Everyone who knows me is aware that I'm an avid shopper. I take after my mother in that I genuinely enjoy taking a trip to the mall or going downtown with friends or family. Most of the time, I purchase items that I need, but there are moments when I throw caution to the wind and splurge on what I think I need when it's clearly just something I want. It doesn't help that I have a taste for expensive products (which is probably why I worship establishments such as H&M and Forever 21) and I only help these "cult brands" thrive stronger by the day. Yet if you asked close friends and family members about my approach to shopping right this minute, they would say that I have improved by a lot.
Whenever I'm interested in something, it sticks with me for an unprecedented amount of time. So when I delved into the world of fashion during high school, the craving for shopping hit me full force. Something about walking around a store and buying one, two or more pretty things (jewelry, clothing, take your pick) for no concrete reason had me relax from the stresses in life. I had the sudden urge to stay on top of the trends and try to find the style that defined me as me. (Rest assured, I found it during senior year of high school and first-year of college.) I soon became dependent on the act and treated it like a ritual, giving little to no thought on the value of money. I didn't know what I was doing wrong and how to fix it until I made one too many purchases that were out of my budget, all in a single shopping frenzy. I didn't hear the end of it from my parents until weeks later.
At that point, I realized that I was the quintessential victim of retail therapy, which, as Kit Yarrow wrote for Time back in 2013, is "the act of shopping and spending to improve one's mood." Fashion and shopping became my way of easing the weight off of my shoulders and living a little. And I'll admit that buying something nice to wear really does improve your mood; the thought of having a new glittery necklace to adorn or a new pair of shoes to slip on made me feel more confident in my appearance and, in turn, more confident about myself in general. But there's a point in which therapy turns into an addiction. This article from the Huffington Post explains that if you experience anxiety due to "shopping withdrawal," you surely have a problem. And yes, I was at that point...
Going to college has helped me curb my habits because, for the most part, I'm no longer under the financial support of my parents for menial, everyday happenings. The first semester of first-year was tough, though; being in a completely different environment spontaneously meant that I was free to buy something almost every week. (I still had no impulse control whatsoever.) Nowadays, though, it has gotten a lot less frequent; I buy things on a whim once in a while, but nothing too extreme. Being on my own has made a big difference.
However, there's online shopping... But that deserves its own story.
All photos are from Pinterest.
