Perfectionist Fallacy & My Shopping Addiction: a few confessions & my intentions

• I have a shopping addiction
• I think I use it to cope
• I possibly have OCD, ADD, Depression, PTSD, BPD, NPD
• I binge shop a lot
• I rarely use my stuff
• I am unemployed
• I have no source of income
• I have a lot of credit card debt
• I accept myself as is
• I accept my bad habits as they are
• They are not inherently bad
• I am trying to expose myself to myself
• I am trying to appreciate what I already have
• I am trying to use up what I own
• I have always had a stream of new “stuff” coming into my life, and thus I feel like I don’t know my likes and dislikes.
• I want to learn about my likes and dislikes
• I attach a “fantasy;  fantastical sense of self”, or an emotional tie to “things”.
• I don’t want my things to be part of my identity; although I feel that way deeply with books. I need to find a way to figure this out. Maybe, I need to attach my identity to the idea of the book out there existing in the world, without the need to own it. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t attach my identity or romanticize books to begin with… Though, I KNOW that I always will. I am a sentimental person. It is not a bad thing. I accept myself as I am. Maybe it is OK to buy a copy of a favorite book, just because it makes me safe.
• I had an excellent credit score (though I always struggled with buying/returning, but I was able to afford it)
• I am ashamed/afraid to look at my finances
• My shopping habits make me embarrassed
• I spend a lot of time, money, energy researching, fantasizing, returning, buying stuff that I seldom use
• I have a Poshmark and Mercari accounts and I was so successful with them last year
• I’d like to get back to decluttering and being active on aforementioned platforms
• I’d like to declutter more by selling/donating/giving away as gifts
• I want to know what I actually have and how I feel about them
• I would like to partake in Project Panning, or No Buy
• I wonder how my life and my personality will change if I fixed this unhealthy habit
• I return a lot of stuff, to a point where I have to hit different malls or have friends do it for me because I am embarrassed by the quantities
• I would like to have a concrete Savings account
• I would like to feel the joy of shopping
• What I have been doing gives me no joy, it just feel like it is something I have to do
• I want to have less stuff that I love
• I want to learn about my preferences, which will lead to having more intention when I shop
• I hate feeling like I need to try everything to find the best “item”. As I am in the drowning in this process, I recognize that those decisions are trivial in the long run, but I can’t stop myself
• I am embarrassed to admit my shopping habits to others
• I feel crazy in my head
• I don’t feel normal
• I feel like I make my life hell but I can’t stop myself
• I will add more to this
• I hope I can be consistent with this
• I struggle with consistency
• I am in therapy
• I am on medication
• I will add more to this, as I think of my more confessions/ intentions
• I needed to do this, as just I BINGED on makeup shopping
• I was afraid to tally up everything; I am still afraid to open my bank account
• I need to go to mail a BUNCH of returns tomorrow
• I feel happy when I get rid of stuff
• I don’t understand the root/roots of my shopping addiction. I don’t understand it. I just want to talk about it
• I believe if people find out about my bad habits, that they will think I am a psychopath, or is it a sociopath…
• I believe that I can never find romantic love if I expose my shame and weird obsessions/habits to the other person
• Today, my therapist said what I suffer from is called a “Perfectionist Fallacy”, and most people don’t have it, but a significant minority have it and are just like me
• I am glad it has a name
• I want to learn about it
• I want to attend a Shopaholics Anonymous meeting
• I hope they take place around me
• My therapist said I have a hard time accepting reality as it is
• My credit card doesn’t go through on Ulta.com anymore, I believe the have banned me
• I have so many fictional accounts, fictional names, and emails

Things that make me physically uncomfortable and thus lazy and self-loathing

Dear Wonderful Reader,

Super obvious things but I want to name and acknowledge them in hope that those little parasite can go away and leave me alone. I, literally, want to figure them out on this post and it is going to sound so stupid, but I guess that sometimes I am just that dumb! I try to fight them, instead of making them away. A battle usually lost and ends in me glued to the bed as my mind is roaming freely in the land of Self-Loathing.

a. Problem: Too thirsty/ Solution: Go drink.

b. too hungry/ Go eat.

c. Need to use the bathroom/ Go use the bathroom.

d. too hot/ Go get a shirt.

e. too cold/ Go wear a robe.

f. Feeling bothered that my skin is dry/ Go lotion.

g. Feeling that scalp is itchy/ Go shower with Head and Shoulders and give your scalp a good massage (note to self: need to fix shower).

h. Feeling ugly/ Go shower and put a little effort into outfit and makeup.

i. Feeling that I use LAUNDRY (God help me) as an escape mechanism to delay that important things I should be doing/ Finish the load and do one thing that is important.

j. Feeling that I am easily tempted and that I shop too much/ Stop shopping for 24 hours.

k. Feeling shitty cause I was mean to my family/ Decide to continue the day with kindness. Just one day.

l. Feeling that my space is filthy and decluttered/ Go declutter or clean one thing.

m. Panting and feeling anxious cause I can’t make a decision/ Breathe, drink water, go pee if you need to, and put things into perspective.

n. Feeling like I have too many THINGS and especially things I don’t use/ Put one thing away IMMEDIATELY in the Goodwill bag.

let go of control, child. you never had it anyway

Hi,

 

This is what I imagine God is telling me about my b*****s in the sea that are trying to torture me mentally. I need to combat those thoughts back with God. My brain goes crazy trying to argue with those bitches; there is no need to. I need to silence them with the word of God.

 

• Me: a family friend’s suicide. A 17 year old boy… He suffered so much. Why did you let him go this way. Why did you make it successful. If you were planing to take him anyway, why did’t you make it a natural death. It was sad to see how much he suffered from bullying, judgement, physical abuse, and loneliness, and then to see the same abusive people judge him even in his passing like they’re better than him somehow. Like they’re superior to him because he couldn’t handle life and they are. Why is it the the meek is always conspired against and a lot of time the meek end up losing those battles, at least from an earthly perspective. He was so full of light, how could he go out in this dark way… Where were you? What was he thinking in his last moment? How could he reach this point of hopelessness and brokenness? I know that sometimes, hardships are supposed to teach us something, make us grow, maybe you were trying to teach his family something and the people around him, but why would it be at his own expense. I love you, God. Don’t be mad at me. I just wish I understood. How am I supposed to answer those bitches when they come at me like that. I don’t get it, Lord…

God: Lay it down, child

• Me: My break up with my boyfriend. I don’t necessarily love him and want him but the act of “breaking up” seems foreign to me and unnatural. How could my best friend become a stranger to me. I feel guilty for letting him go, knowing how short life is. He wants to leave too. I can’t make sense of it…

God: Let it go, Child

 

• A boy who never gave the time of the day. I have this sort of crush/ infatuation with him for TEN years and I have to say I calmed down since. I mean I don’t write his name on the sand or anything (anymore). But, I hate how I still think about him. Sometimes, he actually invades my dreams and the strange thing I always wake up SO happy. I pray that I rise above it. Though, somehow I still think he will fall for me. I think it is inevitable. & I hate that thought too. I prayed SO much about him, and I think the Lord won’t let those prayers/ promisses go in vain, even if my prayer now is to rise above it.

God: Rise above it, child (and MAYBE, I will surprise you)

 

• When I see unfathomable injustices in the world, that makes me feel that the world is so dark, and life is unbearable and I think, God, please intervene, where are you? When I feel so helpless and all I can do is cry out to Him. When the pain becomes my pain and I pray and I tell God I love you and I trust and I am hurt by the darkness of the world and I feel the pain that poor creatures and innocent people are feeling, but tell me how I can let go. Tell how I can look at this without carrying it all on my shoulder. I can I not react to this. What is your way to reacting to this. I don’t know how to explain it. But Jesus did have Godly anger towards the peoples’ behavior in His Father’s house. So maybe I am rightful in my pain… But, I don’t think cause my pain is great, it extends to the pain of millions creatures I have never saw. I know I am doing this wrong…

God:

• Me: When people say that God is okay with eating animals and that he created them to be exploited by humans. That animals don’t have souls and they don’t to heaven. This paints God as being racist, and cruel. I know he is NOT. God isn’t compassionate. God is COMPASSION itself. If I am a mere human, who is full of sin and ignorance can have this compassion towards animals’ suffering, then how could God couldn’t. My minute compassion is a reflection of His compassion. And His compassion is unimaginably, and infinitely bigger than mine. Also, God is their creator, so that makes Him care about animals 3786386829748499 than I ever could. Also, He is the one who knows everything, sees everything, and feel everything, so their pain is 64845688675500 more real to Him than me.

God: for this one, I feel like I have to defend God and I tell Him I got it. I think about God’s character. I think about his goodness, kindness, and all the awesomeness that He is. And I think about how people are ignorant and that I shouldn’t blame God for what they wrongly say about Him, even they were priests, and even if I can’t find the exact piece of scripture to back me up.

 

• Me: My life, my future. Where is going. People around me have accomplished more. Did I waste my life. Did I waste the best part of my life. What was I doing those past 5 years. Look at other people, they’re actually taking real serious steps in their future like getting a degree, getting married, having a baby and I am write here writing a blog post and thinking about organizing my files. And the crazy thing is, I actually don’t want to get a degree, get married, or have babies, but I find my thoughts still taunting me with other people mile stones that I have no desire of achieving. Am I doing the right thing. God, you gave the power to change the world, and I can’t even get out of bed. I am sorry God for being so dumb and lazy. I know you gave a lot of potential and it isn’t your fault that I am using it. I can’t even pray to you. This is all on me. But, you know make me better, cause you control everything.  And just chatter, chatter, chatter…. It never ends.

God: Let go of control, child. You never had it anyway.

WEIGHT OF THE WORLD 2

Needless to say, and in ALL honesty, I have been burdened by the WEIGHT OF THE WORLD. I have been carrying atrocities and injustices that I have no idea how to even begin fathoming on my shoulders and blaming myself for being human or my apathy. That is why the messages below resonated with so much. My birthday was on the July 29th and this message was preached the next day on a Sunday. I really needed to hear this. I wanna let go. I have a lot on my mind and a lot to unravel in my soul. TBD.

keep things in perspective

“Dear Mother and Dad:

It has been three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing and I am very sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay.

Well then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after my arrival are pretty well healed by now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those headaches once a day.

Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump was witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Dept. and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven’t set the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.

Yes, mother and dad, I am pregnant. I know how very much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has some minor infection which prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him. This will soon clear up with the penicillin injections I am now taking daily.

I know you will welcome him into the family with open arms. He is kind and although not well educated, he is ambitious. Although he is of a different race and religion than ours, I know that your oft-expressed tolerance will not permit you to be bothered by the fact that his skin color is somewhat darker than ours. I am sure you will love him as I do. His family background is good too, for I am told his father is an important gunbearer in the village in Africa from which he comes.

Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you there was no dormitory fire; I did not have a concussion or a skull fracture; I was not in the hospital; I am not pregnant; I am not engaged. I do not have syphillis, and there is no man in my life. However, I am getting a D in sociology and an F in science; and I wanted you to see these marks in proper perspective.

Your loving daughter,”