The respectable addiction: Workaholism

My name is Megan Bayliss and I am a workaholic. Once I was proud of this because that is what my world expected of me, and I had developed the disease to please. Now I am ashamed of it and I struggle daily to keep on the straight and narrow. Last night, a kewl little blonde girl, reminded me that life is not all about work and that sometimes “cracking it” is an okay thing to do.

My second marriage failed because of my workaholism (amongst other things). It was common for me to be writing court reports on my lap top, in bed, at 3am. I spent little time with my family and I failed to hear and see the warning signs. I was disconnected from myself, my emotional intelligence and the people closest to me. I was a disaster waiting for a divorce to happen. It did, I crashed and I took two years out to beat my addiction.

I recovered. For years I stood up to the voice of addiction telling me to work harder, work more, work while the sun shines, work while the work is being offered, just work, work, work. One day, in the previous six months, the stronger voice of addiction snuck back in and drowned my ability to stand up to it. My voice of strength gave up and my old addictive patterns of workaholim returned. I have been working ridiculous hours and taking on more that humanly possible for an aging social worker. I have become disconnected from my emotional intelligence and my family.

But….I love work and I love busy. I love it far more than chocolate because I consume work every single minute of my waking day. Chocolate is no good for me, I know that and I have strategies in place to ensure that I do not become an obsessive chocolate eater. Why the hell haven’t I done that with work then if my style of work is more toxic to me than chocolate?! What sort of a dummy am I?

Today is the day that I again face my demons, that I become emotionally intelligent and I stand up to my pre socialised pattern of over working. I want to spend time with my family. I want to play Uno, I want to have time to go to the eco shop and ask about gray water tanks. I want to become the green child protection advocate that I always wanted to be, rather than the over working lefty daughter of a conservative family. My hard work somehow made my left thinking more acceptable. What a load of rubbish, rhetoric and cognitive dissonance to make my addiction appear nice!

I will not work today. It is the weekend! I will play Uno and Switch and maybe even bribe the boys to play Scrabble with me (see, ever the capitalist ). I will face that which I hate more than Tripe: housework. Imaginif is moving home and office and this one has to be packed and cleaned. In an effort to avoid that which I hate, I easily succumbed to the seductive moves of my old lover; workaholism. Go away workaholism, you may be acceptable in the failing eyesight of a capitalist society, but in my eyesight you are a killer, a perpetrator of child abuse and a part of me that I do not wish to have dominant.

I am stronger than the voice of addiction and the voice of a political ideology that rewards respectable addictions and hides child abuse. I am Megan; a mum, a wife and a lover of the natural environment. I am strong and I am emotionally intelligent.

Thank you to the golden child, Miss J, for helping me to re-perspect “cracking it.” I cracked it last night – I made a decision to stand up to myself and take responsibility for my happiness and health. Thank you J. I’ll go for a walk later on and take a photo of something nice in Cairns for you to fall in love with…and when you come to Cairns, I’ll take you to the beautiful spot so that we can all play there together.