I SPENT ALL OF MY SAVINGS ON STRESS-SHOPPING

I felt as though parts of my body system were wearing out and finally stopping to function, one by one. 

August 15, 2024

Dear friend,

It’s been too long since the last time. Have you been well?

For me, I went through a phase last week. So, I’d say I haven’t been well the entire time, but I’m very much better at the time of this writing. Thank you.

It all started the day following the first day of the 10-day #EndBadGovernance protest in my country. What it was about? The citizens asking the government to give them better lives. It was a big one, I might tell you about it in detail later. 

Back to me, that day, I didn’t have to go anywhere so, I was home all day. I had felt distracted the previous night, but I didn’t make it a big deal because I would feel better in the morning, so I thought. 

“In the morning”, I didn’t feel better at all. I found it very difficult to get out of bed when I woke up, I just felt weak from my hair down to my toenails. I wasn’t sick, I mean, I just recovered from an illness not too long before that day. It would have been unfair if it was another sickness attack. It is possible though, but, I didn’t feel a need-to-get-to-the-hospital sick. I felt distracted, I lacked the motivation to carry out my daily activities like I would normally do. I had loads of to-do's to mark off, but, I couldn’t find the reason for them. I remained in my bed at first, because, I mean, I could :) 

I didn’t need to be at work that day, I didn’t really have deadlines to meet, and I didn’t have any exams to study for. I was lying on my bed throughout the entire day, only standing up, after hours, because I needed to do my laundry, even the few clothes I had to wash drained me so much than usual. Then, I freshened up and ate. It was night again and I slept off.

I woke up feeling exhausted again despite having slept the entire previous day and the night. I found myself sleeping again throughout the day. I didn’t get much sleep that night, so, I saw nothing wrong with me being weak again and unable to keep my eyes open for a straight 10 minutes the next day.  

It's Sunday. I couldn’t even go to church. I was sprawled on the floor of my room, eyes closed, weak, unmotivated, and distracted from life, for the most of that day. Towards evening, I got worried because I had been feeling like that for the past 3 days. I pushed myself to dress up and go outside to get stuff to make a new meal. Right after making the meal and eating, I fell back asleep, slept throughout the night, and woke up feeling exhausted, yet again. 

At this point, I was fed up. My body didn’t feel like mine anymore, I was aching all over due to prolonged sleep and lying on the bed. I once saw that always lying on the bed causes a named illness. I was worried that I was that way. There are times I’ve felt disconnected and moody in the past, yes, but it hasn’t ever lasted more than 2 days and it has never happened without a reason known to me. This time, I had no idea why I was like that. I was even tired of sleeping, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open no matter how much I tried. I thought, maybe, something bad had happened at home and this was my body getting the feeling. But then, God forbid, I discarded that thought quickly. I didn’t go to work that day because I couldn’t. I was off social media and couldn't even take calls, everything became uninteresting.

Did you notice I’ve been trying hard to describe how I felt these times from the beginning of the write-up? All of what I’ve written so far haven't really grasped how I felt. This is it: I felt as though parts of my body system were wearing out and finally stopping to function, one by one. My head was blank, my limbs were numb, my muscles were weak, and my eyes were tired.

I’m typing directly on my device, btw. I usually write on paper with a pen before typing. Finally moved with time, I guess

Eating was supposed to be my way of overcoming situations like this, but I didn’t even have an appetite to eat anything. I forced myself to get so many junks, and ended up almost throwing up after a few bites. K-dramas weren’t working much, either. I had tried everything to get me out of the mood, all to no avail. I had to resume work or risk being kicked out by my boss, I couldn’t keep it collected at work. I was restless. 

I started to say my rosary. The rosary is a Catholic prayer bead.

It was 5 days of suffering for me, nothing I did seemed to get my mood back. It was painful. I felt more like a log of wood. I needed the normal me back. I stuck with my rosary and hoped for a miracle. 

On the 6th day, Wednesday, I suddenly wanted to take a car ride outside my environment, I wanted to see new faces and places. I decided to thrift shop. 

I left work one hour before my clock-out time of 6 pm. I was at the market that evening, I bought lots of cute clothes with all of the money I saved up. ALL OF THE MONEY I SAVED UP. Then, I came back home. As I tried out the clothes in my room in front of a mirror, I felt happy, I felt like me, and I couldn’t wait to go back to crossing out items off my to-do. Finally, I felt alive again.

Speaking of the clothes and how much I spent. It was a whole lot. “A whole lot” is relative, but, it was actually a whole lot according to my dictionary. Since my life began on Earth, I hadn’t gotten so many clothes like that in one go, ever. I hadn’t spent the amount I spent that day on just clothes. I had investment plans for that money (don’t laugh). Seriously, I did have plans for that money. After trying out all the clothes and putting up a mini fashion show for my boyfriend in high spirits, ego a eme ka o ga eche m uche, ma na ndu bu isi,biko

By the way, they were really cute clothes though. Shout out to my immediate younger sister for influencing my fashion style positively. All of the clothes fitted so well, and needed no adjustments whatsoever, except two that were too small for me. I will have to give those to my youngest sister, I will never underestimate my size again. 

Okay, it is true that I made this plan to thrift shop before the protest, but couldn’t do so because of the protest. Could I have felt like death for 5 days simply because I wasn’t able to thrift shop as planned? No, it couldn’t have been. If it was, I would have known and done that sooner than I did. I’m still in awe of how boosted I was after that activity. I have decided to be more concious of my mental and emotional well-being because I’m not in that much of a position to go spending plenty of money, just because I feel moody.

I thought what happened was meaningless and had just happened to only me in the world until I saw the word “stress shopping” somewhere. Oh! That must be it. Do people do this? Wow, the world is an interesting place. Try stress shopping any time you want an energy boost, it works.

Unrelated, but as a matter of fact, my hair is growing at a believable speed.

Thank you for reading. I feel I can forget about how much I spent on this faster now that I’ve written. Take care, dear friend. 

I will write again soon.