Beth,
I just read the whole article. Thanks so much for posting. I saved it and plan to print it for my T. So many of the things listed there are me, particularly:
People who behave co-narcissistically share
a number of the following traits: they tend to
have low self-esteem, work hard to please
others, defer to others’ opinions, focus on
others’ world views and are unaware of their
own orientations, are often depressed or
anxious, find it hard to know how they think
and feel about a subject, doubt the validity
of their own views and opinions (especially
when these conflict with others’ views), and
take the blame for interpersonal problems.
That paragraph.
When I feel depressed and anxious, today is actually one of my better days, I want to buy myself something to make myself feel better. It's taken a long time to recognize this as a real addiction. So when I started feeling really down a few days ago, I started getting the urge to buy something just for me, something I wanted but didn't need. This time, I fought the urge, this is the script I've been telling myself: "Buying something is not going to make me feel better. I do not need this (fill in the blank) at this time. If I buy this at this time, it will end up on my credit card, and my goal is to have no credit card debt at all in one year's time. I will only feel worse if I make this purchase." And it took a couple of days, but the urge to buy, buy, buy is fading, and I've been able to rationalize now, "I do want to make this purchase, but not at this time. I need to sell some more items before I make this purchase so that I'm using extra money, not my savings."
Does that make sense? My mom's way of making up for her abuse was always to buy me things, like that would make it all better. She didn't pay my college tuition my freshman year, so they were going to unenroll me. She made up for it by buying me an expensive musical instrument. I think this tendency carried over to me, so now I"m addicted to that.
I try to do things like . . .sit in my room and read, listen to a CD I like, go for a walk, etc . . . I want "me" time. A lot of times when I get M, we spend about thirty minutes apart. He's in the living room, and I"m in my bedroom. We need that time alone.
It's not to say that I haven't bought anything for myself lately. I did, but I didn't buy those things because I wanted to make myself feel better. I bought it to enjoy, and I didn't feel a bit guilty.