The Wrong Kind Of Therapy

I ride my bike to work and on my route there’s a residential road that for about 3 months late last year had the distinctive and clear smell of natural gas in one section. 

It was there every time I passed, and likely a leaking natural gas pipe under the street.  Not an uncommon thing.

Why wasn’t it fixed for months and months?  I doubt anyone who lives close to it was even aware.  How could that be? 

Well, the street has no sidewalks and it’s a completely car dependent area.  What I call a “human desert”. 

In other words, you just don’t see people outside of their houses or cars because there’s nothing within walking distance and nowhere to walk.  When they go to work or to run errands they enter their cars inside of their garages and go about their business. 

They’re literally shielded from reality in their own neighborhood. 

 

New Stuff = Happiness

Back in 2014 I went through a phase of pretty deep depression.  How did I cope? 

I too shielded myself from reality.

I started buying lots of outdoor gear.  Technical jackets, climbing gear, backpacks, etc.  Sure, I needed some of it for my outdoor adventures, but for the most part I already owned suitable functioning versions of everything I bought. 

Call it “upgrade therapy”, but it was basically what we all know as retail therapy.

Instead of facing reality, the fact that I was depressed, I chose to buy stuff.  

Does it work? 

There are actual studies saying it can have some benefits.  One theory is that buying stuff gives us a sense of control by choosing what we take into our lives.  Depression and anxiety, on the other hand, often make us feel like we have no control.

But it’s likely any benefits of retail therapy will be short term.  It’s like treating the symptoms and not the underlying cause. 

And for us smart financial warriors it has the extra negatives of spending more money than you need to and putting more unnecessary stuff in the world.

Did it work for me?

My version of retail therapy served a dual purpose.  In part I did it for the same reasons everyone else does, to create some happiness and dull sadness. 

I would literally get excited to hear the noise of the delivery truck on my street when I was expecting something.  And I’d tear into new packages with abandon to get to the medication new toy inside.

But for me there was a secondary purpose.  I bought new gear as a way to motivate myself to use it and go on big epic adventures.  So in this case the gear was just a conduit to do more trips, which in the end were also intended to ease my pain and make me happy. 

It’s better than using real medication for sure.

But one can only do so many adventures until he has to face reality. 

Ultimately both of these reasons for my retail therapy served to shield me from facing my real problems.

 

Let Down The Shield

Are you spending money on frivolous wants to ease depression or anxiety?  Are you trying to fill the void for something that’s missing? 

Is your desire to own a flashy car or a huge house rooted in insecurities about yourself?  Do you require strangers to think a certain way about you to improve what you think about yourself?

It’s easy to go on shielded from the reality of your problems, financial or otherwise.  You can keep telling yourself the story you want to hear. 

You can numb your feelings with food, shopping, or other vices.  Or try to ignore them all together and hope they’ll fix themselves. 

The hard thing to do is to stop shielding yourself from them, and deal with them head on.  You may feel like they’re too much to deal with, but here’s the thing, you’re already dealing with them.  Those very behaviors, the overeating and shopping, that’s how you’re dealing. 

Do you want to deal with the issues head on, or do you want to have them come oozing out of the corners in the darkness where you can’t contend with them in a deliberate way? 

At the time I felt like my problems were too much to deal with.  But I was indeed dealing with them, and that ‘dealing’ resulted in a lot of extra stuff I really didn’t need.

 

I’m On The Journey Too

Look, I’m not telling my story from a position of authority.  I don’t have this shit all figured out.  I still fight with retail therapy sometimes when I’m not feeling good.  

But I have learned to recognize it more now, and put the brakes on.  I’ve learned to look inward for the real answers, instead of to my credit card for the temporary relief. 

So consider that if you’re shielding yourself from your problems you just might need to get out of the car, walk the street, and find the leaking gas pipe.

Your turn readers – do you sometimes struggle with retail therapy?  Have you found ways to beat it?