Create the Best Me
High-Functioning Anxiety: Why Being the "Strong One" is Exhausting with Lisa Skeffington
5th March 2026
There’s a particular experience I see in many of the women I work with - where life looks full, successful, even enviable… yet internally there’s a constant sense of strain.
They’re the ones others depend on. The ones who don’t drop the ball. The ones who keep going no matter what. And often, they’re the least likely to ask for help.
What sits underneath that pattern is something rarely spoken about openly: high-functioning anxiety.
It doesn’t always look like distress. In fact, it often looks like competence. But over time, it quietly erodes energy, connection, and self-trust.
In this conversation, I explore how this shows up, particularly in midlife, when the strategies that once worked begin to feel harder to maintain and the internal pressure becomes more difficult to ignore.
We also look at what begins to shift when women start to gently step out of over-functioning and into a more honest relationship with themselves.
We discuss:
Why high-functioning anxiety is so often missed or misunderstood
How the “strong one” role develops and what it costs
Why midlife can intensify what has been kept under control for years
The impact of long-term emotional over-responsibility
Where change begins when you start noticing your own patterns more clearly
This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about recognising what has been sustained for too long and beginning to return to a way of living that feels more balanced, connected, and true.