don’t deserve to be depressed. As a result, they keep it all hidden inside, compounding the problem further.”
So, is high functioning depression just another term for old-fashioned burnout? No, says Selzer. “You can be busy and successful without getting depressed,” he explains. “High functioning depression is usually linked to people’s expectations of happiness not being met. So tackling it requires a shift in perspective.” I spoke to three high-flying men who all found that the trappings of success didn’t just fail to deliver fulfillment – but actively made them depressed.
The signs that their success had tipped into something more sinister chime with the seven Melzer describes in his Tik Tok video: isolating from friends; no longer finding joy in activities you loved; persistently criticising yourself; frustration with small irritations or setbacks; turning to mindless habits for hours; feeling low on energy; managing day-to-day tasks but feeling empty inside.
