It has helped me to print this out and keep copies everywhere
The Browse: endless scrolling, looking at clothes, building the cart, imagining how you will look wearing them.
The Purchase: hitting “Order Now.” A sudden, massive spike of control and excitement.
The Wait: Tracking the shipment status. The thrilling anticipation of the package arriving.
The Arrival and Unboxing: The package hits the doorstep. You tear it open. The high lasts for about ten minutes.
The Post-Purchase Crash: the item sits on the bed. The excitement evaporates. The reality doesn’t match the fantasy. You might feel anxious about the lost money.
The Reset: Logging back online to add new items to the cart to chase the feeling again.
This is the online shopping cycle I couldn’t break free from. Even knowing how much I’d rather see my bank account rise, I’d still feel like filling my cart or finding some cool new thing to buy was the only control I had over my life and only source of dopamine.
I still fill the cart. But I am working on not checking out. I’m working on overriding the first couple of steps in this cycle and living in the end. The part where I realised I didn’t really want this, I wanted the anticipation of having it. I wanted the “I’m looking forward to this package” feeling.
I think it’s also ok to not demonise shopping entirely in my mind as well as recognising i have a problem,because when I buy from
need or practicality and genuinely being able to afford it easily and the item adds to my life in that way (ie the perfect winter jacket I can wear for 5+ years) those purchases are always a success. Every other reason (boredom, quick dopamine hit, buying for a fantasy version of myself who will never wear it, control) I end up sad and anxious.
I also think we can be good at telling oh selves something is a need or a project that will
Benefit us, for example I can decide over and over I want a new colour scheme in my living room and go crazy online trying to find all the desired items only
To discard the colour scheme a few months later and do it all again. I stopped myself this weekend by saying “you do need a new picture for the wall and that’s it.” And I felt good about that purchase.
I imagine a lot of us can relate to this.
Addiction in any form really sucks because you feel like it’s under control, until it isn’t. But because addiction is impulsive, it does help fight it when you choose to think it through first before finalising that order or swiping your card, etc.
Online shopping stopped this but I remember my mother picking up on my impulsive shopping habit when we would go shopping in stores and she would also say to me if I found something “if you’re still thinking of it at the end of the day go back and get it.”
I never went back and got it. So I feel like the hack for this addiction is to force myself to think. Talk sense to the fantasy version of me or the one who is trading hard earned money at a job she hates for dopamine that will wear off in 10 minutes and increase my anxiety about my over stuffed unworn closet.
Just wanted to share this. :-)