17 - MY COMPULSIONS WORK JUST FINE....FOR EVERYONE BUT ME

Some compulsions are a bit more expensive than other, economically and emotionally.

I am a woman and – like many women – I love bags, shoes, clothing……I try to be fashionable.

There are times I buy things because I like them or because I need them (like the chinos of a previous post) but there are also time I buy things just “because”. I often buy things and I give them away in less than a year. In time I figured I give them away because of the way I fell when I see/wear them. Shopping while I’m upset/sad is a subconscious, insidious mechanism I act out too often.

It works just like the bulimia type one with food: first the spasmodic compulsion to fill the void (eating/shopping) -  then the guilt (I shouldn’t have eaten/bought that) - then the necessity to get the things out (vomit/give away) – then the guilt again (I should have controlled myself before I did it vomit/waste a lot of money) – then counting the days – the gap in-between - the behavior didn’t manifest itself.

So, I am bulimic, obsessed, compulsive and maybe a bit bitch-y.

Why am I saying so? Because give away stuff triggers in me a response I don’t like. At all.

As I said more than once, I have trouble estimating how fat I am. Sometimes when I am with my sister, I suddenly point my finger towards someone and I ask her “am I fatter then that girl?”. It is not a polite thing to do, I know,  but I am very discrete and I really need to know because I have no idea how do I look. If she tells me (my sister can be brutally honest when it is not about her) she is like me I get a glimpse of the way I appear in the people’s eyes. Quite often I indicate people fatter than me and that tells me in my head I see myself fatter than I actually am, or so I hope.

But let’s go back to my bad behavior.

When I give away clothing usually friends come to my house and try them on. By the way they fit in them I do a comparison and I know if I am like them or not. Of course I give things to people wearing the size of the clothing I’m giving away, nevertheless, I have a few difficulties judging them too.

Once (say last month) I tried to give away a pair of jeans by Liu-Jo. I bought them in a dark moment and I never wore them. They are not my size and I paid them 170 Euros ca.  They are a size 33, I am a 30, sometimes a 31 or a 32, some other times a 28 or a 29 (Gosh if I wish the sizes would match from brand to brand) but never a 33. How did the heck I buy them? I have no idea.

Now, who are the lucky receivers of my (brand new or wore no more than twice) clothing? Usually my sister and my friends or coworkers wearing my size (or at least the ones I think wear my size). They are not many though. Since I paid that pair of jeans a lot and they were brand new, I tried to give them to practically everyone. A shaping, dark wash, expensive jeans for free: everybody tried them on. They fit no one. Where was the problem? I think there were mainly two problems:

1 . that 33 is hardly a 32 (some brands use to put haphazardly the size – I hate them)

2. the people I think are my size are fatter than me ergo I am not as fat as I think. (the corrector on my PC underlined “fat” in blue on the last sentence…..it says I should correct with fast, bah)

I even tried to give them to an old friend of mine who usually wears a 32, I thought she would look amazing in them. I thought she was just like me (give or take)so they would have been a bit lose or-  maybe - since she gained a few pounds, perfect on her. She couldn’t even pass them through her thighs. I really thought she was almost like me, a bit chubbier for sure, but just a couple inches, no more so it really struck me…….I tried them again when she went home and I got the inches are more than two.

I hate that I kind of use this times (me giving away clothing) to compare. It is not about who’s fatter, I wish it was that simple - it is that I need something like measurement  to see the world. Just like my scale: depending on the number it shows me my shape in the mirror changes. I’m an horrid person and I don’t even think I am a bad person: I really love people and I try to always be nice to everyone since I hurt easily  and I hope never to hurt someone.