Recently, a lost husband and father to 17-year-old Cassie turned to the True Off My Chest community to share the difficult situation his family is in.

According to him, his stepdaughter Cassie is full of potential, so together with his wife Andrea, they put together a college fund for her so she wouldn’t be crushed by debt. “Over the years, it has amounted to over $200,000,” the author wrote.

However, last week, something happened that totally shattered the dad. “I found out that almost $170,000 dollars of the money was missing from the account.”

Turns out, it was his wife who carelessly took the money to fund her shopping addiction, which has spiraled out of control. The family is facing a crisis like it never has before.

Man found out his wife is a shopaholic and she secretly used their daughter’s college fund to feed her addiction, which came at a potentially future-shattering $170K dollars

Image source: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual photo)

Image source: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)

Image source: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

To find out more about shopping addiction, also known as a compulsive shopping disorder, Bored Panda reached out to Emily Malamet, the clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at Paris Psychology Centre.

Malamet explained that shopping addiction is a behavioral addiction which implies that compulsive buying can be a way for an individual to feel positive emotions (temporarily) and avoid negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression.

“Shopping addiction can take over and become unmanageable, this being a common factor in behavioral addictions, which can lead to a large amount of suffering for the person and have a negative impact on different areas of their life (Koran et al., 2006),” the psychotherapist commented.

Having said that, Malamet noted that shopping addiction is controversial and not all experts agree on whether shopping addiction can be qualified as a real addictive disorder (Muller et al., 2019). “It is also important to mention that shopping addiction is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) in the category of non-substance-related disorders (Hartney, 2022; Piquet-Pessôa et al., 2014).”

Some signs that a person might be suffering from a shopping addiction include but are not limited to: “always thinking about things they are going to purchase, being unable to stop their cycle of compulsive shopping, experiencing a rush of euphoria after having made a purchase, the urge to buy is overwhelming and must be gratified instantly, feeling regret or guilt about things that they have bought.”

Other signs of shopping addiction include: “financial problems or the inability to pay off debt, lying about things they have purchased or hiding what they have bought, going shopping with the intention of buying only a few items and end up buying much more than they intended, opening new credit cards without having paid off the balances on existing cards yet, buying things they don’t need, and shopping when stressed or sad.”

Malamet argues that shopping addiction involves compulsive spending, which can produce a temporary high of emotions. “A large majority of individuals who suffer from compulsive shopping can even feel empty and unsatisfied with their purchases once the high has worn off (Tavares et al., 2008).”

“The difference between shopping addiction and other types of shopping (such as normal shopping or occasional splurges) is that the compulsive shopping behavior transforms into the person’s primary way of dealing with stress and negative emotions. Individuals suffering from shopping addiction will continue to shop excessively even when it is having a detrimental impact on other areas of their life (Koran et al., 2006).”

While normal shopping involves purchasing items that are needed and used, the absence of compulsion, a lack of financial distress from purchases, and occasional splurges, shopping addiction is the opposite. “It involves purchasing items that are not needed or used, compulsive shopping behavior, financial difficulties created from these purchases, and constant overbuying,” Malamet argues.

It is also important to specify the difference between impulsive buying and compulsive buying. Malamet explained that “impulse buying is an unplanned purchase at the moment which is in response to the immediate desire to see something you would like to buy.”

Meanwhile, “compulsive buying is typically a more pre-planned experience to avoid feeling negative emotions. However, people with a shopping addiction can engage in these two types of buying (Hartney, 2022).”

Later, he added some more updates about how the whole situation evolved in the family

Image source: Wifestolethemoney

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