Transcript
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A listener production.
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Welcome to another solo episode of Crappy and Happy, and
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today I have another listener question which I thought was
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a really interesting one. So let me play that for
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you right now.
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Hip pass. I'm wondering if you could provide more details
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and go into the psychology around money and the connection
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to trauma. So, for example, I get rarely stressed at
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Christmas time based on family members, that I've lost my
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connection with my parents, feeling lonely, all sorts of feelings. Basically,
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I was overspending and I drained my bank accounts. I
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was conscious that I was doing it, but then at
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the same time, I just kept doing it.
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Okay, So, first of all, straight off the top, it
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goes without saying that this podcast is not intended to
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be a substitute for professional medical therapeutic support. The only
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information that I can share here is general information that
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is broadly applicable to lots of people. I am not
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offering individual advice or therapy on the show or ever online,
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So that's my disclaimer. I would be in a lot
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of trouble if I offered personal psychological advice on the podcast.
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Having said that, this issue of money and trauma, I
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think is a really really interesting one, and so that's
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why when this question came in, I was really keen
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to address it here on the show, because I think
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many listeners, as we know, have experienced some form of
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trauma in their lives, and many people also struggle financially,
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whether it's to do with being in constant debt, always
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spending more than new man, never feeling like you have enough,
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whether it is undercharging for services, having difficulty asking for
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what you're worth financially, there's a whole lot of really
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complicated links and associations between money and self worth, and
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also to do with just how we manage our impulses
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and our behaviors generally. So let me just talk about
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that briefly on the show today, and then if you
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identify that this is potentially a problem for you, then
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it might prompt you to go and seek some advice
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or some support of your own in this area. Broadly speaking,
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we all know that experiencing trauma in childhood is associated
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with a whole lot of complicated issues later in life,
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particularly to do with mental health issues. We've talked on
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this podcast about even physical health issues that might be
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a later consequence of early childhood trauma, but particularly things
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like addictive behaviors, mental health, mood disorders. These can all
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be consequences of early childhood difficulties, early childhood adverse experiences.
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We know that childhood trauma has links later with attention
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deficit disorder ADHD, and as we know, as we've already discussed,
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ADHD is not so much a deficit of attention or
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a disorder related to attention. It's more a disorder related
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to executive functioning and impulse control. So it's all of
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the part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex is associated
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with planning and implementing and executing on a task or
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a project and staying on track with that, holding that
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in your working memory, and keeping that at the forefront
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and the priority, as opposed to being pulled offline and
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pulled off course by other what we call the subcordical
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regions of the brain, which is more that impulsive kind
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of behave where they come in. So issues to do
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with impulse control, issues to do with behavior management, regulating
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your behaviors, resisting the urge to do certain things, these
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can all be compromised by early childhood trauma. The parts
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of your brain associated with executive functioning and impulse control
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can be affected by early childhood trauma. So therefore, anything
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that is a compulsive sort of a behavior, whether it
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be eating, spending, gambling, inappropriate sexual activities, pornography, anything that
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serves that purpose I guess, of providing an immediate source
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of pleasure or reward. Those really high dopamine kind of behaviors,
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the pleasure seeking sort of behaviors. People who have experienced
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trauma can have difficulty regulating those sorts of behaviors and
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keeping them in check. When we talk about shopping, compulsive
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buying disorder is an actual term, and compulsive buying disorder
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refers to as it probably sounds, compulsively spending money in
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a way that ultimately is going to have negative consequences.
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It's very much like any other addictive behavior. An addictive
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behavior is something that you continue to do you compulsively.
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You feel compelled to continue to do the behavior despite
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the fact that there are negative, very real, negative consequences
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associated with the behavior. I guess. The other thing that
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we know about early trauma is that it is often
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associated with fairly chronic feelings of unworthiness. It is if
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you have an insecure attachment, which is the most likely
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outcome if you've experienced childhood trauma, and we've talked previously
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about insecure attachment on this show, then that can often
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manifest as feeling fearful, untrusting, feeling unsafe in the world world,
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having difficulty forming intimate connections with other people, being vulnerable
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opening up, have difficulties trusting people or being trustworthy, whether
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you are comfortable to get close to people, or you
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remain avoidant of people because you are fearful of that
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kind of vulnerability that comes with those intimate relationships, potentially
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because you have no experience of that if you didn't
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experience that growing up feelings of shame, and remember shame
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is that belief that if people really knew you, they
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would reject you. So it's just sort of this internal
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core feeling that there is something bad or wrong with
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you that other people would have difficulty accepting. Childhood trauma
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creates all of these kinds of feelings, So if you
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feel that way, then often that can lead to behaviors
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that really are an attempt to escape that kind of
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Those are all really painful feelings, deeply painful feelings, and
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so when you've experienced trauma, you're often drawn to behaviors
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that give you something pleasurable or help you to escape
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or avoid those core feelings of shame or unworthiness or unhappiness,
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whatever it is that you're experiencing. Hence the compulsion towards
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addictive kind of behaviors. And we know with addictive behaviors
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they are highly rewarding in terms of they produce a
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lot of dopamine in your brain, and dopamine is the chemical,
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the neurotransmitter associated with motivation. So you when you experience
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something that gives you a lot of pleasure, that you
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are compelled to repeat that behavior too. That's its whole function,
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that's what dopamine is designed to do. This is why
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people who have difficult early experiences can often be drawn
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into this kind of cycle of addictive kind of behaviors
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and then end up in this pattern of repeating those behaviors.
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And of course the more that you repeat the behaviors,
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the more compulsive they become. And if you also have
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feeling self shame or guilt associated with those behaviors because
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you know that they're bad, or you're getting yourself into debt,
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or you're getting yourself into not functioning in life. You
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know that you're drinking too much or eating too much,
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shopping too much. The feeling of shame, which just makes
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you feel worse, is going to only propel you more
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towards those behaviors that are designed to avoid the feelings
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of pain, very self reinforcing, very much a vicious cycle,
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and that is often what the cycle and the pattern
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that people find themselves in. Compulsive buying is characterized by
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excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges, and or behaviors focused
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on shopping and spending, which can cause psychological distress and
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lead to reduced quality of life. So compulsive buying or
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shopping is just one variation of a compulsive behavior that
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you might experience if you have experienced childhood trauma. And
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I'm not saying that only people with childhood trauma might
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experience compulsive buying. And I'm not saying that every person
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who's experienced compulsive buying will engage in compulsive behaviors. That's
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not true. We just know that there is a greater likelihood,
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there is an increased risk. You may have had no
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childhood trauma and still be compelled to engage in these
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compulsive buying activities or any other compulsive activities. It's just
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that the association is stronger when there is a history
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of trauma or adverse childhood experience. So there hasn't been
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a lot of research done into this from what I
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can tell, but I did find a couple of studies,
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and one examined five different types of childhood trauma occurring
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before the age of twelve years and they were witnessing violence,
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experiencing physical neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse.
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So those five types of childhood trauma, which you'll probably
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recognize as five from the ACES study, the ad Childhood
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Experiences study. They looked at those five experiences in relationship
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to compulsive buying and they found that all forms of trauma,
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all of those five forms of trauma were statistically significantly
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correlated with compulsive buying or shopping. And what they found
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was that particularly strong were witnessing violence and experiencing emotional
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abuse before the age of twelve, So there was a
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very strong correlation between early childhood trauma and compulsive shopping.
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Another study found that people will often turn to materialism
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in the face of uncertainty in life, either uncertainty within themselves,
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as in a core feeling of self doubt or just
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uncertainty socially uncertainty with the world. People are drawn to
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materialist kind of behaviors when they experience uncertainty. It's almost
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a form of exerting control over what you can control
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when you feel like things are out of control, or
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you're feeling self doubt or uncertain or unstable within yourself,
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which makes sense. The other thing that shopping does is
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if there is a core feeling of unworthiness, if there
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is a feeling of lack within yourself, it can be
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very easy to be drawn to acquiring things and holding
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onto things, either to project an image of worthiness. If
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I look nice and if I dress well, and if
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I have this nice car and these nice things and
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buy this nice house, then people won't see how unworthy
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I feel inside. So I'm trying to present an image
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that will be I think will be accepted by other people.
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That will make me more likable, that will make me
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more accepted, validated, approved of. So looking for that validation
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in the form of material things. It's also remember if
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you think about Maslow's higherarchy of needs, the very bottom,
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the very basic level of safety. The very fundamental need
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on that hierarchy is feeling safe and having enough of
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the basics in life, having food, having roof over your head,
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having something to wear, warmth. Before you even go up
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to feeling safe from harm or climbing up to things
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like self actualization and self esteem, we need to have
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how material needs met. We need to have our basic needs,
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physical needs taken care of. And so sometimes if we're
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feeling unsafe in the world, which is a key feature
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of somebody who's experienced childhood trauma, then buying things can
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give us that feeling of security, that feeling of material security,
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like I have enough if I keep enough things around me,
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if there's enough food in the cupboard, if there's enough stuff,
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then it can kind of psychologically give me that feeling
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of safety and security. So I guess it's complicated, and
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there's also no simple answer. There's no straightforward answer about
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why in this situation would I be triggered into compulsively
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shopping and filling my pantry even though I've already got enough.
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But it's fair to say that where there is an
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experience of family dysfunction, where there is a trauma associated
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with your family of origin, which it most often is.
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Then contact with your family of origin can be a
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triggering experience. So if you're you might be getting along
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fine in the world, doing your job and having your
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friends and you know, living your life, and often people
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can feel kind of psychologically activated, triggered in experiences. We're
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going to be back in contact with those people who
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are associated with early trauma, whatever that trauma might have been.
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There's a whole lot of associations there with those people
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and in that situation that can be activated. And even
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if you're not really consciously aware of it, it's happening
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at an unconscious level. Remember, your nervous system is constantly
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kind of looking for signals of safety or signals of danger,
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and it's spotting things in the world that you're not
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even conscious of physically, you know, like your nervous system
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is picking up on sites and smells and tone of voice,
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and shadows and colors in your environment which you probably
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have no conscious memory of, but they can trigger associations
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that are locked away deep in the recesses of your
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unconscious mind. And then your nervous system starts to react.
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And again this is happening in your physiology. It's not
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a conscious choice. It's not something you decide or that
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you have control over. Your nervous system starts to react
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that that threat response starts to mobilize, it starts to
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get activated, and you can just find yourself feeling out
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of thoughts or just compulsively doing things designed to either
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escape feelings of discomfort or to deliberately induce feelings of
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safety and security or pleasure because something else is going on.
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You've been triggered somehow. I guess it sort of makes
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sense that, particularly for somebody like my listener, who is
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in a situation where she was going to be back
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in contact with people who she might associate with early childhood,
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and no matter how much therapy she might have done
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and talked through this and felt like she'd resolved it
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or felt like she was getting a handle on it
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at a conscious level, then often unconsciously little things can
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just trigger us into old patterns of behavior. So there
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could be various reasons why that manifested as going out
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and buying and overspending, but it was very much the
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definition of compulsively buying knowing that there was a negative consequence,
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like I'm draining my bank account buying this stuff when
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I don't actually need it, and that is the very
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definition of what a compulsive buying disorder is. If it
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is continued and repeated, it becomes a disorder as opposed