I was recently involved in a discussion about how we ignore signs of poor mental health in high-functioning individuals. The overall impression I got was that we as a society consider the functional output of a person's life/career/etc as a good readout of their overall well-being. I think we all know that's a load of shit, yet it also seems to be generally accepted.
Science seems to be a pretty solid example of this phenomenon, if I may comment based on my own experience. Despite a seemingly neverending and contentious debate over what factors (brand names on the CV, CNS journal pubs, lab pedigrees, etc) make for your favorite brand of career success, I think it's pretty clear that it's high-functioning folks of all types who wind up in the senior scientist positions. Speculate (or argue) all you like about how much they contributed to their career status and how much was luck and etc, fact is they somehow got shit done/got papers out with their names in the list positions that mattered.
Yet we seem to have this (anecdotal, but certainly matching my own experience) preponderance of maladjusted personalities and behavioral issues in these positions, if the disgruntlespheres of grad students and postdocs are any account. And it makes me wonder if it doesn't, on some level, boil down to the fact that we are not paying attention to warning signs that we might notice in a more normally-functioning or impaired-functioning individual.
Consider the high-functioning amphetamine abuser vs the turfed out meth abuser. Who requires the intervention? Obviously both, but do we pay attention to the former? Do we notice?
Consider the person with a personality disorder who has a successful career on the surface but clearly creates a toxic work environment that harms everyone involved, vs the person with a personality disorder who is unable to work. Who do we pay attention to?
The difference is level of functioning.
Consider a mental health diagnosis. Many require the presence of clinically significant impairment of functioning in some important aspect of one's life. Work is only one aspect, first of all. Secondly, what about the population of high-functioning folks who manage somehow to continue lives of quiet desperation, under the cloak of being a high-functioning little worker bee?
Perhaps we need to open our eyes a little more.
