What High Functioning Schizophrenia Can Look Like

I am getting absolutely pillaged at work right now. I am running around like a headless chook as is everyone else around me. We are a couple team members down tonight so we knew this was coming. Im plating, wiping, and borderline dancing around the stove. Metal hitting bench tops, tickets printing non-stop, heat rolling off the grill like a physical thing you have to push through just to breathe. I shout for service and smile at the waitress. No one has the slightest inkling that I havent had a good nights rest in close to a week because I havent been keeping on top of my medication regime as much as usual. This is what “high function” looks like.

It looks so normal to everyone else but the patient. The patient on the other hand knows something is not going right. Whether it be the headache and other signs of acute withdrawal from the medication. It might even just be the profuse sweating and shaking that doesn’t quite match the environment. Something is definitely not good. I keep adjusting my grip on knives a little tighter than I need to. I re-check things I already know are correct. I move faster than the moment requires, like I’m trying to outrun a feeling instead of a task. Its times like this I literally ask my inner monologue “are you actually as stable as you say you are mac?”

Its a tough question, that I honestly don’t think ive ever been satisfied with my monologues answer. I mean how stable could you argue anyone is if their entire life and therefore said stability relies on getting a shot of abilify pumped into their arm once every 4 weeks? I keep cooking and shaking and dancing and finally we get three quarters through the rush. Finally I can breathe, just for a second. That weird quiet that comes after chaos in a kitchen always feels unnatural, like your body is still running but the world has briefly stopped noticing. The benches are sticky, the floor is wrecked, everyone is slightly unhinged in that post-service silence where no one knows whether to laugh or collapse.

Now the actual hard part of the night begins, the part of my night where I am completely aware that work is coming to an end for the day and I have to leave. I start wiping down my section slower than I need to, not because it needs it, but because I don’t want to step out of the rhythm. Leaving means silence. Silence means thinking. Thinking means everything I’ve been holding off all night comes back at once.

I go home knowing that I will feel the need to drown myself in alcohol just for some relief from myself. Not even for fun at that point, more like switching the volume down on something I can’t turn off. So what came first? The burnout or the dopamine abuse? I guess I have been chasing dopamine since I was a kid and I am a thousand percent sure that it is linked to my mental health and vice versa, schizophrenia after all is, as far as I am aware, highly linked to dopamine so who knows?

The walk home feels longer than it should. Streetlights blur slightly at the edges. Exhaust heat from cars mixes with the leftover adrenaline still sitting in my hands like I forgot to put them down after service ended. I can feel the crash coming in stages. First the noise of the kitchen disappears, then the speed, then the illusion that I was in control of any of it.

By the time I get to my street I’m not really in “work mode” anymore but I’m not at home either. I’m somewhere in between, which is usually where the worst thinking happens. I find myself rehearsing conversations that don’t exist, re-running moments from service like I missed something critical, even though nothing actually went wrong.

I guess “High Functioning Schizophrenia” or any other life changing and debilitating mental illness, to me, is just not really a realistic description of what it is actually like. I know for a fact if I dont get this abilify 400mg injection every month I sure as hell cant work nor maintain any sort of relationships, whether that be with people or myself.

I used to hate taking meds, filling prescriptions, seeing doctors etc. and although I still do I have since realised that in order to keep the few people I have in my circle stress free, its something ive got to do. Sometimes you have to shoot yourself in the foot to slow yourself down. And anti psychotics, therapy, annoying social groups, etc often feel exactly like that. You'll kill a part of yourself to maintain the illusion of stability and control over your demons. When I get home the quiet is different again. It’s not restful, it’s just empty. The fridge hum feels too loud. Every small sound feels like it has space to echo in. I stand in the kitchen for longer than I need to, not doing anything, just not moving. The urge to numb it properly shows up the same way it always does — not dramatic, not loud, just familiar. Like an old thought returning to a place it already knows.

I am basically a massive science experiment aswell as a billboard for mind altering medications walking around, telling and showing people that a diagnosis really doesnt mean a great deal if you have one thing and that one thing is called being reluctant.

Reluctantly doing things you dont want to do, whether that be taking meds, walking, or other boring activities that help put a pause on the darkness. You must be reluctant to give in, you must be reluctant to doing what you actually want to do, and you must be reluctant to accepting what others say. Always do what is genuinely best for you despite how it makes strangers feel.

And most days, that’s what it is. Not victory. Not clarity. Just reluctance that keeps you upright long enough to get through another shift, another night, another version of yourself you’re still trying to manage.

Author

Mac Worley

About the Author

I'm a chef with nearly a decade in hospitality and a deep passion for storytelling. My writing is shaped by kitchen culture - the pressure, the creativity, the human connection, and the small, overlooked moments that make up a working life. I'm drawn to honest, immersive writing that feels personal and real, whether I'm writing about food, work, identity, or what happens behind the scenes.