Learn to recognize the signs of shopping addiction and find out how it can impact an individual’s life. Discover treatment options for this serious issue.Do you notice a painful urge to make purchases and can’t imagine your life without visiting marketplace pick-up points? The following points will help you determine whether you have shopaholism or the situation is still under control.
Signs of Shopping Addiction.
You can’t go a day without shopping.
It’s one thing to feel anxious if you missed your favorite workout or didn’t have time to drink your morning coffee. It’s quite another to be on edge because of shopping, or rather, the lack thereof. Shopping should not and cannot be a mandatory part of your daily routine, unless your job involves it. If you’re stressed about not being able to go shopping and your hands immediately reach for marketplace apps, you’re definitely a shopaholic.
There are untouched items in your wardrobe
Many people love new things and enjoy shopping. But if your closet becomes a warehouse of new things that you have safely forgotten about after buying, this is a real alarm signal. Most likely, only a light dopamine rush is important to you at the moment of buying another thing, and this process has turned into an addiction. How else can you explain the fact that you do not use your fashionable stocks and are completely indifferent to them?
You regret what you bought
We all make mistakes sometimes: we spend too much under the influence of emotions, we trust the opinion of sellers too much, or we don’t study the goods carefully enough before paying. But shopaholics who know about their problem begin to feel guilty after each purchase and promise themselves to stop. And then they go shopping again, buying useless things. Despite momentary pangs of conscience, in the midst of shopping, shopping addicts are able to find a “good” reason why they still need to buy something.
You have a couple of empty credit cards.
Nowadays, anyone can get a credit card without any special checks of solvency. And shopaholics are sure to have a couple of credit cards – they perceive offers from banks as an opportunity to do, so to speak, their favorite thing. It soon turns out that the limits are exhausted, and there is nothing to pay off the debt with – you have to pay interest.
Stress makes you want to buy
Compulsive shopping may be an attempt to fill an emotional void when you feel lonely, out of control, or lacking self-confidence. According to research, shopaholics are also more likely to suffer from mood disorders, eating disorders, or substance abuse. So if you tend to binge on delicious food after a hard day at work and stress eat, you probably go overboard when you shop.
You feel a rush of excitement when you shop
Like all addicts, shopaholics experience a real “high” from the process of buying. You see the desired product, your heart starts beating faster – it’s like love at first sight. All the logical arguments “against” and lack of funds do not matter to you. Once the process has started, it is difficult for you to stop and return to reality: this usually happens soon after the purchase, when disappointment sets in.
You buy unnecessary things
Of course, you can count the number of truly necessary things on your fingers, and yet shopaholics tend to buy completely unnecessary and useless items. For example, the tenth handbag or the fifteenth pair of shoes – even if you are not a socialite at all and leave the house in heels a couple of times a year. A new shampoo, when in total there are 5 liters of unused products waiting for you in the bathroom, another scented candle, when you have already lost count and do not remember how many there are. If you are too easily tempted by goods that you can easily do without – this is another alarm signal.
You hide your purchases
For a shopaholic, running into loved ones after returning from shopping is the same as being caught red-handed at the crime scene. As a result, shopping addicts begin to come up with ingenious schemes: hiding new clothes in their purses, choosing a “safe” time to return home, finding ways to hide their spending from their partner. If you notice such secrecy in yourself, it may be a sign that you are spending money to the detriment of your family, your loved ones. And deep down, you know it.