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

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,”