12 Signs Your 'High Functioning' Is Actually a Trauma Pattern

A complexity-affirming, tough love look at the survival strategies hidden inside achievement, insight, and competence.

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As both a psychotherapist and a “grown-up gifted kid,” I have witnessed, and lived, the elegant concealment of pain behind insight, humor, theory, and excellence. Hard relate? I see you.

For those of us with complex wiring, trauma rarely looks “clinical” and is often metabolized through intellect, reframed as resilience, and buried under performance.

The following signs are not pathologizing diagnoses. They are mirrors. If they resonate, it may be time not to question your strength, but to begin trusting your complexity, your depth, and your softness to lead you to your edge.

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12 Signs Your ‘High Functioning’ Is Actually a Trauma Pattern