Only a new order in the online cart makes her feel better
It comforts, adds energy, and puts you in a good mood. Then the stuff clutters the wardrobe, sticks out of a drawer that doesn’t close, and stands unread on the shelf. And the sense of guilt is growing.
I already know that we will talk about shopping.
And shopaholism.
Many people define themselves as shopaholics, because they sometimes experience some sales frenzy, some uncontrolled spending of a significant portion of their salary on something completely unnecessary, but shopaholism is an addiction that affects less than 5 percent of the population. Most of us hardly deal with shopaholism as an addiction, but there is indeed such a thing as emotional regulation with pleasures that are short-lived, that don’t really calm us down in the long run, and just serve as a sticking plaster for a deeper wound: they give little, only bring relief for the time being. This is often true about shopping, and its task in the pandemic has been and still is to make your day. We have been trying to deal with stress in this, as a psychologist, I will put it bluntly, weak, superficial way, instead of looking for constructive solutions. It’s like eating ice cream. It temporarily gives us pleasure, distracts us from problems, but it is not something that will permanently improve our well-being.
But that’s not shopaholism yet?
Shopaholism is a compulsive, reckless, dysfunctional behaviour. Of course, a person who becomes addicted to shopping starts out like most of us: with improving their mood with shopping. Sometimes we hear: “buy yourself something when you have a bad day”, “if you argued with your friend, a visit to a shop will make your day”, “I have to make up for this morning, I will buy more books”. But when that turns out to be the only way to be satisfied, the only way to be relieved, something bad is starting to happen. In shopaholism, shopping becomes the only form of achieving peace. When you work to spend on purchases. You have no other pleasures, nothing else makes you happy. Usually, people addicted to shopping are well aware that they are in a snare, they promise themselves: “OK, this is the last dress, the last perfume, the last book”. A moment passes, it may be half a day, and we are hit by the stress of everyday life and attempt to find a remedy for it, i.e. shopping. And the circle closes, everything starts anew.
Meaning what, exactly?
It can be compulsive spending of money that was set aside for a trip, spending money for a trip for your child, spending money that was supposed to be a wedding gift for your sister, it also means spending money saved for your own needs, e.g. for an orthodontic appliance. You spend money which absolutely should not be withdrawn from the account.
And this person is unable to stop.
The impulse to go shopping, this hunger for shopping drowns common sense so much that, despite our attempts, we are unable to stop for a long time, to keep control over it. A shopaholic knows that they enter a shopping mall unnecessarily, but the need to reduce unbearable tension is much stronger. When people struggling with shopaholism come to my office, they often say: you know, when I read that I should go for a walk with my dog or go to exercise, I am not interested in that. I’m only interested in going to a shop and buying something for myself. This is the hormone surge that makes me feel satisfied.
Shopaholism is an addiction very close to gambling. The amounts people can spend on things are the same as in gambling – it can be hundreds of thousands of zlotys, but please note that the two phenomena are viewed completely differently. Socially, shopaholism is treated lightly, with a pinch of salt, nobody makes a drama out of it, and nobody feels sorry for people with shopaholism. They are more likely to be taunted.
Why?
Because according to research, 90 percent of shopaholics are women, and what is feminine is, unfortunately, often more neglected, disregarded and depreciated. But honestly, I think these statistics are a bit fake – in my opinion, it is because men do not admit to being shopaholics.
Are they ashamed?
Sometimes they are ashamed and sometimes they do not realise that they are in a snare. They say: I am a collector, I collect nice watches. But when all the family savings have been spent on these watches, then something is wrong. Sometimes collecting is an addiction to buying.
Shopaholism is treated more like a whim, it is stereotypically believed that it is a whim of rich women, inhabitants of big cities, who are lonely, single, and have nothing to do, so they spend money. The truth is, however, that shopaholism can also apply to an elderly woman who spends the entire pension on gifts for her grandson, or a 15-year-old girl from a small town who has no money at all and gains it in all possible ways to spend it. Poor people may also be addicted to shopping, addicted to taking payday loans, credits and incurring debts. 65-year-olds who have gigantic debts in shadow banks, are afraid of the consequences, the bailiff knocking on their doors, appear in my office more often than wealthy 30-year-olds. These are people who come to me with thoughts of resignation and depression.
At what point do these people visit your office?
There is a certain percentage of people who see for themselves that something is going wrong, that they have become obsessed with buying. However, due to the fact that shopaholism is trivialised and even socially rewarded – because a person who has a lot of things is often praised – for great style, for clothes, for being up to date with trends, having an up-to-date library of books – thanks to this obsessiveness they feel more valuable, more meaningful, which adds importance to them, and in their opinion raises their value and social position. We live in a culture in which we are prone to judgement. There is always talk about what someone looks like. A female expert appears on television and we hear: “what a nice T-shirt”, although she says substantive things. We are immersed in judgement, which is why people with shopaholism have a hard time giving it up.
Many people live in the Instagram community, where to have means to be, where young girls and young boys want to stand out and belong to the reference group.
A person who comes to the office must be aware that he or she will have to give up being in the forefront of people who, say, are ahead of the trends or are always on top in possession of things. If someone has built an image of his or her “I” on such values, this resignation is extremely difficult. Because giving up on buying so much means consenting to a slightly different functioning in society.
Rarely do people come by themselves and say: I have to work on myself, please help me out of shopaholism. Usually they are in a tight corner: either this person has gigantic debts and this is killing them, or their marriage or relationship collapses, the other party says: do something about it.
In my office, there are patients who initially talk about other problems – quarrels in marriage, low self-esteem, depression, thoughts of resignation. And only in the course of an in-depth interview it turns out that compulsive buying is the core of the problem. Just buying, because often when a courier brings a parcel, a shopaholic does not even open it, does not remove the tag. I’ve heard stories of people who turned their bedrooms into warehouses. Where the unpacked boxes were stacked on top of each other. Because parcels were delivered one after another. Online shopping is definitely easier. Eight years ago, when I was writing a book on shopaholism, we heard that a credit card is a threat, is the greatest evil, because we don’t see cash when we pay. That it deprives you of the opportunity to rethink a given purchase several times. Because when I have to take money out of my wallet, then I see how many of these banknotes are really gone. Today you can make purchases almost with your eyes closed, just by clicking on the icons on the smartphone. This makes us unaware of what is happening on our account. There is something else that has arisen now, that is the biggest bane of the greatest shopaholism: a lot of companies do the so-called drops, that is, limited purchases, e.g. a few items. This puts pressure, especially on people who have to buy to maintain their status, their self-esteem.
And then online marketing has come.
It’s very oppressive. For example, we have ads that track us, when a product actually follows us. Television or newspapers did not manipulate us like the Internet does. We do not realise that so many products, services or even our needs are imposed on us. Often people do not realise that displaying one product many times makes us crave it. Be it a kettle, shoes or a travel backpack. Someone once asked me if I thought shopaholism had stopped in the pandemic. On the contrary, from what I can see, it even grew a little – research also confirms this. The person who needs to de-stress has to do the shopping here and now, and he or she does not think about what they will do if they lose their job and will not have any money in a moment. They feel a strong tension at the moment and need to ease it with shopping.
And then, as in any addiction, the initial euphoria turns into guilt, self-anger, self-discouragement, and fatigue. It is frustrating, these thoughts generate a lot of bad emotions, there is a need to do something about these emotions, so again – I have to relieve myself. It is very difficult to break this way of thinking to show that person that you can live differently. That it’s actually shopping that makes them depressed and frustrated.
But it’s impossible to live completely without shopping.
That’s why getting out of shopaholism is difficult. Because you have to learn to buy in a controlled manner, that is, go to that shop, even for bread, and not buy anything extra. Women tell me about their experiences very often. One of them was in a vacation spot where she only had one swimsuit shop. She bought all the swimsuits.
Another one, when she had nowhere else left, shopped at a pharmacy. And yet another one, a non-believer, even anti-clerical, had a break during some meeting in Sandomierz and spent a lot of money in a devotional shop: “I bought an album about sister Faustina (just out of curiosity), a picture in a frame – I decided that I would take the picture out and leave the frame”. This is shopaholism, a buying frenzy that is not common sense. For a person in an active phase of addiction, each shop is a potential threat, just like a casino is for a gambling addict. A kiosk will be a hazard, a cigar shop will pose a threat to a non-smoker, and so on.
I know a case of a family who collected money for a car, they trusted each other completely, they were together for many years, and they had a joint savings account. She thought they had 150,000 zlotys. One day she checked the account and almost had a heart attack because a lot of the money was gone. She was devastated. The partner admitted that all that money was hanging in the closet. He had told her earlier that the suit cost 320 zlotys and it actually cost 13,000 zlotys. She did not know men’s exclusive brands and was not aware what was going on for months.
It is important that we emphasise that not every wasteful person struggles with shopaholism. In fact, as a rule, people set limits, control their expenses, and do not spend excessively like addicts. And when someone spends a lot, it only happens once in a while. Mostly, even if we feel guilty about spending too much, we can refrain from buying next month. Shopping is not our obsession. We are not sad because we did not make any purchases. For people with shopaholism, the compulsion to buy is tiring, unbearable. The person begins to isolate themselves, they feel exhausted with their insistent compulsion to buy and then make up lies about where and why did they get so much stuff. It’s a straight way to depression.
Where can shopping addicts seek help?
In the offices of addiction therapists and psychotherapists. In treatment, it is important to be aware that there will be ups and downs, that there will be crises. It is often important to endure therapy when the initial enthusiasm wears off – this is the most difficult task. People who are addicted to shopping often have low self-esteem, sometimes they want to make up for something with these purchases, increase their self-esteem. So it’s also work on these people’s self-esteem.
I am glad that there has been a lot of talk lately about minimalism, slow fashion, I am glad that stars show up in the same dress several times – it makes our consumer awareness change. These trends make people reflect on and think what they buy.
Of course, shopping, new clothes, shoes, and equipment put people in a temporary good mood. This is not something disturbing. But the question is how often this need arises and whether our life turns for the worse because of these behaviours. The key is whether we can keep the contract with ourselves: if we decide not to spend any more, but then break the contract – something may be wrong.
Author: Monika Tutak-Goll
Photo: pexels.com
The text was published on wysokie obcasy.pl on 18 September 2021
