Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Are You Too Driven? & The Joy of Work

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This post continues with Are You Too Driven? and The Joy of Work from Chapter Nine.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

Are You Too Driven?

If you spend practically every waking hour working - on either job-related taskes or other kinds of productive activities - you may be a workaholic. But what if you are? How drive is "too driven"?

<snip> Workaholism ranks among the most acceptable of all addictions; our society both reveres and rewards industriousness. That in itself can be on of the benefits of workaholism, but it also makes it easier to overlook or discount the costs of overwork. Sylvia, a fifty-seven-year-old businesswoman, once spent twenty minutes complaining to me about her crushing work load, but then added, "It's so easy to think of it all as a positive thing. Even as I'm telling you about my schedule, I'm feeling virtuous."

The Joy of Work

Work can also be one of life's greatest pleasures. It provides many adults with their primary source of intellectual stimulation and social interaction. It may well be the only forum in which they can compete and win applause for their performance. Besides prestige, hard work often results in financial security, power, and career advancement.

Excitement is another dividend of a frantic schedule. You don't have to be the Secretary of State, jetting around the world in pursuit of peace, in order to enjoy a work-induced adrenaline high. "It's literally like taking a drug," says Carl Thoreson, a Stanford University professor of education and psychology, who has studied workaholics. "It's a euphoric, almost giddy feeling, such as you might have when you've just given a presentation. You feel terrific." <snip>

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It's a two-fer. You get to complain about being overworked, portray yourself as this poor, suffering martyr (my ex did this all the time) and at the same time enjoy the adrenalin buzz from the hectic schedule that you yourself insist upon.

Win-win - for everyone except your family, and eventually, your body, because being an adrenalin junkie will catch up with you, eventually.

Tip: Fewer people admire you for being a workaholic than you might imagine, especially if your work/martyrdom dominates your conversation.

At a party...
Friend: I just finished a great book last weekend. It's called -
Workaholic: I wish I had time to read. I can't remember the last time I wasn't working most of the weekend.
Friend: (thinks: Asshole): That's too bad. Excuse me, I'm going to get something to drink.

At home...
Workaholic: How was your baseball game, Billy?
Billy: It was super. I caught a line drive that made the last out, and we won the game.
Workaholic: That's great. I wish I could've seen it.
Billy (looks down at shoes): Yeah, I know. You had to work. You always have to work.
Workaholic: I'm going to try really hard to come to your next game, okay?
Billy (mumbles): There aren't any more. That was the last game of the season.
Workaholic: Really? I'm sorry, I was so busy working I lost track. Next year then!

IMO, one of the dirtiest tricks in the book is the parent who is constantly working and when her/his child expresses a very natural disappointment with the situation, emotionally blackmails the child into expressing contentment.

Yes, especially in hard economic times, parents have to work. I did. But take a good look at that schedule, and make time for your kids, if nothing else. And be with them when you are with them - not on your iPad or texting or otherwise multi-tasking.

Do you get an adrenalin rush from being constantly busy?
After a day or two of vacation, can you enjoy it, 
or are you casting about for something to DO?

Your thoughts?

A-Z: Compulsion - That Irresistible Urge

Obsession and Compulsion go together like peanut butter and jelly, like love and marriage, like Wal-Mart and the sartorially-challenged.

But, sometimes, the cheese stands alone.

My A-Z theme is Issues related to Mental Health or Mental Illness.

From Dictionary.com:

com·pul·sion

   [kuhm-puhl-shuhn]  Show IPA

noun

1.

the act of compelling;  constraint; coercion.

2.

the state or condition of being compelled.

3.

Psychology . a strong, usually irresistible impulse to performan act, especially one that is irrational or contrary to one'swill.

When I think of compulsion, all by itself, I often think of Sleeping Beauty.  She was spelled and compelled to touch the spindle of the spinning wheel.  Was there a good reason? No. Was she really thinking about it? No. She did it, because she felt she had to.

Other behaviors can include compulsive eating. (A bowl of M & M's are dangerous for me.  If they're in front of me, I will keep eating them, hungry or not.)

I'm also a reformed nail-biter.  Other body habits that are compulsive (and really gross) include hair-pulling, skin picking, blemish squeezing, and a few other BFRB's. (Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors), like nose-picking.

Yuck. Anybody still want that PB & J?

Compulsion is like a sneeze, or an itch that must be scratched.

Often, compulsion is part of the OCD or OCPD spectrum.  Someone with OCD may feel that she just can't do anything else until she flips a light switch on and off exactly eight times, or washes her hands five times.  An OCPD'r may feel that if he was shopping for groceries, and an item was omitted from the list, it cannot be purchased, even if he's standing right in front of the item, because items must be on the list first, before they can be purchased.

Compulsions are mindless, for the most part. How can you tell if you've crossed the line?

from Wikipedia:

People rely on compulsions as an escape from their obsessive thoughts; however, they are aware that the relief is only temporary, that the intrusive thoughts will soon return. Some people use compulsions to avoid situations that may trigger their obsessions. Although some people do certain things over and over again, they do not necessarily perform these actions compulsively. For example, bedtime routines, learning a new skill, and religious practices are not compulsions. Whether or not behaviors are compulsions or mere habit depends on the context in which the behaviors are performed. For example, arranging and ordering DVDs for eight hours a day would be expected of one who works in a video store, but would seem abnormal in other situations. In other words, habits tend to bring efficiency to one's life, while compulsions tend to disrupt it.

That's the key - does the compulsion interrupt one's life?  Does it bring pain and discomfort to the person who behaves compulsively, or to those around him/her?  If one was aware of the behavior, would one choose to stop, or keep eating those M & M's?

And then there's the compulsiveness attached to hoarding, which I'm not even going to get into now.

Mindfulness.  Therapy.  Meds if required.  If something is making your life worse, take whatever steps are necessary to make it better.

My A-Z theme is Issues related to Mental Health or Mental Illness.

Do you have any compulsions?

If you stopped, how did you stop?

Your thoughts?

Related articles

• Possible causes of sudden onset OCD in kids broadened (eurekalert.org)
• Sexual Orientation Compulsions in OCD (psychologytoday.com)
• Best of Our Blogs: March 27, 2012 (psychcentral.com)