What people don't get about workaholics

The problem with workaholics is that they neglect their partners, themselves, and arguably lack a vibrant inner world. After all, how can one have hobbies or excitement when your life is limited to your cubicle (or in my case, a work-laptop in a dark room).

It may look obsessive and paranoid to an outsider, but, perhaps if you understood the rationale for it, you'd understand why it is so difficult to quit. I may be a lost cause, but if there is someone in your life you'd like to help, maybe this can act as a guide for your approach.

My workaholism is based on 3 pillars:

1. A desperation to feel useful

I feel dumb, stupid, foolish, ugly, and expendable.

It is a human need to be wanted. I'm fine being a tool, as long as I feel desired.

Each time I excel at my work, get praise, am recognized, my perception of expendability is suspended.

Now, this feeling is fleeting. After all, just because I am useful today doesn't mean I will still be useful tomorrow. I need constant reassurance and proof that I haven't rusted. My workaholism is like an anxious avoidant groping in the dark for affirmation.

I lack the capacity to read a room. I need, desperately need people to tell me that I am wanted and I need them to tell me it often to know that haven't gotten sick of me yet.

I'd like to add that this obsession for constant reassurance isn't limited to work. But work appeals more to me because it formulaic and thus is a more reliable way to meet my emotional longing.

2. To ensure dignity

My father, despite having 6 degrees, did not work for most of my childhood.

My grandfather gave him an easy position at his law firm, but when he passed, the practice functionally dissolved. My father had become complacent and just didn't continue working afterwards.

It created significant financial strain and eventually led to my childhood home foreclosing.

In my mind, people must work. It's a source of stability, but more so dignity.

Despite being poor, I went to a private school (scholarship) and grew up around extreme affluence (like billionaires). I did not like feeling shame and social comparison anxiety for the position my parents were in.

For me, in the world I grew up around and know how to navigate instinctively at this point, a title is a prerequisite to a certain type of socialization and acceptance.

I don't want to feel alienated again. I don't want to self-isolate out of a prerequisite that I am not enough.

3. I like it

A workaholic may justify their behavior by saying they're doing it for the money and stability. The money is nice, but I have a limited social life and am chronically tired. It's not spent much on having fun.

It mainly goes into conveniences (think taxis instead of public transit), gifts, and savings.

When people question my obsessiveness, I use money as a defensive statement because most people are receptive to that argument. After all, most people can internalize financial anxiety.

Truth is, one of the leading reasons I like the money is because it can indicate my value. It's a high when someone thinks that I'm damn good at what I do and am willing to pay me more for it.

To sound a bit brazen, I am damn good. Do you know how amazing it feels to be the person who can walk into a crisis where people are potentially losing thousands of dollars per minute and then solve the issue? I deal with database crisis management.

When a company loses their data, they cease to be company: they don't who their customers are, their credentials, maybe even their own employees.

I audit hacks, consult on risky data recovery, and perform optimizations that save companies meaningful amounts.

It's a high and so I constantly upskill to be prepared for the next challenge. Not just because it is my job, but because I like it. I like the feeling.

I'm also not sure I'd stay good if I took a break.

Things change fast and without obsessiveness or passion, I don't think I'd be able to do it.

I don't love what I do. I love being useful, and if I were to become rusty, then I'm not sure I'd be able to catch up. It was so painful learning everything and I learned it fast out of desperation (remember, family home foreclosed - really needed the money).

Taking a break means risking the thing that currently satisfies my very human desire to be desired. I don't want to give that up.

How to help a workaholic:

If you haven't noticed the through-line of this rant, workaholics feel like their sense of worth and dignity come from their job. Their is certainly an element of anxious attachment style for it, so if you want someone to stop, you'd have to convince them they will be appreciated and loved if they stopped.

And you have to not convince once, that's not how the anxious attachment style of workaholism functions. You'd have to convince them every day, maybe for years, that they are still loved, useful, admired, and dignified even if they are not career obsessed. This reassurance would have to focus on their insecurities.

You'd have to provide proof that you're not just going through the motions to cajole, but actually bring up times in conversation you thought they were pithy, or times they were useful, or times they you feel special. A workaholic wants to feel like they're not expendable, so you need to remind them that to you, they are truly not.

You'd have to tell them that the temptation of more money and prestige is does not create dignity and that they are fine to you as they are and they'd be fine to you if they were less, and if they slowed down, and if they took a break, and if they lost their job, and became mundane.

Perhaps phrasing it another way, it's like reminding a girl, constantly, and forever, that they will be loved, even when they're sad, when their looks fade, when they feel annoying... And despite that, you will still say they are smart, pretty, and enhance your life, that they haven't lost their touch, and actually mean it.

"Would you still marry me if I were a worm?" As absurd as it is, the answer must be yes.

Workaholics are infamously dull people. I don't think someone will find me so compelling to offer me the reassurance necessary to walk away from this cycle.

But for the people unfortunate enough to love a workaholic, I hope I've provided perspective, closure, and the burden and sacrifices one would have to consider to break their curse.