Author Topic: Divorced 39-year-old moves back in with parents to tackle her debt load  (Read 4809 times)

scottish

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This is a sad story about a woman who was a terrible impulse shopper.    After she got divorced, her parents paid off her debt, only to find that she began impulse shopping again.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/home-cents/divorced-39-year-old-moves-back-home-with-parents-as-she-tackles-debt-load/article24483526/

Bad shopping habits are horrible.

mozar

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Sounds like depression/ unhealthy relationship with her parents.

thriftyc

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I think it's down to evolutionary biology that homo sapiens have developed these means of self-medicating: shopping, alcohol, drugs, hoarding, OCDs of all kinds, sex/fetishes, gambling, exercising, EATING (ahem), not eating, television, the Internet/video games, etc.

Life for humans is hard physically, psychologically, emotionally, interpersonally. Sometimes too hard. I believe that over hundreds of thousands of years humans have learned do what works to feel better for a while and it helped early man have the will to survive another day and now the capacity for addiction is baked into our DNA. So much of the human experience is beyond our control that urge to self-medicate through behaviors we can control serves a purpose.

Of course there are lots of people who aren't addicted to anything in the clinical sense. Maybe they never came face to face with the necessary triggers. Maybe they are just in the right place physically, psychologically, emotionally, and interpersonally. If that's the case, then they probably had very good, emotionally healthy, and nonaddicted parents. In my observation, people in the grips of addictions of one kind or another often had bad or inadequate parents (and bad or inadequate parenting comes in many forms), parents who themselves were addicts, or a bad childhood situation of some kind.

Because of this deep-seated need to self-medicate, I would guess most people don't conquer addictions so much as replace them with different addictions. Like when a shopaholic becomes a super saver. Maybe the woman in the article can learn to transfer the rush of shopping to the rush of saving.

Or perhaps, she can learn to grow up.

sunday

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The most horrifying part is that she works as a account manager.

2lazy2retire

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I think it's down to evolutionary biology that homo sapiens have developed these means of self-medicating: shopping, alcohol, smoking, drugs, hoarding, OCDs of all kinds, sex/fetishes, gambling, exercising, EATING (ahem), not eating, television, the Internet/video games, etc.

Life for humans is hard physically, psychologically, emotionally, interpersonally. Sometimes too hard. I believe that over hundreds of thousands of years humans have learned to do over and over what works to feel better for a while and it helped early man have the will to survive another day and now the capacity for addiction is baked into our DNA. So much of the human experience is beyond our control that the urge to self-medicate through behaviors we can control serves a purpose.

Of course there are lots of people who aren't addicted to anything in the clinical sense. Maybe they never came face to face with the necessary triggers. Maybe they are just in the right place physically, psychologically, emotionally, and interpersonally. If that's the case, then they probably had very good, emotionally healthy, and nonaddicted parents. In my observation, people in the grip of addiction often had bad or inadequate parents (and bad or inadequate parenting comes in many forms), parents who themselves were addicts, or a bad childhood situation of some kind.

Because of this deep-seated need to self-medicate, I would guess most people don't conquer addictions so much as replace them with different addictions. Like when a shopaholic becomes a super saver. Maybe the woman in the article can learn to transfer the rush of shopping to the rush of saving.
" I think it's down to evolutionary biology that homo sapiens have developed these means of self-medicating: shopping, alcohol, smoking, drugs, hoarding, OCDs of all kinds, sex/fetishes, gambling, exercising, EATING (ahem), not eating, television, the Internet/video games, etc."

How could you leave out working

MandalayVA

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The most horrifying part is that she works as a account manager.

That term does not mean what you think it means.  Account managers are salespeople.

thriftyc

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I think it's down to evolutionary biology that homo sapiens have developed these means of self-medicating: shopping, alcohol, drugs, hoarding, OCDs of all kinds, sex/fetishes, gambling, exercising, EATING (ahem), not eating, television, the Internet/video games, etc.

Life for humans is hard physically, psychologically, emotionally, interpersonally. Sometimes too hard. I believe that over hundreds of thousands of years humans have learned do what works to feel better for a while and it helped early man have the will to survive another day and now the capacity for addiction is baked into our DNA. So much of the human experience is beyond our control that urge to self-medicate through behaviors we can control serves a purpose.

Of course there are lots of people who aren't addicted to anything in the clinical sense. Maybe they never came face to face with the necessary triggers. Maybe they are just in the right place physically, psychologically, emotionally, and interpersonally. If that's the case, then they probably had very good, emotionally healthy, and nonaddicted parents. In my observation, people in the grips of addictions of one kind or another often had bad or inadequate parents (and bad or inadequate parenting comes in many forms), parents who themselves were addicts, or a bad childhood situation of some kind.

Because of this deep-seated need to self-medicate, I would guess most people don't conquer addictions so much as replace them with different addictions. Like when a shopaholic becomes a super saver. Maybe the woman in the article can learn to transfer the rush of shopping to the rush of saving.

Or perhaps, she can learn to grow up.


Well, her parents need to grow up first.  If the story is even real. I sometimes wonder if these are fake click-bait stories.

Nope, no more excuses. At 39, it's her turn to grow up. Her parents are to far gone. At some point we have to make decisions for ourselves. At 39, she is well beyond that point.

thenextguy

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“Having someone help you with your finances actually doesn’t help you at all,” said the 39-year-old account manager.

The good news is that she's learned an important lesson and is probably on the right path now. I never learned to manage my money until I got sick and tired of being in debt all the time. I think you usually need to suffer before you make the change.