If we’re stressed, or we’re anxious, or we’re just really, really sad, we turn to the retail gods and we say: Let there be debt!
We – as the patients of this most sacred and therapeutic practice – are experts in the art of spending money.
For example:
Instead of talking about our feelings with a therapist, we bought waterproof eyeliner.
Now, we can cry all we want in the comfort and general seclusion of our own bedrooms with ice cream (that we just bought) and a fuzzy blanket (that was also just bought) and still look fabulous.
Nothing beats blowing $80 on cosmetics and peach scented toiletries.
And having a bubble bath to look forward to every goddamn day of the week is so much better than crying to our psychiatrist.
While therapy dogs are cute as shit, this dress is a million times cuter.
As an added bonus, we don’t have to deal with the responsibility of taking care of an animal when we can barely take care of ourselves, which was sort of the basis of our retail therapy to begin with.
Art therapy never works – it just makes us sadder.
We’d rather go shopping for a new statement accessory than make art because, well, listen – it’ll never look as good as this necklace, okay?
We will never understand why people willingly pursue acupuncture.
There are little needles sticking out of you. If anything, that stresses us out even more.
Why would we subject ourselves to acupuncture when we can spend our money on a mani-pedi with the same vaguely-painful-but-still-satisfying effect? At least now our fingers and toes are pretty.
The absolute last thing we want to do is spend hours at the gym if we’re having a rough week.
So we go ahead and buy some cute new running shoes, instead of sweating like nobody’s business. Running shoes that we can use at the gym later on!
Let’s face it – your psychiatrist isn’t going to appreciate your new outfit.
Your acupuncturist won’t care about the difference between Michael Kors and Kate Spade and your personal trainer probably hasn’t had a relaxing day at the spa since who the hell knows when.
Your therapy dog is colorblind so, like, there’s no one to tell you whether or not this lipstick matches that sunhat.
We just really like having that tangible proof.
Yes, this new thing here, we don’t know what it is or what it does, but it makes us happy to look at it.
When you really think about it, retail therapy is a method that gives and gives.
So when we’re broke and have to put in extra hours at work, we still have bubble baths and a ridiculous amount to throw pillows to come home to.
That’s kind of the point.