Dealing with Mental Health and Shopping in the J-Fashion Scene

Like many Lolitas I struggle with both overspending and mental health issues, it’s often a common theme in jokes in the community and I have talked about it before on my channel and in this blog but due to a recent bout of extreme overspending I thought it was due time I talk about it again.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I’ve talked about financial responsibility and Lolita fashion many times on my platforms and I always say I want to do better and I have overall gotten better but I’m still not where I want to be yet and sometimes that makes me feel fake when I want to have these discussions. Also my improvement can feel agonizingly slow or minute, the biggest example is that my last spending binge was on blouses not dresses and that genuinely felt like a win for me even though it caused me to be late on paying my car payment.

Admitting that so publicly feels embarrassing but in a space where overspending is normalized and sometimes I feel like it’s glamorized too, I think it’s important we talk about these things in a serious way from time to time. It’s okay to joke around to cope but I feel like there is a serious lack of looking at the actual consequences of overspending in this community which for many of us is linked to mental health issues.

My overspending happened when I had to take a break from going to therapy until my new health insurance benefits kick in, and although I was debating whether the hard work in counseling was worth starting again this recent spending binge answered it for me.

There’s nothing wrong with impulse buying a dress that you can actually afford from time to time but when it starts to seriously impact your life you need to take a step back and ask why you are actually doing this. It’s hard and uncomfortable and trust me I’d rather find a new way to transform into a frilly cupcake than to examine deep seated emotional issues (I’m writing this article just as much for me as for you) if you can afford it, I highly reccommend getting professional help and if you aren’t in a place where you can reaching out to a friend who won’t judge you but won’t let you bullshit them.

For this month I’m going to try not to buy any new items, I thought about trying a 6 month spending freeze but I think baby steps will suit me better. Once I start therapy again I’ll definitely be talking to my therapist about ways to avoid this

Jfashion is meant to be fun and a distraction but it’s escapism can easily crash back to reality if it starts to affect your financial health. Take care of yourselves. Have a wonderful night.