The silent addiction

Addictions are now beginning to take the forefront of societal issues. Most of us can label many types of addictions and most of us know that they derive from shaky upbringings and rocky lifestyles. In the media we now see a lot of advertising campaigns and support programmes to raise awareness about drug addiction, alcoholism and gambling. But there is a silent addiction in our society. It is destroying families left, right and centre, and it is still not socially acknowledged as a maladaptive coping mechanism, developed in response to those shaky upbringings and rocky lifestyles.

Workaholism. We’ve all heard the term “workaholic”. It’s usually a jovial term used in jest towards someone who works excessive hours and constantly worries about the ins and outs of their job, even when their work day and work week have finished. This jovial attitude though, covers up a real and disturbing issue, allowing this damaging addiction to masquerade as an acceptable part of society and martyrdom. There has even been a comedy sitcom made about workaholics. But research (and here, as well as here and this one also) shows that workaholism is a real issue that holds at its core two defining issues. Behavioural issues (such as working excessively) and cognitive issues (such as working compulsively). While workaholism can have some positive connotations, to those of us on the receiving end, it’s pretty much all negative.

WebMD point out that working hard and workaholism are not the same. “"If you're working to the exclusion of your family, your marriage, other relationships, and your life is out of balance, or your physical health is out of balance -- when work takes an exclusive priority to everything else, that's the more extreme end of the spectrum where it becomes a problem," Neuhaus tells WebMD.”

And there it is folks. Workaholism is working to the exclusion of your relationships, disregarding your life and your mental and physical health.

I come from a family of workaholics. I remember my father use to always be at work or involved in something to do with work. We lived right next door to the hatchery that he managed and we had alarms inside the house that went of regularly that meant dad had to up and go immediately. Because work was so close, it seemed he was always there, and when a computer finally entered our home, when he was home, he was on it.
Later on in my childhood my mum got a job after being a stay at home mother for so many years. And she submerged herself into her work for 8 solid years. It seemed that she worked every day, even her days off. She got dad to help her design charts and programmes on the computer for her to do more work at home. When she was home, she talked about work, the people she worked with, the customers she dealt with, the staff she hired and fired, work, work, work. Eight.solid.years!!

And here we are, years down the track, and I ended up with a workaholic. He’s the father of my children, but ultimately, one of the big crunchers that ended our relationship was the fact that work ran every single facet of his life and in turn, our lives. If he managed to get home by finishing time (5pm), it was nothing unusual for him to still be taking phone calls until 9pm at night, sometimes later. More than once he took early morning phone calls from staff and clients as well. When he came home from work he had no time for his kids and even less time for me. Our weekends involved his work, his days off involved his work, even public holidays couldn’t keep him away from work. His physical health deteriorated, his stress levels sky rocketed and the family copped the sharp end of the proverbial stick. His conversation topics were always work related in some way and it was expected that everyone showed the same enthusiasm for his work and he did. Quite frankly, I couldn’t have cared less about his work if I had tried. And I guess that was the clincher. It built resentment from both sides and the rift grew to a gaping chasm until one day I’d had enough, and left. (I mean, it’s only one of the many reasons, but it was a big reason it all went kaput.)

But the end of relationships and the destruction of families is not the worst possible outcome for a workaholic. Quite literally, workaholism can be fatal. Workaholism is growing like a virus and all over the world is it being held responsible for thousands of deaths every year. It is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder and research shows that workaholism holds its foundations in childhood, with the person often growing up in a family with alcoholics, drug addiction and/or some other kind of family dysfunction such as verbal, physical or sexual abuse.

So why does this damaging addiction continue to troll through our society unnoticed? Because it has been labelled as the “respectable addiction”. Because hard work and working hard are considered virtues in our society and it has been said that the only way to be successful in life is to work harder than the next guy.

So how do we “cure” workaholism? It’s not like alcohol or drugs where you can put yourself into rehab, stop working and vow never to work again, is it? So, what then?

The basic idea is that you replace the work with something that you love equally as much, if not, more. Remove the things that feed your addiction, like your cell phone or computer, and keep them out of bounds outside of normal work hours. After all, the work will still be there upon your return on Monday morning. And then actively engage yourself in something that you really, truly LOVE.
Educating yourself in time management might also be helpful. Schedule your days and ensure you do not overload yourself so that it removes the need to work outside of normal work hours.
Try putting yourself and your relationships first. Ensure your physical health needs are met and that you provide yourself with adequate time to unwind and de-stress so that you can be present with your children and family.

Please don’t let this addiction slip by while your silently tolerate it. Please do not consider it virtuous of your spouse to never be present with you and your children because they are so deeply engaged in their work. Please do not let this addiction destroy your family. Because just like any other addiction, no matter how much of a “respectable addiction” it is, workaholism can and will destroy your life if you leave it to go unattended.

Abuser Privilege

Over the last few months, I have watched women, time and time again, have to justify themselves and validate their experience to people who think that they bought their abuse on themselves and that they chose to put up with it.
As someone who has been through domestic abuse, I’d like to compile an abuser checklist, written from the perspective of an abuser, to try and help people to understand that black and white is not our reality. There is a lot of grey matter when it comes to domestic abuse, and here is why.

As an abuser:

1.       When my victim/s try to voice their feelings about the way I treat them, I can easily minimise their feelings and put it down to them being “soft”.

2.       When my victim/s try to stand up for themselves, I can label them as mentally unstable so they think they are the one with the problem, not me.

3.       The patriarchal society we live in allows and supports my behaviour.

4.       Male privilege and patriarchy usually mean that my friends will laugh with me about my actions and further oppress my victim/s instead of pulling me up on my inappropriate behaviour.

5.       I do not have to worry about money because I earn it all so I have the ability to keep it all to myself.

6.       If I feel like I have lost control of my dominant position in my relationship, I have any number of abuse tactics at my disposal to regain my power and it is highly unlikely that anybody will stop me from doing so.

7.       I can validate my behaviour by comparing my relationships to others and my own experiences, pointing out how things are for others and stating that “I turned out fine” when discussing my own experiences.

8.       I can blame my behaviour on my victims and most people will back me up on that.

9.       I usually get everything I want because my victims fear the consequences of non-compliance.

10.   I can rape and sexually abuse my partner and get away with it because the law does not provide adequate protection for my victim and society supports my sense of entitlement.

11.   I can pass off my “crazy making” of my victim as genuine concern for their mental health.

12.   It may take years for me to get caught for my abuse because my victim is too scared to ask for help. Because of this, there is a high possibility that I may never pay for my actions.

13.   On the off chance that I am charged with an offense as an abuser, the price I will pay will pale in comparison to the damage I have inflicted.

14.   If my victim does manage to take out a protection order against me, it is highly unlikely that it will ever be fully enforced or that I will be charged for breaching it.

15.   If my victim gets the courage to ask for help, the likelihood of them being taken seriously in the first instance is slim.

16.   If I assault my partner and I am a male, the police are likely to sit around and “have a laugh” with me and turn into my “mates”.

17.   I have the gift of the gab and generally say the right thing, at the right time, to the right people to keep me out of trouble.

18.   If my victim has the courage to leave ne, I know they are emotionally weak so if I play my cards right I can usually win them back over.

19.   Denial is a powerful tool for me. If I deny something for long enough I can usually convince others, and even myself, that it did not happen.

20.   If I don’t want my victim to have a job, I can cause trouble at their work so that they will lose their job.

21.   If I tell her she is a bad mother and tell her that her kids will be taken off of her, then the chances are she will be too scared to leave me in case what I say is true.

22.   If I limit who she has contact with then it will be next to impossible for her to seek help.

23.   If I make fun of my victim in front of other people, they usually laugh too because they don’t have the courage to speak up, and this helps to keep my victims self-esteem in check.

24.   It usually only takes a “look” to get my victim back in line.

25.   I usually get away with crimes because I can make my victim back me up and take the fall for me. And if she “narks” on me, I can resort to denial and make it look like she is making things up.

 

The only person who chooses abuse is the abuser. And with each piece of damage that abusers inflict, they make it harder and harder for the victim to leave.

Intellectual Privilege

It’s been over a year now since I last wrote a blog post. There are many contributing reasons to that ranging from being too busy, being caught up in my own life and having nothing of value to really waffle on about.

The last year has been an amazing learning journey for me, for many reasons, and perhaps one day I will find the time to waffle about all of it in a blog. But for now I want to talk about something profound that has recently become clear to me on many levels lately. Privilege or you might prefer the terms, advantage or benefit. Due to my own course of study (Diploma in Human Development, current paper is Gender Development) and also because of a women’s empowerment programme I have joined called WAVE (Women Against Violence Education) privilege is something that has been made clear to me.

Now, I could talk about all the different facets of privilege that are out there such as male privilege, white privilege, heterosexual privilege, thin privilege, able-bodied privilege, Christian privilege, adult privilege and much more, but then all I would be doing is repeating what others have said. No, I want to talk about a kind of privilege that I have yet to see talked about. Intellectual privilege.

In recent times, I have had a lot to do with people who perhaps have not had the same opportunities as me in terms of education, have a learning disability such as dyslexia, or are not naturally intellectual people. All of these are ok and I want to stress that I am NOT of the opinion that any of these people are a deviation from normal, however, interacting with them has reminded me that my ride has been that much easier for me because I am an intellectual person. And I felt a need to remind myself, and hopefully others, of this privilege. So let’s crack into it.

 

As an intellectual person:

1.       I understand new terms and concepts easily.

2.       I often avoid the societally imposed embarrassment of having to ask for simplified explanations.

3.       If I do have to ask for explanations, I can articulate myself in such a way that ensures I still “look” intelligent to my peers and I can easily paraphrase a concept back to people using big words to show my understanding and further solidifying my intelligent status.

4.       I find it easy to intellectualise information for my own benefit.

5.       If people refuse to accept my views and opinions on a subject, I can put it down to their ignorance.

6.       When I speak, people pay attention and listen to me, unless I am a woman or person of colour, then I need to attract their attention first.

7.       At school, I got the most out of our education system and teachers paid me more attention.

8.       At school, I did not have a learning disability that encouraged teachers to label me, ignore me, punish me and therefore afford me less time and attention which in turn left me further behind my peers.

9.       Teachers publically awarded me for my high marks at school, boosting my self-esteem, and gave me a sense of superiority in my eyes, my parents’ eyes and my teachers’ eyes.

10.   I was not subjected to public humiliation when I scored low on a test or struggled to finish my homework.

11.   If I offer an answer to a question and I get it wrong, I can put this down to a new learning experience rather than my own lack of intelligence.

12.   When I need to explain my thoughts, feelings or emotions, I have a wider vocabulary that allows me to articulate myself clearly and more easily and people tend to take me seriously.

13.   In a group learning environment, I keep up with the teaching and group conversation easily without feeling confused or overwhelmed.

14.   I can seek new information on topics of interest to me with relative ease and I can also filter the new information easily.

15.   Reading and writing are “second nature” tasks and come easily to me.

16.   Spelling and grammar are also “second nature” to me and I rarely need to second guess myself about the spelling of a word or the grammatical structure of a sentence.

17.   I do not normally need to ask other people the meaning of words. If I do not know a word, generally, I am able to work out its meaning via the context it is used in.

18.   Reading a standard A4 sized document only takes me a matter of moments and I generally do not have any trouble understanding it which means people don’t stare at me about how long it takes me to read something because I can usually finish reading within a socially acceptable time.

19.   I am not subjected to social expectations and pressure to be able to read and understand documents.

20.   I do not have to worry about signing something that I do not understand because I am too embarrassed to ask for clarification.

21.   I can freely participate in group learning and not feel the need to sit quietly at the back of the room because I cannot keep up with my peers.

The path to discovery

It would be fair to say that I grew up in a pretty mainstream kind of a family, with a mainstream kind of a life. Mainstreamers tend to fit in, right, because you go with the flow, follow the crowd and take the paths of least resistance. And somehow, as a born and bred mainstreamer, I didn't fit in.

I've always struggled with friendships, probably because I took issue with the mistreatment of my peers. I remember right back in primary school, desperately trying to fit in, so I played "spy" for the two "in groups", passing information backward and forward between the two groups, pretending to be the exclusive friend to each group. I just wanted to be liked. I mean, what wasn't to like. I fitted the stereotypical "normal" child. White, middle-class female, in a country school where our cultural population was made up of two Maori families and two Chinese families, technically speaking, I shouldn't have been the outcast, but I was.
Primary, intermediate and highschool were no better. I didn't fit in there either. At highschool, I made my first real attempt to balk the trend of "mainstream" and I joined the Automotive class at school. I mainly joined because someone told me the teacher was sexist and I had a point to prove. This decision in itself spelled the end of any view anyone might of had of me as "normal". Joining this male dominated class had me lablled squarely as the school lesbian and I was quickly segregated from any group. Even the "out group" didn't want me. I was a loner.

My first job, I was alienated because my mother was my boss. My second, third and fourth jobs, I was alienated because I was the only female. My third job was probably the worst because not only was I the only female, I was also the 2IC. A woman, in a man's world...in charge. Yeah, that went down like a cup of cold sick.

Through my early twenties, I intentionally sought to stand out. I had flourescent pink hair, I wore corsets (on the outside), biker boots, trench coats, I had a "staunch" dog and I dated the bassist from one of the local bands who had long hair and wore makeup. Crowds literally parted like the Red Sea did for Moses when we entered a bar. And in that time, I felt empowered by that. Little did I know it was false empowerment, I was hiding behind a look, a mask, a facade, trying to intimidate my way to being liked.

Roll forward to 2009 where I gave birth to my first child. A son. I balked the trend as a mother as well. I chose a natural, pain relief free birth, I chose not to vaccinate my child, I breastfed, used cloth nappies and followed an attachment parenting philosophy. In a town like Tokoroa, it was fair to say I had secured my spot in the minority group.
Then in 2011, I gave birth to my second child. A daughter. In my search for more support in my choices as a parent, I happened upon a Facebook page which would ultimately (and very messily) lead me to become apart of a wonderful group of like minded people. Critical thinkers who weren't afraid to stand out from the crowd and be "different". Finally I had a home.

My journey over the last 19 months since my daughters birth has been a dumpy, scary, yet insightful ride. I've had my eyes opened to the many areas of my life that have been "wrong" to me for my entire life but I've never been able to label it or know how to change it.
Through my own study (Diploma in Human Development) and the amazing group learning that happens with my like minded friends, I have now reached a place in my life where I feel I can share my story in the hopes of helping others to understand and right the wrongs in their life.

This blog will be a jumbled account of many, many different topics. I'll talk about whatever happens to come to mind. And somtimes I won't say anything at all. There is no specific target topic for me to cover other than for me to say this: