Shopping addiction should be taken more seriously say sufferers


One day retail therapy can be a ticket that will help some people feel better about themselves. But what happens when you can’t stop shopping?
Lucy, surrounded by shirts, dresses and Jumper shelves, says that she can spend up to 14 hours a day by calling new clothes from reality.
His 37 -year -old life may seem like a dream, but Lucy is clear that excessive shopping damages his life.
At one point, Lucy found that she did not pay her bills to continue to buy clothes.
“Like a physical and emotional drowning.
Lucy has no idea how many clothes she has, but they get a few suitcases and a storage of 35 square meters at the West Yorkshire house.
“The clothes acted like an armor to avoid feeling the emotions I made in real life.”
Lucy set up a fashion Instagram account and at the end of the shopping, it was “spiral” until the point it spent £ 700 a week – finally collected £ 12,000.
“It was the first thing I thought when I woke up.
“You continue to look for clothes as someone can continue to drink, because they did not fully reach the escape point they hoped to reach.”
‘Penny Drop moment’
He says he sees the online impressive online with plenty of clothes that “normalizes” their habits.
A therapist realized that it was possible to be dependent on shopping, until he told him that he could be oniomani, the obligatory impulse of buying something.
The second NHS explains that in the cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) session, the disorder heard as a moment of “penny drop”.
Shopping addiction, also known as compelling purchasing disorder or oniomani– Despite the negative consequences, it is time when a person does not need an uncontrollable need.
It is not known how many people have. Review of the research it affects about 5% of adults, but New work He says he might have risen to 10% since his pande.
Now, throughout Lucy and others, others want the situation to better understand and get more support from NHS.
“I think the resources are missing at the moment. Oniomani research and understanding are not there for the same as dependence on substances.” Says.

Natalie has more than 10,000 household goods at Rotherham’s house.
40 -year -old obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) “triggers” to buy certain things, including a certain number of items and color.
The cupboard is home to 300 tube toothpaste and 3,000 washing beans.
“He just climbed to the point where I went out, and he didn’t settle until my boot was full, Nat says Natalie.
At the summit of his addiction, he would be in shops every day and spent £ 3,000 per month, including £ 1,000 in the bathroom materials.
“I can’t stop – and I don’t want to stop either. If I see something online, I need it. I don’t care how I get it, I need to take it.”
Recently, a mother has spent £ 1,000 in a flight of mostly in perfumes and says it has about 400 smells purchased in more than two years.
Natalie, who works in private nursing, says that ads have a “great impact” on the purchasing habits of advertisements and can spend six hours a day by watching online perfume videos when not working.
He was treated both in and specially in NHS, but he thinks he’s not successful because he’s not ready to stop yet – but he’s trying to stop shopping.
“I think every addiction should be handled in the same way and there should be more help and therapy. [from the NHS] To people who want this, “he adds.

The BBC spoke to 15 people who think that there is a shopping addiction.
Many of them talked about a mental wage and guilt and shame. One, as a result, said they developed a disorder and the other was a “monster” in their lives.
Everyone felt that social media contributed to the addictions.
According to experts, Ratio of Online Retail Sales In May 2015, it has increased more than twice the last decade in the last decade, which rose from 12% to 27% in May 2025.
Digital advertising organ, IAB UK, said that the expenditures spent by advertisers on social media content grew by 20% last year – a total of £ 8.87 billion.
Zaheen Ahmed, Director of therapy in Ukat Group, which operates national dependence therapy centers, says that they see more people with shopping addiction.
He explains that the hormonal expectation of a purchase can be equalized to the reaction of a drug user securing a hit.
Ahmed says that the use of social media as a part of smartphone ownership is “new normal”.
“Social media affects our life great time and contributes to our impulse to interact and interact every time.”

Shopping has become a coping mechanism for Alyce’s self -confidence and respect.
At the age of 18, Buy Now Pay later began to use plans – a decision he described as “passage” to the other loan.
Finally, Alyce from Bristol was upset with £ 9,000, especially after ordered online clothes after spending up to £ 800 every month.
“The more I had to open it, the more excitement I had.
“But when I opened the parcels, the buzz would wear out and I would be upset again – then the loop continues.
“Social media is actually another version of QVC, but a young generation can follow.”
Alyce, who has been working in the field of business, has overcome the therapy addiction since then and is now almost without debt.
“If I didn’t do that, I really don’t know where I would be, or he says.
“It really changes your way of thinking and creeps with everything you do – your whole life turns the salary day where you can shop again.
“It’s just very overwhelming.”
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. NHS says It is possible to be dependent on almost everything – but there is no significant diagnosis for a shopping addiction.
One reason for this is that while experts believe that some of them are behavioral dependence, while others object to how to classify it, others associate it with mood or obsessive compulsive disorders.
York University Ian Hamilton, a professor of addiction, said that shopping addiction “caught a psychiatric in hind -standing”.
The expert who has been working in the field for thirty years, said the disorder believes that we are two or three years, since the disorder is more commonly recognized as a more common diagnosis.
Prof Hamilton said that the retail sector has removed some strategies used by the gambling industry to keep people online.
“I don’t think there’s any accident that people find it hard to find it after regretting this spending, buying, feeling cycle.”
It is not just a coincidence of the rise of academic, impressives.
“Having an element described to you is something, [but that] It does not have the same effect as seeing a video package with a bright good stroke that extends the virtue of an item and shows only positives. “
Pamela Roberts, a psychotherapist in health care provider Priory Group, is clear: “We need to learn different coping strategies, but we can only learn [them] When it is recognized as a problem – it is done only when it is made official, dedi he adds.
An NHS spokesman: “NHS Talking therapies provide treatment for a number of conditions, including OCD, and provide practical skills and techniques to help cope.”
They added that anyone struggling with obsessive and compulsive behaviors could communicate with their GPs or direct themselves for therapy.