Obsessive Reading: Even the Soundest Thing Can Go Wild!

It can become an addiction and an escape from reality

When I was seven years old, we moved back to Germany after three years of living in Croatia, then Yugoslavia. We came back for my second year of primary school. My German was not the best. Actually, I had forgotten it completely.

However, we lived in a district with a lovely children’s and youth library. My friend Michi took me there, and from then on, I got hooked!

The children’s library was right on my way to school, and at least once or twice a week, I stopped by to return a stack of books I had read. I never failed to borrow a new one.

Once I understood the concept, I felt like the young Lady of The Books, and the library was my castle!

All the books were mine to read! I took good care of them, and to show that I cared meant to read them all!

With my new self-imposed reading task, the German language came back to me quickly and easily. My improved language skills came along with a lot of benefits. I could get to know the other kids and play with them. I caught up in school, which was very important to me.

Beforehand, in Yugoslavia, I was among the best students in the class, and back in Germany, I did not understand a word. I felt like an alien and rejected by everybody in the beginning. But that is another essay to write.

However, the most significant collateral benefit from my reading was: my self-esteem rose.

The flushing shame of not understanding the spoken word and being condemned to silence and rejection calmed down, and my fear of participating in school or other activities decreased.

I liked reading more than anything else

It stayed that way for many years until I discovered the theatre. I read or acted in plays. I drew and sketched either on my own or with my arts-crew. I became curious about boys. I learned to design and model silver jewelry. I played in a band and traveled around Europe and the world.

I always carried a couple of good books with me during that time because I had no time to waste doing nothing.

While finishing the dental medicine degree at a university in my early twenties, I dropped all my sidekick-pleasures except the joy of reading.

I returned to my roots of pleasure, to reading alone.

The dark side of obsessive reading

There was a time, maybe for two years in my mid-twenties, when I read two to three books a week. Not long before, I had started to work as a dentist in a dental clinic.

No university degree does prepare you for the responsibility of being a doctor who has to operate with razor-sharp instruments on the living human being, with their eyes full of horror in the distance of 30 centimeters staring at you.

All of the tension, fear, pain, and anxiety a patient brings into the dental office is something every young dentist needs to adjust to.

Unfortunately, all we knew was how to restore, remove, or heal teeth. No one ever said anything about the person attached to the tooth we had to treat!

We had no communication training — how to talk to people with dental phobia, people in pain, or with horrible dental experiences earlier in their lives.

The hardest thing for me was to deal with people who refused the treatment, although I, as a professional, knew that they would suffer triple later. And that is just the tip of the iceberg!

Read…read…read…read…read…read…

My cure was inner emigration, and my elixir were books! I dived into obsessive-reading. I started the next book the minute I closed the cover of the one I had just finished. It was like eating words, and I couldn’t get enough.

It was an addiction and an escape.

I was reading outrageously brilliant, inspiring, virtuously written books! Numerous excellent texts — high, flat, funny, sad, wise, stupid, cheerful, and boring stories! My greed for reading knew no pardon! And yet, of all the abundance and art, only a vague memory remained.

I never allowed my poor brain to process what I had read. I did not give it time to digest because the next book was already in my hands, ready to be swallowed.

No more obsessive reading!

Then from somewhere came Italo Calvino’s book “The Baron in the Trees.”

I devoured the book! I was amazed, reading with my eyes wide open. What a story! What a tale, what a parable, what a report!

After “The Baron in the Trees,” I was done with addictive reading. But the reading break lasted only a little while. Two weeks, to be exact. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t read anymore. It felt like there was nothing left for me to read.

Then I started reading again. Yes, at that time, I read too many books in a short time, again. But it never became as obsessive as before “The Baron in the Trees.”

Non-fiction and professional literature

Later, there came times when I read nothing but professional journals and dental books.

I learned that reading technical books diminishes one’s ability to enjoy fiction: At that stage, reading novels seemed like a waste of time where I could also learn something applicable.

I admit that I lost the fun and the ability to concentrate on reading a complex novel.

What madness!

To Conclude

Even the most beautiful, innocent activities can cloud your mind. They can become obsessions, addictions, and escapes.

What I want to convey to you is that a balance is necessary for whatever you do. I am glad to have found my way back to pleasure reading.

Thank you for reading!

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by Harry Male´s article Next Year, I’ll Read Slowly. In his article, Harry describes that this year, he has read 78 books so far and that he still has not completed his reading list. He names a couple of books he still aims to read. You may click on the link and read his story too.