Compulsive shopping: from the pleasure of buying to the obsession with buying
Buying is sometimes a necessity, much more often buying is a pleasure, a pure fun, at other times buying is a real craze. Have you ever thought that shopping as well as rewarding could also be a way to lose a few pounds without stress?
Compulsive Shopping: Recognizing Symptoms With Psychology
How do you know if shopping for you has transformed from a very pleasant hobby to a real anxiety, a drug that you literally cannot do without? By continuing to read you will discover all those behaviors that represent a clear indication of compulsive shopping! In short, when the real need is not to buy, but to spend money just for the sake of accumulating things that you do not need at all. There is a limit between even extreme pleasure and true pathology and it must be found in the behavior of the shopper. According to experts, those with a pathology read upon purchase in fact perform recurring and easily identifiable behaviors. In short, the real symptoms of that is that a disease in all respects and as such should not be underestimated in any case.
Constantly thinking about both physical and virtual shopping, online. Buy especially when you are in a bad mood to feel better, both when you are nervous and sad. Buying to gratify yourself, to smile and to feel more at the height of a situation are all alarm bells to pay close attention to. Another sign of pathology is buying so much that it limits one's commitments, avoiding work commitments or appointments on the agenda due to an irrepressible desire to buy. Even choosing to buy less perhaps for reasons of space or even economic, and then failing to carry out the purpose could be a typical behavior of a compulsive buyer. As well as those who feel bad at the idea of not being able to shop or those who feel they have to buy more and more every day in order to feel good. Finally, another alarm bell comes from buying things you don't need ending up compromising your own well-being by surrounding yourself with things that you don't need and that will inevitably not make you happy and also depriving you of money that you could use for other purposes. !
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A crazy expense happens to everyone!
Of course, compulsive shopping does not mean a crazy purchase that we give ourselves from time to time (often rarely) to gratify ourselves. In short, a little madness is a positive behavior for our self-esteem that makes us feel good. Compulsive shopping, on the other hand, is something stronger than us: we are literally overwhelmed by the impulse to purchase meaningless objects and by the fixed thought of shopping as such. You get anxious, and then to send it away you just have to buy. It doesn't matter what or how: the idea of going home empty-handed makes you anxious and makes you panic. In short, a crazy expense should not alarm you and is probably a cure-all capable of counteracting stress. It happens to everyone ... especially to VIPs!
Who suffers from compulsive shopping?
In Italy 5% of the population suffers from this disorder. Mostly they are women between 30 and 40 years of age, of middle social class. It seems that women are even 80% of Italian compulsive buyers. What do they buy? Clothes, jewelery and cosmetic and beauty products. Online buyers should not be underestimated, those who buy on the internet (in Italy more than 20 million people) focus mainly on sports items, travel and holidays. Fewer men suffer from compulsive shopping. They usually prefer to buy sports equipment, mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices because the technology satisfies them the most.
Ecommerce: to buy online just one click
The multiplication of ecommerce in recent years has increased compulsive buyers, because buying from a PC allows those suffering from this pathology to hide behind a screen. And then buying thanks to the commerce is easy and fast, practically just a click on the phone or on the keyboard. The impulse to buy on the internet is unstoppable and even more instinctive than buying face to face in the store. It is good to remember that those who suffer from compulsive shopping are aware of the fact that they have a disease but cannot stop. At the time of purchase, he is aware that he does not need what he is about to buy, but buying, in fact, regardless of what and how, is an absolute priority for him. After shopping, the compulsive buyer feels guilt and shame, often hides and denies having bought or invents exceptional promotions and bargain prices in order to justify his spending as much as possible. Compulsive shopping often causes quarrels between couples and financial problems in Italian families.
Compulsive Buyers: The Causes
We have seen that the majority of women engage in compulsive shopping.But why does one become a compulsive buyer? Often the disorder begins to manifest itself in adolescence and fortunately tends to decrease with age. The causes of this dependence for the most part in women are to be found both in the problems of anxiety, low self-esteem, the desire for acceptance and depression and the stress of young women and in the excessive extroversion typical of some women of this age. In fact, adolescents and young women who are very extroverted want a role in society and are buying more and more frequently in order to show off new looks and impose their personality. Women with depression problems or with low self-esteem choose to shop to cheer themselves up, to eliminate that feeling of low mood and treat themselves to small moments of happiness that give meaning to the day but unfortunately they are only an illusion because they last the time to go home loaded with their bags.
How to prevent compulsive shopping disorder
Compulsive shopping disorder is a real "behavioral addiction" comparable to addiction to sex and exercise. Healing without the help of an expert is not easy, as is trying to prevent the onset of the disease because our society in a not too veiled way pushes us to consumerism every day by creating in us a series of indispensable needs that we might never have imagined. few years ago. For all compulsive behaviors, from gambling to unbridled purchases and even to the abuse of alcohol or drug use, it can be very useful to undertake a path of psychotherapy or targeted drug therapies or psycho-social interventions.
When buying becomes an obsession
Compulsive shopping has, as we have seen, many points in common with substance addictions. In fact, those who suffer from it usually go through 4 different phases. The first of these is the tolerance phase that leads the person to buy more every day and every day to calm their tensions. This phase is followed by a state of craving which consists in obsession, the irresistible impulse and the inability to control that leads to a compulsion to purchase objects to relieve tension and discomfort. Those who suffer from compulsive shopping go through, just like those who are addicted to drugs, in a phase of abstinence: by not buying the compulsive shopper they experience stress, they are sick. But really bad, even physically. All he will want to do is move on to phase four, that of the loss of control, the one in which the drive prevails and the person buys believing that the object in front of him is indispensable and then falls into despair and in the sense of guilt of not having been able to resist once again the impulse to buy. This psychology is typical of serial buying, suffering from compulsive shopping.
If you recognize yourself in these symptoms and sensations, contact a doctor and let us help you rediscover the real pleasure of shopping without excesses!
