Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Shortchanged Children

Child 1 (Photo credit: Tony Trần)

This post continues with The Costs of Workaholism: The Poisoning of Personal Relationships 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.

The Costs of Workaholism

All these [the previous posts] are very real benefits - but they're benefits of work rather than of workaholism, and they all can be enjoyed even if work plays a more balanced role in your life. <snip>

THE POISONING OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Shortchanged Children

If you do have children, you're likely to tell yourself that you're working as hard as you are for their sake - a sacrifice they may find of questionable value. In their book The Addictive Organization, Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel recount the words of one grown daughter of a workaholic:

Everything revolved arond my father's work. If we got too playful and made noise we would be quieted because Daddy was wither working or sleeping. When work went poorly, he was moody, angry, and destructive. When it went well, he was jolly... We rarely saw him. Sometimes he stayed in the city overnight or on big projects, he would be gone for weeks at a time... I don't think my mother or our family were ever second place in my father's life, I believe for him we didn't exist at all. I grew up spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about my father, yet never really knowing him. I hate him for this and I miss him deeply.

A child jumping (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<snip>Other workaholic parents may transform time spent together into time working together. Say it's a Sunday afternoon, and the parent has no pressing obligations; he really could afford to spend a few hours doing what his child most wants to do, say, playing ball. But because of the parent's chronic inner need to be accomplishing something, he hankers to be gardening, or repairing the back fence. So he tries to accomplish two things simultaneously - to spend time with his child and to work on the project - by cajoling the child into working with him.

If the project truly engages the child's interest, it may turn out to be a pleasant shared experience. But if the child senses that the parent is more involved in the fence than in him, the child will resent it. <snip>

Some workaholic parents go one step further, getting annoyed whenever they find their children "wasting time." They want their children to share their own abhorrence for any hint of laziness, and they find tasks to fill the children's time - until the children get used to fleeing whenever they see the meddlesome parent approaching.

English: child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<snip> your children's childhoods are composed of hundreds of fleeting experiences: the first laughs of babyhood, the first steps, trick-or-treating at Halloween, high school courtships. Each stage of development lasts only for a very brief time, and once completed, will never be repeated. <snip>

Some people, realizing that this has happened, try to correct it too late. I've had several adult patients who received very little attention from their parents when they were children or adolescents. When the elderly parents (often newly widowed) finally sought companionship, their sons and daughters reacted with dread, shying away from contact and expressing such feelings as, "We have absolutely nothing in common," or "I don't feel any connection to him." Sometimes these adult children have expressed resentment at being approached after so many years of neglect. "Where was he when I needed him?" they ask.

Image via CrunchBase

***

This is part of why I have a problem with Apple computer products: Steve Jobs. I feel like if I were to buy them, I would be implicitly endorsing his publicly admitted neglect of his children and family (though I admit, years ago when I knew less about his personal life, I did buy an iPod).

Much like the workaholics described here, my father rarely had time for me - and usually it was for his own purpose.  If he wanted to talk at someone, he would make me come into the living room to listen to him - during the commercials. I wasn't even important enough to him to turn off the TV and actually interact with.

So when he too became elderly and bored and lonely and decided, then, he wanted to connect with me - too little, too late. I had learned to live without him a long time before that - and in fact, it wasn't truly an attempt to "connect." He just wanted more of an audience.  My oldest sister, who did give him the time of day, had very little of his attention about her concerns and problems, even when she was facing a serious eye problem and almost lost her sight.

I have heard so many stories of OCPD parents who cannot let their kids BE kids, who are like mini-sweatshop owners, instilling a sense of work, work, work, all the time. (I'm talking to you, Tiger Mom!) I love this commercial, because it's about the dad (and the big brother) letting the little girl call the shots.

Let go and have fun with your kids. Be silly. No, you don't have to be a "Disneyland Dad," with fun activities only. Kids do need to learn about mending fences and doing laundry, but neither should you always be looking for Something Productive to Do.

There's an incredible amount of joy and freedom in just being with children, if you let it.

Do you value work over children, or know someone who does?
If you had a parent who always put work first, 
how did that make you feel?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 9 - Too Driven

English: Apple iPad Event (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post continues with Too Driven 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.

A man who loves life intensely must always be jealous of the few exquisite moments of leisure that he has.... His hours of fishing must be as sacred as his hours of business.  ~LIN YUTANG, The Importance of Living

Work permeates every moment of Natalie's carefully planned schedule.  An ambitious public prosecutor, she rises before dawn <snip> After dinner with her family, she invariably works for a few more hours. <snip> Even though her supervisor has urged her to drive herself less furiously, Natalie can't really imagine cutting back her work hours. "My job is like a vortex," she says flatly. "It draws me in."

The Obsessive Workaholic

Most people would call Natalie a "workaholic." Although this is not a psychiatric term, the recently minted word aptly describes a person a having a compulsive need to work. I t applies to many obsessives. For them, work represents much more than just a way to earn a living; it's the central axis around which everything else revolves.

Workaholism is more than just a matter of long hours. No one, for example, would label as a workaholic the impoverished immigrant who sews for eighteen hours a day. She probably has no psychological need to work so hard, and one assumes that were she to win the lottery, she would work less. When most people call someone a workaholic, they are implying that the person works significantly more than he or she has to or is even expected to.

My own definition is that a workaholic is someone who voluntarily devotes practically every waking hour to either doing or thinking about some form of work (though he may not realize his actions are voluntary). This incorporates a very broad range of overly driven behavior. <snip>

***

In American society, we are very competitive about work. It's an area where being obsessive is not simply unnoticed, but often expected and praised.

Because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. Yes, working more hours generally results in more money, which means we can buy more things. And those with OCPD tend to focus on things, rather than people.

There will always be more things to buy. Things are not going anywhere. People, experiences, and relationships, on the other hand, will not always be available to someone works his/her life away.

Take Steve Jobs. He helped bring a lot of cool gadgets to life, but in his personal life:

I wanted my kids to know me,' he told Pulitzer Prize nominee and author Walter Isaacson, when asked why he agreed to a tell-all book despite living a famously private life.

'I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did,' he added poignantly at his home in Palo Alto, California.

SINGAPORE - OCTOBER 06: An Apple Ipad 2 showing the Apple website displays a tribute to Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Apple, at a store in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011. Jobs, 56, passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 and is credited, along with Steve Wozniak, with marketing the world's first personal computer in addition to the popular iPod, iPhone and iPad. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

I'm thinking his kids and his wife might have been able to suffer through life with a few less cool gadgets and a lot more time with the guy - but his work was clearly #1, and they were an afterthought, to be fitted in around the edges, if/when he could make the time. Failing that, well, now they can always read his biography on their iPads, after his death. That'll surely give them the same warm fuzzy feeling as actually spending time with their father, feeling not only that they knew him, but that he cared enough to know them, right?

Do you have a compulsive need to work?

Love someone who does?

Your thoughts?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 8 - Toward a More Flexible Orderliness

via FreedigitalPhotos from Ambro

This post continues with Toward a More Flexible Orderliness from Chapter Eight.

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.

Too Perfect, 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.

Toward a More Flexible Orderliness

Chances are you don't think of yourself as an excessively orderly or rigid person. Almost no one does. But consider carefully the following questions:

• Do your demands for neatness make family members tense or inhibited around you?
• Do your children ever feel pressured (by you) to do everything just so?
• At work, has your resistance to new ideas or methods ever stifled your growth or inhibited development of your product or service?
• Is it hard for your to enjoy an unexpected visit or call from a friend of family members because you had anticipated doing something else in that time?
• Do you wish you could be more spontaneous?
• Is it hard for you to start work or fall asleep until your surroundings are arranged meticulously?
• Do you get upset when unforeseen contingencies disrupt your routine?
• Keeping things extremely organized takes a lot of time. Is your need for neatness and order contributing to your feeling chronically overburdened?
• Does your tendency to get into routines make aspects of your life such as lovemaking, meals, or weekends boring and predictable?
• Do you wish you could be more creative?
• Do you find yourself increasingly alienated from current social and political ideas, music, or clothing styles because they conflict with how things used to be?

Excessive orderliness can manifest itself in a variety of ways. If you can pinpoint difficulties these traits are causing you, you will be well on the way to making some improvements.

Catch yourself straightening, organizing, cleaning or filing far beyond what's necessary or functional. Think of a clock ticking away the precious seconds of your life. Add up all those wasted moments - the weeks, months, or even years - time that your might have spent creatively, productively, or just plain having fun.

<snip>Mark well how a vacation or an evening out can be ruined simply because things don't go as planned. Observe yourself doing the same things in the same old way time after time, while at the same time yearning for freshness, excitement, creativity and nuance in your life.

Take note each time you insist that a family member or employee do things exactly in the fashion you prefer, rather than in his or her own style or order. Ask yourself if having it done your way is worth the damage to the relationship. <snip>

***

It all goes back to whether the traits are a means to an end - or become the end, in and of themselves.

The questions are good ones to ask. I suspect that many who see their perfectionism, cleanliness, orderliness, etc., as an asset do not recognize, until they stop and really think about it, the extent to which the Quest for the Holy Order has become THE purpose in their lives.

Most people don't need or WANT to live like that. Most partners want to make love first and worry about washing the dinner dishes afterwards, not put off lovemaking until every dish is washed, dried, and put away.

When you're in the mood, you're in the mood, right?

We only get XX many days, hours, minutes on this earth, and lots of them are taken up by things like sleeping, answering nature's calls, getting gas - necessities of life, sure, but not things most people particularly enjoy. Of the remaining expendable minutes, how many do we want to spend "straightening" something for the billionth time?

Have you ever squandered a golden moment 
so you could clean something?
If you've ever been "postponed" by a loved one who wanted 
to clean or organize something, how did that make you feel?

Your thoughts?

A-Z: Obsession Stinks - And I Ain't Talking About the Cologne

Magnificent Obsession (1935 film)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)As I blogged before, Obsession and Compulsion go together in many people's minds like peanut butter and jelly. Or better yet, Bonnie and Clyde - a couple who might not have been all that terrible when separated, but together, deadly.

For the purposes of this post though, I'm giving them a trial separation. (Sorry, Clyde.)

Obsession, all by itself, is a thought with no action. 

When we fall in love, we tend to think of the other person frequently, perhaps even obsessing over what s/he is doing, thinking, replaying everything s/he said or texted or the way s/he looked at us, in our minds. (When we text or call her/him 50 times a day, we've moved into action.)

We might obsess over something less pleasant. Am I going to be laid off? Did I remember to turn off the stove? It's a thought loop that we keep replaying, in our minds, like a NASCAR car running laps.

Excluding the cologne, I believe there are three kinds of obsessions.

Romantic/celebrity/hobby obsession.

George Clooney
(Image via RottenTomatoes.com)Any action here can be mild, or it can be annoying, even life-threatening.  Let's say I create a Pinterest board containing every picture I can find of George Clooney. If it's something I spend an hour or two every day on... as long as I still carry on with my regular life, no harm, no foul. If I skip work,  meals, and baths to look for those pictures, I've gone too far.

Someone else could be equally devoted to finding the missing part for the classic car he is restoring, or the last Monkees lunchbox in a set.

Somewhere along the way, though, a line may be crossed. We frequently hear of celebrity stalkers, such as the woman who kept breaking into David Letterman's house, the man who attacked George Harrison, or the man who murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer. Ordinary people may also have obsessed exes, sometimes someone they never married or even dated, simply an admirer, who pursues them.

I had somebody who I knew casually, that I met for a single lunch date. It was okay... but there was something a little off about him, especially towards the end of the date. I decided I didn't want to see him again. Told him so, clearly, at the end of the date, when he asked if we could go out again; you're a nice guy, but this isn't working for me. Closed with: Thank you, but I don't want to go out with you again. He continued to call me at work (I never gave him my work phone number; he told me he drove around until he spotted my car parked in the lot in front of the building) wanting to discuss "our relationship" until I threatened to call the police. Luckily, that was enough to make him leave me alone, but I admit, thinking about the guy still creeps me out.

Obsession as in OCD. 
This kind of obsession is obsessive thoughts that are intrusive, possibly even horrible.  Fantasizing about killing your children, say, or sex with ducks, that keep looping through one's mind. They might think about all the bacteria swarming all over a doorknob.

Someone with OCD may pair their obsession with a compulsive action; for instance, someone obsessed with whether the back door is locked may flip the lock back and forth exactly eight times, to be sure it's locked. They may engage in counting rituals. They may try to overpower or replace the obsessive thoughts through willpower. They may be so obsessed with germs and cleanliness that they wash their hands to the point of chapping and bleeding.

In any event, the OCD'r recognizes the obsession as obtrusive and unwanted. (ego-dystonic) It feels to them as if it's something that comes in from outside of themselves.

Obsession as in OCPD.
A person might obsess over a past event, running it over and over in his mind, replaying how wrong the other person was and how hurt and angry he feels about it. Or overanalyzing a future situation, like packing for a trip, making a list and checking it over and over again. 

For the OCPD'r, their obsessive thoughts are logical and rational. Everyone should devote as much time and care and energy to these things. (ego-systonic) OCPD'r think that theirs is The Right Way to think. Jeff Lewis, star of Bravo's Flipping Out, believes his disorder makes him successful (if not a candidate for Boss of the Year).

This difference in between attitudes is what makes those with OCPD very different from those with OCD (though there can be co-morbidity, that is, a person can have traits of more than one disorder).  Those with OCD will often seek out help, because they want their obsessive thoughts to go away. Those with romantic/hobby obsessions or OCPD, rarely seek help because they feel there is nothing wrong with the way they think, or how much "head space" they devote to their obsessions.

Unfortunately, because of their disorder, those with untreated obsessions may not recognize when their behavior crosses the line from harmless or helpful, to downright destructive. While most of those with mental disorders, including erotomania  and OCPD, are much more likely to be the victims of a physical assault than the perpetrators, some individuals with mental illness can be dangerous, to others and even themselves. David Letterman's stalker ended her own life a few years ago.

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

Have you ever had an obsession 
that crossed the line to unhealthy behaviors?

Have you ever had someone obsessed with you?

If you have had OCD or OCPD, 

what is the most helpful tip or information?

Related articles

• When is an obsession an obsession? (riverbendbh.com)
• Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 7 - The Obsessive Cognitive Style (perfectlyawfulusa.blogspot.com)
• A-Z: Compulsion - That Irresistible Urge (perfectlyawfulusa.blogspot.com)
• Overcoming obsessive-compulsive disorder (eurekalert.org)
• Charlize Theron and 8 More Stars with OCD (abcnews.go.com)
• This Real Estate Mogul Couldn't Have Done It Without Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (articles.businessinsider.com)