The high-functioning Filipina is not always well
In 2023, I underwent a major operation. I had done everything “right” beforehand. I filed for leave months before since the procedure was an elective one. I briefed my business partners and the entire team, assigned point persons for every possible communication from clients or vendors, and set the “Out of Office” auto-reply. From a corporate standpoint, everything was covered.
Early that morning, I was fetched from my room and brought down to the operating room. It was my first time to undergo general anesthesia, so I didn’t know what to expect. My hospital companion then was my senior citizen aunt, who had volunteered to look after me until I checked out.
The operation went well. Hours later, I was wheeled out of recovery and back into my hospital room. The anesthesia was a heavy fog; my body hadn’t quite caught up to the reality of the surgery. But the first thing I did wasn’t to ask for water or call my friends.
I asked my aunt for my phone.
I replied to messages. I even took a call from a junior doctor asking for clarification on the next steps after submitting an incident report to me. My legs were still leaden and numb; I hadn’t passed gas yet (which is very important after abdominal surgery), but my mind had already clocked back into work.
Sleep didn’t come, even as the nurses administered pain relievers designed to force rest. My body was under repair, but my ego refused to be “off-duty.”
Looking back, the scene was absurd. I did a disservice to my partners, to the people who volunteered to take care of me, and to my workmates who had eagerly pitched in to cover for me for a few weeks. At the time, it felt like I still had to be busy.
The pedestal of the “reliable” Filipina
That distinction isn’t just a personal quirk. For many Filipinas, especially those navigating the “sandwich generation” or leading teams in high-pressure environments, functioning optimally is an identity.
In the Philippines, we have a deep-seated cultural reverence for the matatag at masipag (strong and diligent/hardworking) woman. Our identity is often inextricably tied to our output: our profession, our job performance, and our ability to provide. We are raised on stories of mothers and grandmothers who “held it all together” without a word of complaint, regardless of circumstances.
We have internalized the idea that our value is measured by how much we can carry before we break. Consequently, we put everything—the job, the family, the raket (side hustle), the household—above ourselves. Workaholism has become less a choice and more a form of cultural survival that presents as reliability.
But is it really?
Registered psychologist Elaine Rose S. Ferrer describes this as high-functioning distress. It isn’t a clinical diagnosis, but a behavioral pattern where an individual meets every external demand while drowning internally.
“It’s meeting expectations while having internal struggles,” Ferrer explains. “Sometimes, it becomes over-functioning—where productivity turns into a survival mechanism.”
The weight of being “The One”
In her practice, particularly in her coaching and counseling work at Mindcare Club, Ferrer sees this most often in women who occupy multiple roles: the professional, the caregiver, the primary decision-maker. These are the women we celebrate for their resilience.
“They are capable, dependable, and can handle it all,” she says. “But they are also the ones who carry the weight of expectations at work, at home, and in relationships. We rely on them so much that we forget to check how they actually are.”
The result is a cruel paradox—your distress does not interrupt your performance. It sustains it. You work harder to prove you aren’t struggling, which only deepens the exhaustion.
In the Philippine context, this is exacerbated by the “non-negotiable” nature of our responsibilities. Whether it’s an early-career professional trying to build a safety net or a senior executive absorbing institutional stress, the “pause” button feels like a luxury we can’t afford.
Our urban reality further tightens the vice. The grueling Metro Manila commute, the rising cost of living, and the constant need for multiple income streams mean that “doing enough” never feels like enough. What begins as prudence turns into a compulsion: producing more just to feel safe.
Functioning vs. flourishing
The danger of being high-functioning is that it masks the “cognitive load”—the invisible mental energy spent juggling these roles. This leads to dysregulation, a state where the body’s stress response stays “on” even when the laptop is closed.
“Just because someone is functioning doesn’t mean they are doing well,” Ferrer points out.
The decline is gradual. It shows up as diminished emotional bandwidth, a shorter fuse with loved ones, or a sense of depletion that sleep can’t fix. Yet, because the work is still getting done, we tell ourselves we are fine. We delay help because we prioritize being “useful” over being healthy.
“Many women shelve what they feel so they can get things done,” Ferrer says. Support is often only sought at the point of total burnout, when the capacity to cope has already narrowed or vanished.
But we shouldn’t wait for a crisis to earn the right to rest.
“Functioning is not the same as flourishing,” Ferrer adds. “To function is to get things done. To flourish is to have a life well spent.”
The cost of endurance
For the high-performing Filipina, the challenge isn’t whether we can keep going. We’ve already proven we can. The challenge is recognizing when that endurance has become a liability.
True strength is not just the ability to absorb pressure; it is the awareness to notice the cracks before the glass shatters. It is the willingness to respond to our own needs with the same urgency we apply to a work deadline.
Ferrer offers a final reminder: “Be kind to yourself. Give yourself permission to pause. If that feels too big, then it’s okay to begin by simply slowing down.”
From the outside, we look like we have it all under control. But as we sit in our hospital rooms or at our desks at 2 a.m., the question we must ask is no longer “How much more can I do?”
We see viral videos of women having meltdowns—moments quickly judged, mocked, even weaponized online. The behavior may be unacceptable, yes. But what led up to it? Is it a pattern of harm, or a breaking point long deferred?
We are quick to condemn what is visible; less so to examine what has been building beneath it—pressure, depletion, expectations stretched beyond capacity. But perhaps what we are seeing recently is not just a loss of composure, but something long held together by grit that finally unravelled.
In a fast, unforgiving world, the pressure is both self-imposed and socially reinforced. The question is how much of ourselves we are spending to keep carrying it.
