Guilty pleasures are the things that hide inside our souls and capture our minds to do things that make our brains explode with addiction. It’s called a guilty pleasure for a reason and everyone has at least one. Whether it be small like collecting cards or something huge that makes our bank accounts lower each month. I wouldn’t consider myself as the type of person that buys things out of impulse, but I do like to think of myself as the type of person who just manipulates my mind just enough to where I believe I need the very thing that I probably don’t need at that point.
I think that it’s very much the American culture that brain washes our minds with the things that they think that we should want, and the things that they want us to buy that, it’s hard for any person in my generation not to be totally in love with spending their whole allowance or paycheck on things such as shoes and dresses. I also think that it’s part of the way that the culture changed for me when I first came to the United States. As a young child I didn’t have money and I hardly had clothes to wear. I’m not trying to seem pathetic but it’s true, when I was adopted I came from having so little that was mine to having everything I wanted.
It was overwhelming, the feeling that you’re so indulged that you suddenly can’t get enough of something. If I could be I think I that I could have a slight hording personality, but with the help of the people around me I took a different path, and I am thankful for that. Seeing the TV shows that are about the people who keep everything, I think in every person, whether it was a childhood trauma or a death in the family or a death of a spouse, it’s all the same at some point in life they either had nothing and suddenly they saved everything to make themselves feel better, to fill that hole.
Or it was that they had everything and then that someone died and suddenly they had to fill their hole with stuff. It makes sense doesn’t it? In all the people that have the same problem as me. It’s painful to look deep inside to the darkest of the darkest and identify where that source comes from. For a person like me it fills a hole when I buy something that I see and like. A sense of fullness that doesn’t happen any other way. It’s like fuel because in the end after the satisfaction of that brand new pair of heels runs dry you always go back for more.
As much as I love the rush I get when that paycheck come in with more than I expected and the thoughts and anxiety that runs through me, it also kills me that I can’t control it. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t have bills to pay that I’d have piles of shoes and dresses all over my house and they’d have to make a TV show about me. It’s gotten to the point where I try to hide it and it’s embarrassing, I think that my parents would be mortified if they knew that I had an obsession with shopping, It’s not so much my friends that I’m hiding my love for designer clothes, but my parents.
It’s hard to come from a family that has a lot of money, because I was never really taught how to save, I learned at an early age that we have money and we can afford fancy shoes. It’s not till later that my parents really started trying to teach me how to save my money. Every month my bank account is short and I am pinching pennies because of that mall trip I took that Monday that I got paid. Now that I think about it, almost makes me sad, that I have to be so materialistic rather than saving I spend my money on things that make me feel beautiful.
There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that except that it’s unhealthy. It drains my spirit at the end of every month, and about a week out of the month I spend dreading each day because I don’t have money. As I think about it I haven’t tried to change this habit. I manipulate my mind, because it’s not like all my clothes and shoes are designer, and believe me I shop sales a lot, but that’s the problem where there is cheap inventory there is more spending. It’s like a magnet that attracts people to buy more for less; but in reality it’s spending more for more.
It’s just the concept that advertising has us locked to this idea that if you shop sales that you won’t spend as much but you actually spend more because of that sale. It’s really not a good thing for me, because I was born with an addictive personality, instead of it being an addiction to alcohol or drugs its simply spending all my money on clothes. Living like this is hard because it’s hard on my part to keep all my money for things that are important but then it’s like a drug that I need it fills a whole that satisfies that inner monster. The problem with me is that it’s an urge and only I can replace my bad habit.
Until I make the choice to change where my money goes it’s going to be my struggle. I don’t have a solution to how to stop, and I think that shopping to fill that emotional hole is better than drinking or using drugs. I rather suffer from my own consequences then to start something I can’t stop. Plus looking cute is always in style. I think one day I will change this habit, but for now until I find a healthier way to deal with my problem it will still be the same. At the end of each month I will be broke, and it will be no one else’s fault but mine. That’s how it’s supposed to be, I am not going to blame other people for my problems.
