Extremely leisurely lifestyle - a HPD trait?

I think that as this is not on the checklist of symptoms, anything stated about job will be more circumstantial than indicative of deficient mental processes. For example, an individual could be completely balanced and still seek to work hard for credit and admiration, it's a natural part of the human psyche, and generally a healthy one. In terms of leisurely behaviour, it stands more to reason... if, as I have done in the past, a HPD individual relies heavily on boyfriends to pay for their needs. However, around the rough area I used to live in most men lie around all day, get their girlfriends to support them and their children and don't appear to have a personality disorder.

Sometimes I find it hard on this forum as there are threads which are obviously circumstantial such as whether we can dance properly, which is the enemy of balanced reason.

I do feel bad for those who have been hurt by HPD's though, and understand the need to "figure them out". Rest assured, most of them get their come uppance... it took me to finally have my heart broken by a narcisstic sadist to wake up and realise what kind of person I really was, and how similar his actions were to mine previously.

I'm not trying to be rude or anything. Good debate!

Hey Fairtomiddling!

No offense taken whatsoever. First of all: where do you live? An area where the men lie around all day and get their girlfriends to support them sounds like heaven!

My ex on the other hand also let me pay for all her luxuries (fancy clothes, her car, hair extensions, beauty salons). In the meantime, we didn't have money left for vacation, which I sorely needed with the two jobs I was doing to support us both! Spineless $#%^ that I was, looking back!

I hear where you're coming from loud and clear, and you're right, we can't chalk up every character flaw (or forte, for that matter) to a personality disorder when there is an equally varied distribution in 'normal' people. e.g. some people are just lazy, while others are industrious, and this does not need to have anything to do with personality disorders.

However, low tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification is one of the often talked about symptoms of HPDs (among other PDs), and one a sizable part of us seem to recognize. It is also very symptomatic for infantile personalities, which has a lot to do with HPD. (by the way, I'm not trying to be rude either - I'm really glad there is a place for both sides of the fence to meet and talk and hopefully help eachother, not place the blame).

And delayed gratification has a lot to do with working and jobs. Take me for instance: I've been busting my chops for two years now, launching my own design agency, and I haven't earned a lot though. But I feel confident that I will reap the rewards later. My ex was incapable of this reasoning.

My mother is similar in this regard as well, in that she feels as if she deserves to suddenly come into a huge amount of wealth and retire early, because "her life has been so hard" and she's "worked so much" and deserves a break.

--She worked a normal 8-5 job in the government (which, admittedly, could drive anyone insane if you aren't a sheep) for 10 or so years, where she accumulated a huge retirement fund and lots of vacation time. She quit this job when I turned 12, taking the "buy out" (where you get a severance package and your accumulated retirement rolled up into one lump sum) under the guise of "being home for me because I was struggling in school." In actuality, she just hated her job, and didn't want to do it anymore. Immediately after this, she purchased a 7-day cruise for us both.

--She went to school for a few years, where she racked up 100s of school credits but quit before getting a degree.

--When she went back to work, it was in sales. She spent most of her time working from home, but she worked 50-60 hours (so she says - some weeks, this was true, but there were many weeks where she did significantly less than 40 hours of work in a week). When that became too cut-throat for her, she moved to another sales job, and another one, and another one, and then moved to another city where she got another sales job. (In between, there would be months of joblessness, where she'd spend freely all the savings she'd accumulated.)

--Then, she decided she wanted to be a professional poker player. (Hello? The epitome of someone who slacks off.) The problem was, she didn't have the money to be a poker player, so she decided to be a poker dealer so she could "learn the tricks of the trade" and eventually figure out how to "win every hand." She knows every statistic known to man, has watched every televised poker tournament and plays online poker all the time...yet she's never, to my knowledge (trust me, she'd have gushed about it for weeks) won. Ever. She's come in, I think 5th or 6th in a tournament, where she made no money. (There was always an excuse for why she didn't win, but it was never for lack of talent. It's always stupid players catching lucky breaks. Again, hello? That's what poker is. Luck.)

Throughout the last 15 years, ALL I HEAR ABOUT is how hard her life has been, how hard she's worked her whole life, and how she deserves to retire and be able to do (enter any random goal here). The problem is, she's not willing to actually work to get these attainments. Her solution to this elusive retirement plan is to "win the lottery." (She doesn't really play the lottery all that much.) There is no other solution for this. She does not make enough in her current position to do more than pay her bills and have no money left over (after taking herself out to eat and going out to movies, buying DVDs and new TVs, etc).

But when I mentioned that she's coming up on 50 and still has no money saved for retirement (not to mention that she spent the last four years paying minimum payments on credit cards she got in my name, with little or no effort made to pay them off), she told me she was a "financial wizard" and I was insane and "had a young mentality" for even mentioning that she has no financial plan. She works three days a week. Picking up an extra shift? Taking a second job to pay the credit card bills in my name or saving for retirement? OMG TAYLOR, YOU'RE A HORRIBLE DAUGHTER FOR EVEN MENTIONING IT.

So yes. I've experienced the "I deserve to live in financial prosperity for all the hard life I've endured!" mantra. I used to buy into it, until I became an adult and realized you have to like, actually work to become financially prosperous. It takes budgeting and giving up luxuries like going out to eat and renting/buying movies to pay off your bills and save money. But gosh, I've been doing it for two months, and I've already paid off all of the debt she accumulated in my name, so...clearly I was totally wrong and I have no idea what I'm talking about and I should have deferred to her "financial wizardry" to figure out how to get my finances in order.

Maybe her idea of wizardry is to say "AlacaZAM! Your debts are absolved!!!" That would explain why it hasn't worked for her yet...

(PS - She has had some financial troubles in the past, but they were all completely her doing. She married a man she knew was a klepto who bounced checks, and then was surprised when he stole things and bounced checks and got put in jail. She had a good credit history before she married him, and she spent many years fixing it, only to somehow ruin it by not working and not paying her credit card bills because she felt like she deserved "time off from work"...and eventually she became him, in that she ruined my credit, too!)

I love my son more than anything in the world...but I cant believe I have to supply my ex-HPD for the next 18years with child support....something is wrong with that picture!!! I would of battled her in court but she is just to cunning...she would have the judge falling in love with her

Taylorpie, your post made me smile . I thought my ex was the only one who considered winning the lottery a legitimate business plan for life (the ONLY business plan for life, actually). Dang, it's just soooo recognisable: feeling to deserve wealth and luxury (and no responsibilities whatsoever) because her life was hard: same here!!

And regarding financial wizardry: my ex could make money disappear like no other! Alakazam!

I think this "leisurely lifestyle" extends beyond money to everything. The house keeping, the cooking, the laundry, budgeting and all the other "adult" things in life, hell even sex. These people don't want to lift a finger for anything that isn't fun or exciting to them. And why should they? Most of them are surrounded (by design) with people that are overly responsible and we handle anything they cant/wont do just so that it doesn't impact our lives. My HPD can take off for all these things she wants to do, but when it comes to taking off a day for something I have planned suddenly she can't because work wont let her off (in reality she simply forgot to ask them).

The problem is with all of them we see them as adults. And in reality they are not they are petulant adolescents in "adult clothes" It reminds me of the Disney commercials that you see the adult turn into a kid when at Disney. The sad thing is these people are always kids and never adults. Don't get me wrong I am all for childlike enthusiasm for life, but children make decisions based on reaction, not action. Adults happen to the world and the world happens to kids. These people are always victims of circumstance. They can't take any responsibility for what choices they make or decisions they don't.

Leisure = easy = HPD ideal life

Regards,

Sir*Lingam

Sir*Lingam wrote:I think this "leisurely lifestyle" extends beyond money to everything. The house keeping, the cooking, the laundry, budgeting and all the other "adult" things in life, hell even sex. These people don't want to lift a finger for anything that isn't fun or exciting to them. And why should they? Most of them are surrounded (by design) with people that are overly responsible and we handle anything they cant/wont do just so that it doesn't impact our lives. My HPD can take off for all these things she wants to do, but when it comes to taking off a day for something I have planned suddenly she can't because work wont let her off (in reality she simply forgot to ask them).

Great observation Sir. When I first moved in with my HPD, I noticed she had things in piles. Dirty clothes, dishes, and even bills. She just stacked and stacked them while making a myriad of excuses why they were not done...

If pressed on accomplishing some housework, she would suddenly have some sort of stomach or back malady and demand to be rescued/caretaken. It was stunning to see how filthy she could let things get.

Equally, while letting these things pile up , she was busy petitioning her kids and even me to clean it all up for her. She couldn't care less if you worked all day or the kids had pressing homework

When I first met her, she said she 'prided' herself on being such a great housewife

taylorpie wrote:My mother is similar in this regard as well, in that she feels as if she deserves to suddenly come into a huge amount of wealth and retire early, because "her life has been so hard" and she's "worked so much" and deserves a break.

Hi Taylor,

Your first line really resonated with me, in regards to my friend (who I believe is HPD). She is INSISTANT that since her life has been "so difficult" that she somehow "deserves" millions of dollars and a famous (sports-hero) husband.

At first, I really thought she had some kind of delusional disorder (which led me to research this board). She told my friend (whom she'd just met) that she was going to be swept away by XX (famous rich guy), marry him, and live in wealth and comfort. Seriously, she wouldn't be put off by my friend's nervous jokes of this announcement. The next day when I confronted her on it, she admitted that it was just a dream, but that I have to "play along".

anyway - I agree with much that's been written on this topic. Fair makes an excellent point, that a lot of these traits are circumstantial. However, perhaps there's a common theme of low tolerance for frustration and delayed gratification.

To add to the mix, I'll say that my HPD friend doesn't cook, and will act completely helpless in the kitchen if there's someone else there. Now, since her kids appear to be well-fed, I think that's just an act.

She "works" as a babysitter, but will only take certain types of clients and doesn't have a full case-load, and from what I've heard, a lot of the day is spent going shopping (for her) and the kids watching tv or movies while she surfs the internet.

She DOES go to college (for associates degree) which has clearly become a source of supply - she is constantly bringing her books to social events, to ask one of us to quiz her; stories from class about how she is the Most Fabulous and Smartest are always the topic du jour.

When her husband was out of work for a time, she pretended to look for a job (a neighbor actually GOT her a job, which she turned down because the pay wasn't "high enough" for her!), and she insulted me by saying that working full-time would mean she's a bad mother (I work fulltime).

anyway - i think this is an interesting thread, and there appear to be some similarities.

My sister-in-law has basically the same story. She had her own advertizing business and while she had it, she would "work" constantly, meaning schmoozing clients and party events and that type of thing. My parents basically raised her son for the first 4 years of his life cause she was always working/partying. Then, after she ran the business into the ground, she made it seem that she WANTED to stay home with her kids, like it was her choice that she didn't want to work. I felt the same, felt guilty having kids of my own and having someone tell me that they didn't want to work because it would be bad for her kids (she had recently had another son). I never had to opportunity NOT to work when I had kids, I needed to help support my family.

ANYway, even though her family was in the midst of financial ruin, she would not go and get another job and we all think it's because she can't be the boss. She will however, volonteer for everything and anything, and again, it seems like it's more for the praise and thanks she gets since no one else wants to do it. So she's still not home alot, she just doean't get paid for being gone.

Where she doesn't fit that profile is that she is almsot anal when it comes to cooking and cleaning when she would have family gatherings. She would have the table set like royalty was coming and cook the whole meal. I guess I am not sure what it was like when people weren't there...

My ex-friend, who I am now really seeing has HPD, and I were close for about 3 years before she moved away. I never thought of this aspect of it, but yes! She kept switching majors in school: came half a year short of finishing this degree, switched to this one...she'd already taken a handful of career programs that she never did anything with, and would say things like "I'm thinking about nursing next year" suddenly all passionate about it, even though it had nothing to do with what she was taking.

She has been a career student for over 10 years, racking up loans and moving from job to job. It's funny, she told me that her job now was too stressful, so she was only willing to work 20-25 hours per week.