The Myth of Functioning

Autism, Perception, and the Cost of Appearing Fine

There was something particularly confronting about walking out of work. No one saw it coming. Not even me.

I knew I was depressed. Not just low, flattened.

My thoughts looped around the same cold logic: that success was a sham, that I was a sham, that everyone was just regurgitating each other’s ideas and they were a sham.

The world was a flock of parrots mimicking one another’s call.

My parents didn’t understand. My sibling said, “I always thought you had everything sussed.” But I’d talked myself out of everything, skill, confidence, even life.

I was a ghost in the machine, spinning cogs invisibly, careful not to disturb the mechanism.

The real me was becoming louder behind the mask. Agitated. Misfitted.

Pretending to be human is exhausting when it doesn’t come naturally.

Outwardly, I was still functioning. Quieter, more withdrawn, a little less patient, but still dependable.

Still thoughtful. Still doing the work.

I’d plug into my headphones, get the job done, occasionally slip an ear out to join a conversation. To the untrained eye, nothing had changed.

But those who’d known me longer might have felt the change. The stillness. The shutdown.

I tried to find meaning in podcasts, in self-help, in strategy. But I felt trapped inside a company culture that depended on my output, long after I’d lost the love for it.

People want to believe others are fine. That a little nudge will do. Straighten up, smile, carry on.

Even I believed it.

“Fake it till you make it,” someone offered, during a meeting about my silence.

That doesn’t sit well when you’re sinking. When you go to lunch, or even the bathroom, and there is a release of tears you have no charge over.

Couple that with autism, and the raw dislike of performative good mornings on a company chat thread, and it was only a matter of time.

Still, I tried. I ticked the boxes. Said the hellos. Played the part. They were full of praise.

“Oh, it’s so lovely, we’ve got the old you back.”

That’s when it all fell apart. I was functioning exactly how they wanted me to. So they believed I was fine. Because I made them feel fine in the most meaningless of ways.

That moment exposed the problem with my entire life.

These people didn’t know me. They never had. They just liked the version of me that made them comfortable. And I had become fluent in providing it.

I was fighting thoughts of worthlessness and ridicule in the background. Running silent simulations to try and theorise my way out of the dark.

They wanted Monday morning memes to boost culture vibes. I wanted meaning.

The ‘family’ had spoken. Shape up, or ship out. And they approved the shape.

The whole thing condensed into something small, cruel, and perfectly clear.

The myth was exposed. The performance was cancelled. Worse, I refused.

I would rather lose everything than get back on stage.

Perception puts blame where it can see it. But nothing visible was broken. Not on the outside. I tried to speak up. But my ego stepped in. Didn’t want to make a scene. Didn’t want to be a problem.

I tried to understand that others worked differently, but why did I have to absorb their chaos while suppressing my own?

My competence had become camouflage. My composure, a curse.

Like back pain, it’s difficult to treat what they can’t see. And no one saw me. No one knew how I felt.

That kind of invisibility is how suicidal thoughts slip in.

If I can play society’s survival game without anyone noticing the cost, then maybe I’m already gone.

I had to forego functioning to discover what I was actually feeling. To realise there is no real self unless you let others perceive it. But how could I show them what I’d been blind to myself?