Confession Time

I have nothing that resembles a work/life balance, probably announced by the fact that I’m blogging on Christmas instead of hanging out with my family. I did that earlier, at least for a little while. However, in my daily life, non-holiday days, I generally work from the time I get up until about ten minutes before I fall asleep. This bothers some people who know me well. Probably because I say I’m going to go do something fun and then I don’t because I’m working. I cannot seem to tear myself away from my computer for long enough to take anything in without someone almost physically dragging me away.

This level of workaholism cannot be healthy. And in my understanding, it is not. I consistently chose my work over my emotions and my friendships. Unless you count work dates, which is when I sat in a room with another person occasionally talk to them while we both work on separate, but sometimes similar, projects. Most of my friends have found I don’t really have much to talk about except shop talk. It is my version of small talk to talk about whatever project I’m working on right now and to wax philosophically or poetically on that self-same project. Why they put up with me, I don’t know, but they still call me their friend.

Since I know this and I know this is a problem: what do I plan to do? I do not know. There is some discussion, or has been when I’m in therapy, about my abandonment issues and lack of emotional interaction with others leading to me seeing my only worth as a production of something tangible. If I am offering a service or a product to someone, then I am worthwhile and deserve to be cared about. Outside of that, I don’t exist. This is harmful to me and my interactions with other people because I cannot always be on. I should not always be on. I should not constantly feel the need to go out of the way to be helpful or useful to be loved.

My confession: I am a workaholic and I’m scared to do anything about it.