Addictive Personality

[Turk]

So, over my lifetime, ive leart that the best way to teach myself something, is to immerse myself in a topic. The down side to this, is things become a little obssessive, to me. I manage to turn something therapeutic, into something so unhealthy and habit forming. For instance, just the reading material associated with my condition. I read and read and read, and at the same time neglect to eat or spend time with my family. When I look back at what I have to do and motivate myself, it always comes down to this trade off. Do many others struggle with this type of balance?

 

[King_Oni]

So, over my lifetime, ive leart that the best way to teach myself something, is to immerse myself in a topic. The down side to this, is things become a little obssessive, to me. I manage to turn something therapeutic, into something so unhealthy and habit forming. For instance, just the reading material associated with my condition. I read and read and read, and at the same time neglect to eat or spend time with my family. When I look back at what I have to do and motivate myself, it always comes down to this trade off. Do many others struggle with this type of balance?

Do I struggle with that kind of balance... yes and no.

I can't get into something if I can't obsess over it. I just need a large amount of time to enjoy something. I can't do things in small amounts.

The upside in my life is that I don't have a family that needs attention, so there's no real neglect there. To some extent I know how I would be and thus made it a choice to choose myself rather than other people, heh.

The downside to it all is that for me to enjoy anything it can be a full day job (so to speak). Right now I don't mind it as much, but that might change when I would have a job and such in the long run.

I'm not sure if it's unhealthy and habit forming as such. I always felt it's my way to focus and get stuff done. Pretty much all things I do are self taught (anything from recording music/playing instruments, graphic design, and so on) and I'm quite sure I couldn't learn these things by not obsessing over it to some extent (and I didn't even take in consideration any atypical learning methods I might employ for these skills which might be more costly in terms of time and/or money).

I remember when I attended college and uni I easily spent 12 to 16 hours a day on assignments (research in journalism school was quite extensive at times, hehe) and was pretty much focused on the tasks at hand rather than any other things. One could even state that such behavior is unhealthy, but like stated; that's how I actually got things done. Not working towards goals and getting things done might be just as detrimental.

What's interesting to note is that I found more balance in doing things for extensive periods daily when I dated people with a similar mindset... the 2 (presumable) aspies I've dated were like me in their "obsessing" and spending time, so there was no "you never have any time". To them it sounded perfectly reasonable to spend a week obsessing over something when it would lead to some kind of result.

As for not eating; meh... if my body feels I should shove food in there, it'll give notice.

So do I really struggle with balance? Right now, not so much... I don't have to answer to anything/anyone.

 

[GoofKing]

If you count drinking loads and loads of coffee and smoking and chewing, then I guess I might have a addictive personality ...

 

[Vanilla]

So, over my lifetime, ive leart that the best way to teach myself something, is to immerse myself in a topic. The down side to this, is things become a little obssessive, to me. I manage to turn something therapeutic, into something so unhealthy and habit forming. For instance, just the reading material associated with my condition. I read and read and read, and at the same time neglect to eat or spend time with my family. When I look back at what I have to do and motivate myself, it always comes down to this trade off. Do many others struggle with this type of balance?

I know exactly what you mean, I'm definitely guilty of this. I do this with my own interests, or even for the interests of others. If someone asks me to do something, but doesn't expect a large result, I can get a little carried away, and go overboard, and over produce at times

It doesn't happen with everything I do, but if I care enough about the task, even a little bit, you can expect results!

 

[Andy R]

I don't have an addictive personality as such. I do obsess though, all the time. If I have a particularly difficult bass part to learn, or if I have a conflict, or there is a job that I am unsure how I am going to execute. These obsessions can become all consuming and anything else will not enter my thoughts, or my dreams until they are done.
At the suggestion of the Consultant Psychiatrist who diagnosed me I have a calendar and a white board by my desk, where I can write these tasks down and rub them off when completed. It helps me focus.