Workaholism

Mostly out of curiosity.

Workaholism:
Is it a common NPD trait? Or the opposite of a common trait?

Or none of the above?

I'm definitely a workaholic. I don't necessarily like the work, but my obsession with success and being the best definitely makes my work performance 99 percentile.

I go to school

it's a commen (defens?) mechanism to be a workaholic
looking for goles beyond interpersonal relation and money, status (leadership) to go with that
think the salesmanager getting so absorbed in his work he's not spending time at home with the misses.
not an actual traide but definitely a clue

I don't know about it being a popular NPD trait or not, my post is probably completely irrelevant but im posting as having had problems with workaholism, if its not relevant..

I used to get obsessed with "working" - the reason I put it in little quotes is cause though sometimes i got a fair amount done, I wasn't very productive in the sense most people consider work to be, lol.

Basically the workaholism was more an addiction - was more about need.something.to.do. and also about trying to create purpose, bit of a power trip when it put me in some situations, or those where people would respond to that with daft pathetic reactions to their own hierarchies, lol. Hierarchies are not something I internalise, and society builds itself on a bunch of hierarchies - when you look at it socially and interpersonally, its all an illusion, but illusion that most people buy into. Creating "status" (or the illusion of it) can also be a way of making sure you get a reasonably easy life, because there are different rulebooks for different people.

On the outside it resembled a lot of what NPD does - to the point I spent a while waiting to find some deep sense of inner shame and total lack of ego that needed to be filled, but it didn't happen. I don't think me being egotistical in any way reflects anything too real, because any egotism I can have i can also drop very suddenly without any sort of ego-related pain. I've never found anything like that underneath - except the loss of distraction from inner rage and lack of purpose etc. that I could say I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with.

Tried just being like that - kept getting into trouble. Tried being doped up on psychiatric meds, ###$ that. lol Tried building a set of addictions and surface-deep narcissistic defenses? Bingo. Life=easier.

The main purpose of any addictive behaviour i manage to find is mostly to have somewhere to throw all my inner rage and transfer it into something that was more managable/stop me having to face it directly, so I wouldn't spend my time walking around feeling like a tiger in a cage. Its a whole load of ways of maintaining self-control without it driving me insane.

I imagine in workaholism coming from NPD, the status thing and hierarchy would be internalised in a different way.

I used to be a workaholic. I couldn't get enough done, I had to outshine my schoolmates or coworkers, I had to be far and away the best. I needed a better title, more money, more power, but I realized there's no end to this, and once that realization hit, I've basically walked away from that mentality. Now I have the titles, the money, the staff, but I stay 'comfortable' without sticking my neck out. I could ride this position out for 20 years and be alright with that.

I just want to be left alone.

awakenow wrote:I used to be a workaholic. I couldn't get enough done, I had to outshine my schoolmates or coworkers, I had to be far and away the best. I needed a better title, more money, more power, but I realized there's no end to this, and once that realization hit, I've basically walked away from that mentality. Now I have the titles, the money, the staff, but I stay 'comfortable' without sticking my neck out. I could ride this position out for 20 years and be alright with that.

I just want to be left alone.

That sounds like the mentality of a normal human being who lived your life both engaging with it taking up whatever challenges you were focussed on a the time, both succeeding and then learning from it. Good example how workaholism is not just for PDed people.

katana wrote:That sounds like the mentality of a normal human being who lived your life both engaging with it taking up whatever challenges you were focussed on a the time, both succeeding and then learning from it. Good example how workaholism is not just for PDed people.

Um, ok?

awakenow wrote:I used to be a workaholic. I couldn't get enough done, I had to outshine my schoolmates or coworkers, I had to be far and away the best. I needed a better title, more money, more power

Workaholism = "social perfectionism", maybe?

I have problems with perfectionism. One of (the many...) reasons why I never seem to finish things is that my work has to be perfect. If I notice too many imperfections, my usual reaction is to discard everything I have done and start it all over. I spend disproportionate amounts of time fine-tuning irrelevant details, because I just can't tolerate flaws in any work I do. Apparently the only effective way for me to tolerate flaws is to somehow manage not to see them.

lol