Mikayla Nogueira: I Have an Unhealthy Addiction to Work

Mikayla Nogueira is a beauty influencer and makeup artist. For PS’s Radical Honesty issue, she discusses her work addiction. Read more radically honest stories here.

I blew up overnight with the first video I posted. As someone with a workaholic mindset, I was like, “My dream is in my hands. If I want this to become a reality, I need to work my ass off to make that happen.” So the next day, immediately, I started posting five videos a day, every single day.

Four years later, I still post three to five times a day, every single day. It’s hard to not feel guilty taking breaks, because of how privileged and blessed I am to even have this career. You feel like you don’t deserve to take a day off.

My parents are both entrepreneurs and the hardest-working people I know, and I really got a front-row seat to the value of hard work. The minute I turned 16, I started working at a shoe store. I continued getting job after job — at a smoothie place, Target, Ulta. There was a point when I was doing all of these jobs at the same time because I felt I had to work as much as I possibly could. I became addicted to the idea of work and doing well at everything I did.

I recently learned I have OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) — not to be confused with OCD. It’s this obsession over control, perfection, and ultimately an obsession with work. Everything I do is planned down to the minute, and if I go off of that plan, I spiral. If I’m not careful, it can really negatively affect me mentally and bleed into family, friends, and work.

For example, the week of my wedding, I was pumping out content and documenting everything about my life. I felt like I needed to shoot everything and couldn’t enjoy being 100 percent present. After the wedding, my family and my husband eventually intervened and called me out. My family was questioning me like, “Are you doing this for views, or are you doing it for you?” They were like, “This is not working. You’re driving yourself into the ground.” I wasn’t paying any attention to Cody or giving him the time of day. That’s when I started recognizing the workaholic in me.

Influencing is a unique job. You’re spending hours editing, recording, engaging in comment sections, and more. It’s hard to be present sometimes. I have to always think about how I have this intense amount of privilege and how out of reach this career really is. But because of that, if I’m not working, I feel like I’m taking advantage of it. I realized I have to give myself grace.

Once a year now, I force myself to take one week off and not film or post. I can’t tell you how difficult that is for me. I’m thinking about working the whole time. I’m thinking about how if I take that week off, I’m gonna be a failure or no one’s going to like me when I get back. It’s a mental addiction.

This is something that affects me every day. But as an influencer, some people are like, “Shut up.” One time, I complained online in a moment of exhaustion, which led to me being “canceled.” There were memes going around that quoted me: “Try being an influencer for a day” and “I just got off work and it’s 5:19.” That can be difficult to see and hear knowing what I go through behind the scenes. Work addiction will take its toll at any job. I’ve worked plenty of “regular” jobs that have affected my addiction in the same way. When I worked at that smoothie place, if that smoothie wasn’t the best you’ve ever tasted, I was losing my mind.

We’re conditioned to believe that if you’re not overworking, you’re not doing enough. Being addicted to work is almost normalized in the US, and for many, they’re given no choice. It’s part of a system that we’ve grown up in, that we’re accustomed to, and that we’re told has to be that way. There’s more to humans than just working. I think we often forget or are forced to ignore that. There are so many people working jobs that don’t fulfill them and just add to their stress, on top of the pressures to work and make money to live and reach their goals. It’s not fair.

I think if we talked about mental health more in general, there would be so much more understanding of each other. We have so much more in common with each other than we realize, even if we are perfect strangers. If we can relate on things like mental health and work addiction, it can help ground us and make us feel less alone.

Being a workaholic is so ingrained in me that I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon. But what I would say is I’m lucky and so happy to be doing something I love. If you are able to, find your passion — what makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. And if it’s something that you can turn into a career, do it, and it will make that pressure feel a little less like a burden.

Jump back to the Radically Honest issue.

Yerin Kim is the features editor at POPSUGAR, where she helps shape the vision for special features and packages across the network. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, she has over five years of experience in the pop culture and women’s lifestyle spaces. She’s passionate about spreading cultural sensitivity through the lenses of lifestyle, entertainment, and style.