Oops. And some thoughts.

This may be long and slightly disjointed. Apologies.

So, since the last time I posted, things have changed, and yet they haven't. I got a full-time job in February, though I'm still working one day a week in retail. I will say that having that employment and income has helped with some of the anxiety that made me want to shop in the first place, and I've experienced fewer identifiable "gotta buy something now!" moments despite a lot of shit going on in my personal life (my dad has cancer, boyfriend long-distance and unemployed...)

However, it's also made it easier to justify/wave away purchases, because I can afford it now, right? Or I have an occasion to shop--I need (season)-friendly business casual, or I need new containers for lunch, or I really should take some time for myself and x hobby/book/game...you see where this is going. I'm definitely shopping less out of anxiety (good!), and more out of boredom. My job is kind of boring and my workload is feast or famine, a lot of the time. (Well, maybe there's some underlying anxiety there, but the primary feeling is bored.) I also have a perfectionist streak, so I feel like I'm looking for the perfect plant pot or pair of green cargo pants. I think the shopping and looking for the perfect thing kind of takes the place of doing academic research (my "past life") , and so far I haven't found anything else to scratch that itch. Maybe gardening. And yes, there is a bit of shopping for fantasy me. You know, the me that cooks and exercises and dresses nicely most of the time and somehow has plenty of time for other hobbies. Combine that with ADHD -related issues of impulse control, and some level of dissatisfaction with my current situation, and... (And let's not talk about take-out/DoorDash. While I'll let the "I forgot my lunch and if I don't eat I will get a migraine and lose the rest of my day" slide, there's a lot of "too tired/lazy to cook" in there too, which is unfortunate because I actually enjoy cooking.)

I've been doing some thinking about why I buy what I buy. Other than hobby items (art supplies, yarn/knitting needles, plants+supplies...and I'll get to those later), the weak spots are video games (and merch), clothes, stationery, tea, scented lotion, indie perfume, and nail polish. Now that I think about it, a lot of these are things my mom thought were frivolous or unnecessary. My mom has some weird ideas about gender roles. When I was growing up, I'd be asked "why can't you be more like a girl?" but when I did start showing interest in "girly" things like clothes or makeup (dipped my toe in and took it right back out, but still), she freaked out, because clearly only shallow people put effort into these things. My mom also liked to make a big deal about how nothing I owned was actually mine because she bought it with her money, and when I bought it with my own money it could actually be mine. So I think on some level, 8-year-old me went all "MINE" once I left home and went nuts. (And yes, my family appears to use shopping on one level or another to cope with stressful patches. It just wasn't a huge issue because they made good salaries.)

​

I am working on it. I'm going through my clothes and shoes and culling stuff and seeing exactly how much of it I don't wear. Sometimes it's "Oh, I forgot I had that!" and it gets put into rotation. And sometimes it's "why the heck did I buy that?" (I'll let you guess which is more frequent.) It's eye-opening, to say the least, to see exactly how much clothing I have. I'm trying to be a bit more environmentally conscious about my purchases and not buy stuff I don't need. Still a work in progress, but I'm finding it easier to not shop with that in mind rather than just "don't shop". I realize it's kind of a band-aid solution because it avoids the issues that cause me to shop in the first place, but it reduces my spending. I'm also trying to spend less time on the internet and actually...engage in my hobbies. Knit while watching a couple episodes of something or a movie. Read a book, even if only a few pages at a time. Play video games for part of an evening, although I'm trying to be careful with that because that's its own rabbit hole. Mom and I are talking about a yoga or art class to go to, and I'm looking into a gym membership. It's slow going, and there are lapses, but it is getting better.

Submitted July 20, 2019 at 06:29AM by rynzle9 https://ift.tt/2Z0F4fv