Diagnosed for workaholism

I've suspected that I suffer from workaholism for a while now. The first sign of it was maybe as early as middle school, where after a month of summer, I was ready to go back to school. I definitely complained about homework as much as anybody else, but I enjoyed the classes and the work. And especially reading.

Then in high school, I voluntarily took early bird classes every year. These classes started at 7:15 (versus 8:15 for mandatory classes) and they were science classes. I chose to wake up early to think! At 5:45 AM! After school, I did math for fun with the math team. Can you say nerd? And then I decided that wasn't enough, so I took summer school classes, too! My senior year of high school, I never got senioritis. In fact, that year my grades were the highest they'd ever been in high school. I was always ready to tackle one project or another - usually art, sometimes creative writing, and I would pull up science discussions on the Internet instead of Hulu or Netflix. I almost never watched TV. I decided to take the hardest courses at the risk of sacrificing my GPA at times, so that they would keep my interest.

In college, I haven't learned my lesson. I plan to use all those AP credits to graduate a year early, only to go on to grad school, because I evidently have not had enough of this. The last two weeks or so I have felt very unmotivated, and you may think that completely refutes any argument for workaholism, but no. It supports it! See, while I have been unmotivated and lazy, I have felt very stressed, lackluster, and cranky. The moment I started working again, however, I felt so much better. So much like myself again.

So the conclusion is - I have chronic workaholism. No matter how lazy I might feel, doing feels better than not doing. Once I stop, withdrawal kicks in, and I stress out. And the more I put things off, the more stressed I feel, and the harder it is to get back into the flow of things. But once I start feeding my addiction again, it's like a sigh of relief.

Now back to work :)