It is easy to see that we make purchases not only out of necessity: this is how we have fun, spend time, relieve stress. But sometimes we leave all our money in stores and even get into debt. Why?
They have long ceased to be just a place of sale. Shopping centers, shimmering with lights all year round like a Christmas tree, opening huge doors for us (especially wide during winter sales), unite boutiques and restaurants, farmers’ markets and gyms, playgrounds and cinemas under one roof. We go there to have fun, relax, “to see people and show ourselves” and … for shopping too.
beyond measure
“I can’t imagine what I would do without shopping centers,” admits 27-year-old Arina, an otolaryngologist. – After a hard day’s work, I sometimes spend there for an hour and a half, go from one gallery to another. I rest, I come to my senses, I know that everyone here is glad to see me, or at least polite. What about shopping? “Of course, I buy not only what I need. Gloves to please myself, but sometimes I’m tempted by a fashionable bag or coat. Arina does not see the problem: “I earn this money, so why should I not let it go!”
Indeed, friendly sellers make us feel like the center of attention, and the amount spent is not such a big price to pay for raised self-esteem. But agreeing with this, the author of the training “Relationships with money”, psychodramatherapist Stanislav Efremov, nevertheless suggests looking for other sources of a good relationship: meetings with friends, massage, spa. “After all, you will not give another the same gift every time? Let your gifts to yourself be varied! And it will help not to fall into dependence on some type of behavior.
Shopping becomes a way to fill the inner void
35-year-old Larissa, the administrator of the sports center, did not seem to succeed: “I am an obsessed shopper! she says about herself. “I regularly get into debt, and then I mostly give away all these vases, sets, dresses or just throw them away.” But Larisa cannot stop.
In everyday life, we call this phenomenon shopaholism, but there is also a clinical term – oniomania. “This is a compulsive buying of things without an objective need,” explains psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist Tatyana Poddubnaya. Oniomania is like other addictions. The one who suffers from it, unable to control his own actions, without purchases falls into apathy, and starting to spend, he can no longer slow down.
But between the joy of acquiring beautiful things and obsessive behavior, there is no impassable boundary, but there is a certain continuum, during which joy decreases and tension increases. Not only with the buyer, but also in his family.
“I’m reserved about my wardrobe, but books are my passion,” admits Viktor, 48, an entrepreneur. – The wife is angry: why did you bring the books again, there is nowhere to put them! And I can’t resist. I especially like encyclopedias and reference books on geography and economics. Heavy, they smell like a fresh seal … My wife is right, we are unlikely to read them. It’s hard to explain. Maybe I didn’t have enough books when I was a kid.”
But the therapist puts forward another suggestion: “It seems to me that Victor lacks personal space, and in such a peculiar way he wins it back.”
Filling the void
Shopping for some of us becomes a way to fill the inner emptiness that appears due to a lack of parental attention and warmth.
“In such conditions, the child does not receive the experience of inner fulfillment and grows up with a sense of the meaninglessness of himself and life,” says Tatyana Poddubnaya. – One of the tasks of the psyche is to separate from the mother and build your own physical and emotional “I”. At the same time, the child needs to receive emotional and logical communication from the mother (he understands why he is being punished or praised, what the mother wants and what he himself): then he will have contact with his own emotions and a sense of his own boundaries.
If their interaction is formal, the mother fulfills the social requirements “to feed, clothe, teach”, and the woman can be caring, but her emotional sphere is blocked or undeveloped, then the child does not build contact with his own personality and does not feel “alive”. Moreover, children tend to blame themselves for the negative attitude of adults, therefore, in the conditions of an emotional vacuum, an unconscious fantasy about “uninteresting oneself” arises and a sense of one’s own “deadness” is reinforced, as if repelling others from warm communication.
Such a child, growing up and despairing of receiving the desired warmth from others, gets used to filling the inner emptiness and “revives” himself with passions and addictions.
I went without shopping for five days, and then both weekends I bought everything in a row
“Recently I noticed that I buy things in the second round,” says 29-year-old Ekaterina, a masseuse. – I brought home a purple blouse with rhinestones, began to look for a place for it in the closet and saw that almost the same one already exists, but I forgot! I thought I should take a break, but it turned out that I was bored without shopping – I lasted five days, and then both weekends I bought everything in a row, like a hungry one who pounced on food.
This form of shopaholism “differs from ordinary weekend shopping by a temporary feeling of “peace and love”, which is similar to the satisfaction of a baby in the arms of a caring mother, however, as soon as the narcotic effect wears off, the next extreme dose is required,” comments Tatyana Poddubnaya.
“It would be useful to analyze after what events it is especially drawn to the store,” adds Stanislav Efremov. “So you can understand what the shopaholic is really missing, and think about how this can be achieved in other ways.”
Spend not to lose
For some, early experiences of abandonment lead to compulsive shopping. “Until the age of seven, it is important that a mother is regularly next to the child,” continues Tatyana Poddubnaya. – If a child is faced with the death of his mother or often experiences her disappearances, constant surrenders to grandparents, then in his psyche there arises the idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe unreliability of anyone who is nearby, as well as a fantasy of his own “badness” as an explanation for why he is abandoned.
Growing up, he lives in eternal readiness for the loss of everything that falls into his hands. Therefore, he tries to grab more now, and the possibility of keeping it for a long time at an unconscious level is denied. A paradoxical circle is screwed up: a person grabs everything with a feeling of “mine, mine”, but his psyche does not recognize this “mine” as real, because in childhood something stable was associated with suffering from a premonition of an impending loss. In this case, the main role is played not by the things themselves, but by money, which symbolizes stability.”
The reasons for addiction to unreasonable spending are sometimes rooted much further than in childhood – in the history of the family, in family scenarios. The history of our country over the past 100 years is rich in periods of mass losses:
- war communism, confiscation of deposits, dispossession in the post-revolutionary years;
- the famine of 1932-1933;
- The Great Patriotic War;
- the monetary reform of 1947;
- inflation in the early 1990s;
- default in 1998.
To this we can add the crises of 2008 and 2014, which are likely to affect the lives of posterity. And in addition to historical events, there are also private ones: theft of a significant part of property, fires, floods …
“If one of the ancestors felt strong annoyance that he did not spend money on time, or impotence and humiliation that he did not protect his property, then he or she could decide to spend the money as soon as they come,” says psychodramatherapist Stanislav Efremov. – So he will get pleasure, and retain a sense of power over life, because he himself decided when to part with financial resources. If there is no money, no one will come and take it away.”
These scripts can be passed down from generation to generation, and we become carriers of them, not always realizing what controls our behavior.
Dress hunting may be a manifestation of the desire to seduce others
Stanislav Efremov tells a story from therapeutic practice: “Anna, 34 years old, complained that she was wasting her entire salary and she had no savings. At the same time, there is a lot of energy and challenge in her voice, which I pay attention to and suggest looking into her family history. Anna’s great-grandfather’s property was taken away. Fortunately, he survived and continued to work. But he spent the pay in full: he felt control over the situation. After all, he was in charge of the money. And the accumulation caused him great anxiety: suddenly they would take it away again! The great-grandfather passed on the feeling of power from spending and the fear of savings to his son, he passed it on to his daughter, and that one to Anna.
As a result, shopping was a joyful experience for the client. And savings were associated with the fear of loss and something else unpleasant. “Something unpleasant” could not be immediately recognized, since Anna did not expect to find humiliation and impotence next to the accumulated money. As a result of the work, she managed to ease the fears, and, accordingly, the script, “returning” it to its ancestor. Then we worked with the prescription “spend everything, otherwise they will take it away.” Anna stopped scaring herself with terrible pictures of losing her savings, and directed her freed attention to actions to protect them.”
We have the right to assume that we are influenced by a generic scenario if a certain pattern of behavior is passed down from generation to generation, when we do something without asking ourselves why we do it. And if we ask ourselves, the answer will be: “I don’t know, it’s just accepted, it’s always been like that.”
We stay within
Psychodramatherapist Stanislav Efremov offers several ways to help you not cross the line that separates shopping from shopaholism.
Shopping on lists compiled in advance. If we tend to buy too much food, we don’t go to the store hungry, we have a snack first.
We pay for purchases in cash – so spending is more visible to the brain. Cancellation of credit cards (with overdraft). We keep the minimum amount of money on the debit.
If we spend a lot on clothes – we turn to a style specialist (or to a friend who is not prone to impulsive purchases), we make combinations of clothes and do not buy anything without our consultant. During the fitting, we think: when will I wear this thing? With what? How many times a year?
When we see a discount – we mentally pronounce the price without a discount and imagine that we saw the thing just at this price. Would we still buy it? If not, we pass.
Avoid situations of consumption. We don’t walk around the mall. If we meet with someone or go to the cinema, then also not in the mall. Once in the store, we don’t go up to the shelves once again, we don’t try on and examine the goods: we don’t tempt ourselves.
We are looking for the cause of shopaholism. If we go shopping when we’re upset, when we feel a lack of love, and so on, we come up with and try ways to take care of ourselves that don’t require spending.
Meet by clothes
Hunting for outfits can be not only a way to get rid of “extra” money or find the desired peace of mind, but also a manifestation of the desire to seduce others. Where does this passion come from?
“If the father does not love the mother, shows more sympathy for the daughter than for the wife, then the girl’s psyche takes on the function of a “mistress” in order to hold the family together, keep the father and, at the same time, “tease” the rival mother, replies Tatyana Poddubnaya. – A similar mechanism in a boy, if an unsatisfied mother keeps him as “her man.” Growing up, such a man or woman tries to charm and seduce others and at the same time experience uncertainty about their own true sexuality, since it has become an applied tool for keeping the other in a relationship, having lost its independent value.
Psychologists call this defense mechanism sexualization. A sexualized person needs bright external attributes. Unlike a sexy man, for whom clothes are an ornament, a sexualized woman needs more and more to hide in a kaleidoscope of changing images an insecurity in her own personality, which, as if, cannot be loved without alluring sexy plumage.
If shopping is not happy or causes mixed feelings, it is worth working with a psychologist
The difference between shopaholism and the usual shopping process is the feeling of “I can’t do without it.” But even behind the “ordinary” passion, internal problems can be hidden. “I love secondhand,” says 32-year-old Yana, a layout designer for the magazine. – Not all my friends support me: “How can you buy used?”
I don’t understand how they can change clothes! From a second hand, maybe second-hand, but it’s mine, I’m not afraid that I’ll plant a stain and look for the same new one to replace it. And there are stylish things of famous fashion designers – in the “fresh” version, I can’t afford them. If I don’t confess where I got them, no one will guess. And there is also a special excitement – to see a really worthwhile thing in a pile of junk. In a store where you can find all colors and sizes, you will never experience such pride!”
In this case, we are talking more about the unconscious desire to “deceive” (“if I don’t tell, no one will guess”), which is characteristic of people with a hysterical temperament, Tatyana Poddubnaya believes: “A special secret appears that allows her to feel“ higher ”,“ more unique “banal girlfriends with a stereotyped, in her opinion, thinking.”
If shopping trips do not please or cause mixed feelings, it is worth working with a psychologist to understand the reasons and come up with your own rules of behavior, concludes Stanislav Efremov. Then we will buy what is good for us, enjoying it without feeling guilty.