Celia Walden

Shopping a mental illness? I’m not buying it

It’s just easier to be a victim, isn’t it? Takes away the shame and accountability

Certainty is pretty thin on the ground these days. I’m not sure which of the hysterical hieroglyphics on “inclusive” public toilet cubicles is meant for me, how many genders there are, when due process was officially dispensed with or whether I can wolf whistle at French men without incurring the €750 on-the-spot fine they would now get slapped with if they did the same to me. And nobody seems to be able to tell me if the humour ban is an across-the-board thing or whether we’re still allowed to keep a handful of jokes “for personal use”.

There is, however, one thing I’m certain of – that any shameful or naughty actions committed by you will always be someone or something else’s fault. This is a huge relief for many – and now me: a lifelong shopaholic. Because it turns out that the shopping addiction that I’ve always feared was just a noxious combination of poor impulse control and deep-seated materialism is no such thing. It’s not even an addiction, but a mental illness.

“It’s time to recognise Compulsive Shopping Disorder as a separate mental health condition,” said Prof Astrid Muller, of Hannover Medical School, on Sunday, as it was revealed that a whopping six per cent of the German population suffers from “an urge to spend”. The clinical psychologist with a special interest in addiction hopes that classifying CSD as a mental illness “will help us develop better treatments and diagnosis methods”.

Before I could gorge on the delicious detail of those treatments and diagnosis methods, I had to be certain that I was indeed “suffering from” CSD. Yes, I have obsessed “over making purchases on a daily or weekly basis” and I’m afraid I do “shop to cope with stress and boredom”. Have I occasionally “purchased unnecessary items”? Well that depends on whether you would describe an original Seventies Snoopy Sno-cone machine, which would be in full working order if it worked, as “unnecessary”. And if you would, perhaps you’re the one with the problem. Do I “feel regret or remorse over purchases but continue to shop”? Abso-bloomin-lutely. It’s the knowledge I’m doing something I’ll regret that gives me “the intense euphoria or excitement” that tops the CSD symptom list.

Experts – alongside every woman I know – have welcomed the news that shopping is indeed an illness (and, therefore, largely beyond our control). It comes in the wake of the NHS’S first “internet gaming addiction” diagnosis in June (now that ipad-itis has officially been recognised by the World Health Organisation) and we should expect all addictions, from smoking to box-set binge-watching, to be reclassified as

mental illnesses. It’s just easier to be a victim, isn’t it? Takes away the shame and accountability. Anyway, the whole “moral failings” notion has religious connotations that our secular society long ago rejected in favour of Homer Simpson-style “it’s not my fault” isms.

So, the question now is not “how sorry should people feel for me as I heap more unneeded items into my virtual shopping bag?” (answer: very) but “how do we treat CSD?” Well, you’d think pills would be problematic on account of it not being an illness, but apparently antidepressants, like Paris, are always a good idea, alongside getting rid of credit cards and “finding meaningful ways to spend leisure time other than shopping” – a sentence that reduces my mind to a TV test card and has my ears buzzing with static.

According to Humboldt University researcher Aniko Maraz, a “shopping addiction specialist”, there is also a need for public preventive strategies of the type that are used to help people quit smoking. So, shoes, dresses and handbags could soon carry warning labels like: “Shopping seriously harms you and those around you” and “Quitting shopping seriously reduces the risks of divorce and bankruptcy.” Anything to avoid NHS hospital corridors being filled with more patients on gurneys – and Net-a-porter bags.

Addiction is, of course, no laughing matter. And it’s true that it may be symptomatic of a mental disorder. But at this rate, so may life itself.

Back in 2003, I was given the odd assignment of “babysitting” George Best for another newspaper. As an intensely self-aware man with a high IQ, he always dismissed the idea that he was the “victim” of a disease.

“People assume that you slip into alcoholism, that it controls you,” he told me. “I don’t know about other people, but I would make the decision. It was crystal clear to me what I was doing, and every single thing that I was giving up when I [drank].”

Would calling his alcoholism a “mental illness” have made it either any more bearable – or surmountable? I doubt it.