Kali J Desautels

I tried to cancel a Chapters order the other day. In a self-pitying moment of panic, I fell into a bad habit that I have been working on curbing, to varying degrees of success. When I panic, I tend to head in the direction of “retail therapy” : shopping to relieve the stress. But then the shopping causes me stress, and I often have instantaneous buyers remorse, as in this case. As soon as I placed the online order for a box of books, I realized that I am on one income right now and that I need that money for food, or medicine, or something else to care for my family. I don’t need to buy books on dealing with cancer, I can talk to support people and I can read online articles, and it wouldn’t hit my budget at all. I immediately cancelled my order, and I felt the relief of a notification stating that Chapters had received my cancellation request.

… and then today, the books showed up at my door. My shame at having given into my self-destructive habit was staring at me from my countertop. I opened the box hoping that it was something else, that maybe somehow a box of books had shown up as a gift magically from a book fairy. But no, this was a stack of books that I had impulsively bought and desperately did not want. I wanted them gone. I am feeling such stress in my life that adding shame for a stupid, impulsive purchase was not something I felt like I could handle. I needed that money back in my bank account IMMEDIATELY. I felt like I could not handle having them there to mock me. So I impulsively grabbed the box, told my family I would be back soon, and drove to the next town, where the book store was and returned the entire box untouched.

Shame is so much worse than guilt. As Brené Brown has said – with guilt you feel like you have done something wrong, but with shame, you feel like YOU are wrong. I am already feeling such guilt, and fear, and appreciation, and gratitude, and anger, and sadness, that I can not handle the addition of shame. I cannot be bad. I cannot be wrong. I needed to fix it.

And now I am going to change the passwords on all of my accounts to something I cannot remember, and rely on the kindness of others, who will allow me to pay them back if I need to buy something online.