Categories
shopping addiction

Why Shopping Addiction is a bitch

I’m sorry I’ve been away from here for a long while.

Truth is, I fell off the wagon and had entered a numb state for a long while. I think too much happened last year ranging from family having a stroke, my work environment having a drastic change, managing unstable family dynamics, heartbreak and financial stump. And I didn’t manage to relieve and soothe my stress so when the last drop came, I really fell hard into a really long dark state of numbness.

I was binging, skin picking and even managed to pick up a new behavior, shopping addiction.

Being new to this addiction I fell hard and I’m only now starting to learn how to get out of it. So if I can find good ways to combat it, I will share it here. So far I have only been able to combat it when I really have a hard sad reason not to, such as getting into a fight with my family because of this addiction or because I got into an argument with the person that sold something with me online. That’s right, I argued with a stranger online that I’ve never done before because I got unnecessarily cranky (I falsely accused the person for selling me a fake sample but it turns out it was real- needless to say the person was upset). I was ashamed of the person I had become. But life hit me with new stones and I became weak and surrendered to the sweet whisperings of the allure of spending money online.

I’m now trying to get back on track again. However many-ith time is the charm as they say.

Maybe I’ll try to make this blog post a kind of a public statement. It will be part of me trying to find out what way helps me get out of this dump.

Because let me tell you, this addiction is a dump. For the below reasons:

1) financial obvious reasons – you buy unnecessary things, it puts a strain on your finances. You get stressed you shop more, you might start spending away your savings that you needed for something critical or even if it’s something saved for enjoyment later, either way you’re stripping yourself away from freedom both financially and mentally.

2) lose time – you lose time looking up things you want to buy and you lose time buying things and you lose time thinking about how to use up those things (I mainly buy scent related products and hygiene products). Or you lose time trying to be sensible and trying to talk yourself out of shopping.

3) lose sleep – related to the above, I mainly scrolled and shopped late at night which ate away my sleeping time and I’ve been really tired on many days.

4) lose confidence – you feel stupid and worthless and ashamed that you can’t control your shopping behavior and finances. the lack of confidence comes through to every aspect of my life

5) lose trust – you lose trust in yourself but you also lose trust from your family members and those close to you when you start going overboard with shopping and start hiding what you’ve bought.

6) don’t confront the real issues so it piles up and explodes- when I’m shopping, I’m trying to run away from my problems and find relief. Which means I’m taking away the opportunity to sit down with myself, really ask myself what’s wrong and try to work through the actual problem

All of the above had a knock on effect on family, work, friendships and relationships.

It’s been really challenging, it’s so stupid as I already had enough financial problems with my family losing their job since Covid started.

One thing I can say is, if you’re struggling with something similar, and if you have family or partner or someone close to you, open up to them as soon as you can about this issue. I think that’s the best advice I can give right now. And give yourself a hug because chances are, you really need it.

Categories
binge eating

What to do with binge urges

As someone who’s trying to overcome binge eating and having some success so far, I’ve been thinking about what methods have been effective to help me overcome binge urges and have grouped them into the following four ways:

1) Replace binging with another coping mechanism

Often, I binge when I’m feeling emotionally unstable, stressed, frustrated, tired, empty, depressed (or sometimes simply bored). For me, binge eating is a coping mechanism and I believe it is for many others.

The good news about this is that there are plenty of other coping mechanisms that we can try. The important point is that binge eating is something we do to help us cope with difficult emotions and situations, or fill in some emptiness, and if we aren’t going to binge, then we need something else to replace it. As simple as this is, this didn’t occur to me until my counselor pointed this out to me. We can’t just brute force take binging away from us and expect ourselves to be all good.

I’m still figuring out what is a good alternative coping mechanism for me, and it will look different for all. So far, I’ve found surrounding myself by nice scents/giving myself time to enjoy nice scents, taking walks, exercising/yoga, finding moral support in friends/family/or professionals have helped. But for me, these are all things to alleviate ‘overall’ binge eating habits rather than something that helps me ‘at the moment of urge’ if that makes sense. Which brings me to the next point:

2) BINGE- but on healthy alternatives like veggies

That’s right- sometimes we have this strong wish to binge out and we just have to embrace it. But we don’t have to go all the way to the unhealthy side.

I try eating a cucumber, or a good old salad, or maybe vegetable soup or cooked veggies. Fruits could work too. Just something non processed that our bodies won’t complain too much when we have a chunky amount.

3) Mindfulness of our eating

I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘mindfulness’, it feels overused. But for simplicity, I use it here- to mean ‘being aware of what we eat, being aware of our sensations and emotions as we eat’.

This is something I’m learning on the diet app Noom. (Now as a disclaimer, Noom isn’t designed towards people with eating disorder and I believe it’s super important to have some support for eating disorder in another way during your Noom journey. I was on counseling for the first few months of Noom, and after I had to stop counseling for financial reasons, I’ve tried to listen to podcasts on binge eating when I felt I need some support (my favourite being ‘breaking up with binge eating’ and ‘bingeproof brain’))

For me, the ‘awareness of what I eat’ comes from logging my meals each day. While Noom encourages you to do this to manage calories, counting calories may not be something for you, and in that case, you could try thinking of plate size or number of servings for example.

‘Being aware of our sensations and emotions’ while we eat, is another huge part for me. For example, I’ve realized that I mindlessly binge eat when I eat while watching tv shows or movies. After I started trying to eat without electronics on, I became much more aware of what I was eating, enjoy my food more, and as a result helped reduce my binging habits. I try to focus on sensations like how does the food taste in the first bite, does the taste change as we eat, how’s the texture, and also focus on emotions like how I’m feeling before starting the meal, how it changed when I start eating, and ask myself whether I’m continuing to eat because I’m hungry or because I’m trying to fill an emotional need (this is tough to identify!). I’m not saying I manage to do this with every single meal, but it’s really helpful to have this perspective in the corner of our minds.

4) ok treat yourself once in a while

All the above said, I don’t think it’s a setback to overeat or binge once in a while. It’s our overall behavior that matters and if you are starting to realize your patterns, if you have more time space between your binges, if you are becoming more compassionate to yourself, etc then it’s a win and they are all steps forward. It’s human to go back to binge eating habits sometimes, we have spent so long relying on this coping mechanism and it takes a while to move forward one step at a time. If we slip, we just need brush ourselves off, and keep moving forward.

Sending you all lots of love

Categories
Uncategorized

Alternating between one coping mechanism and another

So these past weeks have been stressful, it’s been a combination of a move, a busy period at work, and stressed out family members.

What happened as a consequence was, I’ve been alternating between skin picking and binge eating when I haven’t been able to choose healthier ways to cope with the stress.

Like my counselor says, we all need a coping mechanism. What’s important is that we replace it with a healthier method. I think this is a really important point that I seem to forget a lot. – we don’t have to deprive ourselves of coping mechanism, and if we want to shift away from an unhealthy coping mechanism, we have to take care of ourselves in a different way. (I know I’m repeating myself here but I think it’s that important!)

When I’m binge eating or skin picking, I feel out of control. Like I have no other way but to do it. So it’s important to have those alternatives ready before we feel those needs.

When I’m sleep deprived, I tend to binge more (this seems to be science! and something many people experience). In these cases for example, I try to take a nap if I can, even a short one. (Although often I would feel too hungry to sleep so I end up eating BEFORE the nap … don’t do this you guys, it’s important to really head to bed/sofa etc directly)

For skin picking, I try to keep the lights off/dim as much as possible when I’m at the bathroom/sink so that I don’t see my skin in the mirror. I also sometimes try to shower with only the small lights on so that it’s dim enough that I don’t see my arms or shoulders which I tend to pick in the shower. This can also be relaxing, like a moody bath just for yourself.

I also love to keep nice smelling things around so that it helps to soothe not just the urges but also to soothe the stress that causing these urges in the first place. For example, I like to keep Lush’s Therapy? Massage Bar at my desk because it smells so calming! (It can also double as a quick massage session if you’re up for treating yourself a bit)

Other alternatives that I like are, taking a quick 5 or 10 or 15mins walk around my block, or longer if time allows in the nature, listening to my favourite music or podcasts, and taking a nice long bath! Of course talking to friends and family also is a great way to relieve stress, but I find it helpful to have few tricks up my sleeve that I can do without relying on anybody else.

I’m still exploring alternatives for coping with stress and caring for myself, and finding ways to make it easy for me to reach out for these healthier options. I’ll keep posted if I can find more ways!