Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Hi everyone, I’m Jill and I’m a shopaholic. It’s been 13 days since my last shop.
Ah I can hear you snickering now. I know, I know – you don’t believe in such a thing as someone who shops too much. You probably think having a compulsion to shop is like being addicted to chocolate, or watching footy, or sex. Couldn’t possibly be true and even if it was, what’s the harm?
And my answer, in that uniquely Australian vernacular, is “heaps” (and as a sidebar, where else in the world is “heaps” a legitimate unit of measurement?).
I can tell you first hand that having a compulsion to shop, and shop, and shop, can seem harmless enough, but it can wreak real havoc. Havoc not only on the obvious levels, like the financial, but on deeper levels including relationships (which are often indirectly harmed by too much shopping – not a lot of energy left for one’s partner if all one really thinks about is that cute little pair of patent red heels on sale), one’s emotional life (which can become impoverished when all you want to do is shop and shop and shop, and when you’re not shopping, you’re thinking about shopping) and the big one of self-worth (many women who shop too much, and I’ve met a lot since I started on my own journey of healing, suffer with almost permanent self-loathing of a mild or lethal variety).
One of the reasons so many people don’t believe in, or at least discount the impact of, overshopping is because it looks good. There’s all those gorgeous bags with even more gorgeous contents. How could anything that cute be bad for you?
But compulsive overshopping is as just as ugly as any other unhealthy or addictive behaviour like gambling to excess, binge drinking, drug abuse. None of those behaviours, done to excess, is pretty. You only need one walking picture of drunken misery to realise how horrible drinking when done to excess is.
Drink too much and you could end up throwing up on the footpath or in a garden bed (or one terrible story I heard, and I swear this isn’t some ‘friend’ story dressed up as one of my own examples of extraordinarily bad behaviour from my misspent youth in a Queensland mining town, of throwing up into your date’s motorcycle helmet).
Not pretty.
But shopping looks good. It’s an ‘attractive’ habit, and there’s very little vomiting involved, usually. Those who indulge in it, including those who over-indulge in it, are often a weensy bit interested in, if not obsessed by, appearance-related activities and things. And they often look good themselves.
But the internal experience of feeling unable to control your spending habits, and feeling compelled to buy more, and more, and more, bears a remarkable resemblance to the internal experience of over drinking, or abusing drugs, or unhealthy gambling.
My journey back from unhealthy shopping started in 2009 when I took a year without clothes shopping. Not a big deal for many people (but then again, a year without alcohol, or watching footy, or chocolate wouldn’t be difficult for me and that would be pure living torture for some) – but a life changing experience for me. I now shop consciously, and only when I choose to shop. It’s liberating, and a dramatic change in how I used to consume (which could broadly be described as impulsive, erratic and rapid).
I’m not asking you to suddenly have a deep and abiding compassion for those of us who have overshopped, or are still overshopping. But I would ask you to at least please stop snickering.
Jill Chivers is an advocate for conscious shopping and helps women who shop too much to stop, or at least cut down. She has a fascination with style and identity and the significance of clothing in our lives. Among other things, she worries about the problems of fast fashion and the unreal role models presented on reality television.Learn more at www.shopyourwardrobe.com