When Overthinking, Anxiety, and Burnout Walk into a Bar:
The Reality of High-Functioning in a Hustle Culture
If you’ve spent any time in advertising, you know that personal life goes in the back pocket. Show up for the client, show up for the job, show up for…everyone except yourself. You’ll run briefs, hit deadlines, and solve brand crises while carrying a personal crisis so well no one notices the difference. That’s what five years in therapy has drilled into me—the art of showing up, even when your internal world feels like it’s on fire.
But here’s the kicker: therapy hasn’t been about not showing up—it’s been about figuring out how to keep showing up while also throwing a lifeline to that personal life shoved into my back pocket.
And let me tell you, it’s not just advertising. The food industry is its own beast. I haven’t worked in it directly, but I’ve seen the toll it takes on people close to me. The hustle, the constant motion, and the never-ending demand for perfection—chefs, line cooks, food vendors—they are the ultimate high-functioning machines, but behind those restaurant doors, the burnout is real.
The High-Functioning Depressed Overachiever
I’m a highly functional depressed person, which is a fancy way of saying I get stuff done. Deadlines? Met. Projects? Nailed. Emotions? Who has time for those? This is the real hustle culture no one talks about—where you can be drowning in your head but still manage to create PowerPoints like it’s an Olympic event.
It reminds me a lot of the food industry folks I know—who push through long shifts, constantly on their feet, taking care of orders and customers, while barely taking care of themselves. The grind doesn’t stop, and neither do they. There’s an unspoken rule in both advertising and the food world: you show up, no matter how hard it gets.
The Price of Prioritizing Everything but Yourself
If therapy and advertising both taught me one thing, it’s that putting yourself last is an art form. You convince yourself it’s fine because the client needs you, the deadline is crucial, or the work won’t get done unless you do it. But here’s the thing: there’s no award for being the most functional while falling apart. Trust me, I checked.
In the food industry, it’s even worse. There’s an unrelenting pressure to deliver—to keep the kitchens running, to serve the customers, to work through the rush. And for what? A lot of people I know can barely sleep, barely eat, barely exist outside of their jobs. The hustle culture in food service and advertising is brutal in its own way—there’s no glamour in being stretched too thin, but we do it anyway.
The real plot twist is when you realize that if you keep putting yourself last, you won’t have anything left to show up with. It’s not burnout; it’s the slow erosion of everything that keeps you grounded. At some point, you have to dig yourself out of that back pocket and let your personal life take center stage. And guess what? The world won’t implode if you do.
The Therapy Diaries: How I Stopped Drowning in My Own Head
In five years of weekly therapy, I’ve learned that being functional doesn’t mean being okay. You can keep checking boxes, running marathons in your head, but at the end of the day, if you’re not present in your own life, you’re missing the point. The truth is, you’re not supposed to have it all together all the time. That’s just capitalism lying to you.
But I’m learning to let myself off the hook. Depression doesn’t go away because you schedule it between meetings, and anxiety doesn’t pause when you close your laptop. What’s changed is how I deal with it—like calling out the lies my brain tells me at 3 a.m., when it tries to convince me I’m failing at life.
That’s when I remember this: “Oh how I am loved. As I step out of my own overthinking, I see how loved I truly am. The intentions of those around me are pure, and the feelings I feel are real. Fear try to make me think otherwise, however, I trust that goodness lives in my current reality. I am truly blessed.”
That’s the quote I hang on to when things feel heavy. Because while depression loves to pull you under, there’s always a hand ready to pull you back up—whether it’s a friend, a therapist, or even the reminder that you’re still here, still showing up.
Unlearning the Hustle Mentality
At the end of the day, therapy isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about learning to coexist with all the messy parts. It’s about unlearning the belief that you have to do it all or that being functional means being whole. And yeah, sometimes it’s about calling out the lies that hustle culture and advertising (and the food industry) try to sell you.
So here’s to still showing up, still being highly functional, but also making space for the person behind the to-do list. Whether you’re slinging campaigns or working in a kitchen, maybe it’s time to let that personal life out for a bit. You deserve to be on the agenda too.
Thank you for reading🥹🥲
Besito
Gene
Shoutout to Belinda, Cesiah and Michelle for 5 years of incredible support and guidance 🥹
