Consumerism as an unhealthy coping mechanism for mental health illnesses. My experience.

I have been managing (trying to) depression since 2020. Consumerism feels like it was part of the set up to make me fail.

I thought I had escaped my family's consumer culture fairly unscathed because I was frugal, and thrifted, and got things for free. Before this depressive episode, I had committed to a minimalist lifestyle to help manage some of my conditions. My anxiety was lower. I didn't have to search for things. Everything was accessible. No worrying about if I needed to buy something or if I already had it (I never needed it...).

I could better live with my depression because my kitchen was spotless. When I did have energy to make something, I could feed myself. I'd kept only the things I needed. No more dish piles No more laundry piles. No more "doom" piles. At least part of my brain felt nonthreatened.

Then I got terribly bullied and mobbed at work. I reported. The retaliation was bad. They completely destroyed my self esteem.

First I started consuming food - overconsuming. I had never experienced this before. I ate nonstop. I ate until my stomach hurt. I ate until the skin on my belly hurt. I didn't stop eating for three months. I'd gained 80 pounds. My doctor told me to "cut back", but I didn't care anymore. 20 more pounds. Work got worse. 40 more pounds.

Then food wasn't enough. I started shopping. A little here and there- a couple of plants because I needed to feel better. New clothes because I weighed 100lbs+ and had never been this heavy in my life. Then I joined a Buy Nothing Group. I'd get through my days by knowing I was picking up a new lamp after work. I'd spent my weekends going to several houses and would sit in awe of "my things" when I got home. Some were very good quality, some were not. Some could have elevated the way my home looked, but not how it functioned- minimalism had gotten it to optimum function. I didn't need any of these things.

Then a resale store opened up near by. It coincided with the bullying increasing at work, with me knowing they were creating a path to fire me. I knew there was really nothing I could do now. HR was in on it.

Every weekend I would spend hours shopping. It really felt like "treasure" hunting. It's the only time of the week I felt any kind of goodness at all. My meds weren't working. My doctor's were dismissive. I'd been in therapy, tried numerous antidepressants. I have "treatment resistant depression" so they tried Electronic Convulsive Therapy. Didn't work.

My boss spewed lies and tanked my evaluation report. For the first time in my working life, I had a bad report. Not just bad, destructive, and with so many lies it made my head spin. I'd never be able to work again. My institution failed me. HR was designed to fail me. My colleagues failed me. The healthcare system failed me. I was planning to end my life, when my therapist intervened, so even that plan to end my suffering failed.

Back to therapy and meds and things that didn't work. I felt the only thing left for me was stuff, because people sure as shit didn't care about me. So I ate and I shopped and I found brief moments that let me make it from one day to another.

You might imagine my house is no longer minimal. I used to call it a DEFCON 1 hoarding situation. I've been trying my best for over a year with some new therapists. I think its down to DEFCON 2. I stopped shopping and eating because I knew they weren't healthy. I'm grateful I could just stop. It's not as easy for some.

But my grandmother died last week and my world has been falling apart. All I want to do is consume. I am fighting it, but I feel like it is a losing fight. We're not given a healthcare system that supports health far less for complicated grief. We don't have third spaces to just get out of the house and be around others in secular community. We certainly don't have places that allow us to process grief except once a week in a therapist's office if you're lucky.

I have to euthanize my dog. That's what I was mentally prepping for when my grandmother died. I knew it would be hard, but it's so much worse now.

Two rooms in my house are totally unusable. One is partly so (I can safely walk through it). My kitchen is barely accessible. I've fallen more than once. Right now I have been able to keep my bathroom accessible and working (for the most part, I don't have hot water- too embarrassed to have anyone in to fix it, terrified of the cost).

When I accumulate stuff, there isn't reason other than the little boost. I don't really want it, I have no plan for it and if I do, no energy to do anything with it. I just need to feel a little better. I'm not "addicted" either. I stopped and it didn't bother me. If I had another place to go, another activity to do to help me feel less alone, I would choose it easily.

I've heard about consumerism and it's detrimental affects to many things in our lives and environment. But I have never realized how much it preys on us going through the worst times of our lives.

I wrote this, hoping that thinking it and writing it will help me not buy something today, as I have done for the past week. But I doubt it will.