Competitiveness as a stable personality trait

I grew up a figure skater.  Like most athletes, I was competing before I know what being competitive meant.  I don't remember having a need to win back then - I just remember that I was supposed to win.  I took it seriously enough - up at 4am to skate before school and then back to the rink after school.  I spent a few summers around the time I was in 9th and 10th grade (I don't remember things based on my age - I just remember time periods) living with a strange family so that I could train in Barrie Ont (there is a very good skating school there).  The first summer was great - the family was a non-skating family.  The women was recently divorced and lived with her two children - the girl was quite a bit younger the the boy was around my age.  I got along well with both of them (I've always been good with boys - likely because I have an older brother...  and girls don't bother me, even though my relationship with my sister is often strained).  The women would come and watch me skate once in a while - I didn't appreciate it as much then as I do now from retrospect.  I saw here when I was in Barrie the following year - she had a different skater living with her that summer - she told me that we looked a lot alike on the ice, that I skated very much like the new girl.  The new girl was Jennifer Robinson - about a year or so before she became "Jennifer Robinson".

The next summer was a disaster.  I was placed with a different family - one with a girl my age who was also a skater - training with me.  That part was great.  The mom was also recently divorced.  The girl was really lost and I didn't really know how to handle it.  She enjoyed staying out late (we all do at that age)...  but, she was in the habit of trying to make friends through sex.  Especially at that time in my life, I had huge hang-ups around sex - and for very good reason (which will come out at some point).  Suffice to say that I wanted nothing to do with it - and, the knowledge that I would have to (at some point in my life) engage in it...  frustrated and scared me.  With her engaging in it just to be friends with these guys (who were clearly using her for it) made me scared and disgusted.  We got along very well - even though I made it clear that I did not think that she was behaving very well.  I hated skating that summer.  I cried every night...  and on week ends, when I went home, I cried every Sunday.  I didn't tell anyone that I hated it.  I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to go to Barrie and train...  but I hated everything about being in Barrie.

I quite skating not too many years after that.  Essentially it came down to this...  Mom said - everyone says you have to potential to do this... but, I need to hear from you that you're going to do this.  Either you need to decide that you're going to the Olympics or you need to quit now.

I couldn't promise that I'd make it to the Olympics - and I couldn't deal with what the financial strain was doing to the family (It was actually my Dad's drinking that was wrecking the family, but may be it was the finances that was making him drink?) - so I quit.  I quit.  Cold turkey.  And, I never - ever - skated again.  For years.  Now my skates are too small (the leather has shrunk) and I've moved on....  with some  regret (not much though - because I know that were I was mentally was not where I needed to be to do what needed to be done).

I spent the rest of high school getting high and drunk.  The next few years saw no competitive urges at all...  but, there was certainly a restless spirit in me - there was more to life than what I was living.

Then I went to University...  as a mature student (because god knows I'd never have gotten in with my high school grades!).