THE SHOPAHOLIC

psychology

Our mental health defines our thoughts, emotions and behaviours. The healthier our mind is, the better choices we will make in our life. Depression, anxiety and unresolved trauma takes the shape of unhealthy tendencies like addiction, self-harming behaviour and physical illness, to name a few. Shopping addiction is a real thing, a more acceptable addiction but an addiction nonetheless.

It is usually acceptable because, on the look of it, it doesn’t harm anyone other than your pocket and there is a very thin line between shopping based on needs and shopping which is an outcome of unmet psychological needs.

Any addiction is a compulsive psychological need to do something again and again and is usually an avoidance of addressing repressed emotional distress and finding a sense of pleasure in something.

The psychology of a shopaholic isn’t any different. The compulsive need to shop again and again without any need is an addiction and a compensation of something within you that people don’t want to address. Just to feel ‘good’, the compulsive shopper visits the mall again and again.

What is this addiction rooted in? One factor that would be common is to present a false sense of self. Alfred Adler, a psychotherapist, was known for his theory around how every human being is born with a sense of inferiority and they spend their entire life driven by a need to strive for superiority to compensate for the sense of inferiority. In some people, this inherent sense of inferiority is amplified by factors such as body shaming, failures in early life and being put down by parents – all leading to low self-esteem.

So such people, while struggling inside, will present a persona to the world that looks happy and successful and what better medium to convince the other but a few Gucci bags or a fancy watch or two.

But after they acquire something, the temporary sense of achievement and pleasure quickly dissipates which naturally it would as it’s a deflection and not exactly need fulfilment and they would try to get another material thing to feel the same again. Slowly, it turns into an addiction as the need for more intensifies.

Low self-esteem is one of the most common factors and shopping becomes a way to improve self-esteem. It is also validation-seeking because when you adorn expensive clothes and display branded possessions such as a watch or mobile phone, you expect people to validate you. It is almost as if the person borrows a sense of self from what they have in the form of material goods to compensate with powerful inner feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness.

Shopping addiction is also a distraction from overwhelming feelings of sadness, anger, fear or stress, which is often considered ‘retail therapy.’ Retail therapy is a short-lived habit as a source of comfort once in a while. But if compulsively repeated, it would classify as addiction.

Most shopping addicts would most likely be suffering from undiagnosed depression and anxiety is a given. Amna was a shopaholic for years until she started therapy. She related how she was never interested in owning anything she would buy. Through therapy she found out what obsessive shopping did for her. “Having experienced helplessness most of my life, I felt powerful when I would go and buy almost anything I wanted.” Shopping gave her an inauthentic sense of empowerment to compensate for the helplessness she experienced in childhood. It gave her an illusory sense of control.

Psychotherapy can play an important part in asking some of the questions posed here and help you to resolve an unhealthy addiction, which, on the look of it, seems pretty harmless. It is not that it doesn’t harm anyone but it is the cycle of addiction that you are stuck in, where an impulse rooted in distress leads you to visit the mall or go for online shopping. After some momentary pleasure, you start feeling low again and the urgency to get more to seek the same sense of happiness kicks in.

You have a shopping addiction if you buy things again and again without really needing them or perhaps you cannot afford them. Do you feel a sense of anger and frustration if you don’t get what you had thought of getting? It is most likely that frustration is a cue to what really troubles you.

Ask yourself what you are really avoiding in your life that is rooted in pain. How consciously or unconsciously is this simple behaviour of ‘I want this’ or ‘I need this’ actually a distraction from your real need. It is the need to process your wounds, to reflect on your inner self and connect with your innermost triggers that enhances your self-awareness. Can you sit with the anxiety that gets triggered if you don’t submit to the impulse to get the next thing on your list? That’s the anxiety that can lead you to the root cause of your real issue and guide you on how to heal yourself from within rather than depend on the outside.

The writer is psychotherapist and a freelance contributor. She can be reached at zaramaqbool@yahoo.com

This article was originally published in June 2021 issue of SouthAsia Magazine.