Shopping Just...Sucks: Panic Attack

Yesterday I cried. I cried harder than I remember crying in years and years and years. I was sobbing so hard I could barely breathe, and I felt like crying wasn't even expressive enough for what I was feeling.

Rewind:

I hate clothes shopping. I've been putting it off for a long, long time. All my clothes I wear now are pretty worn out, or don't fit, or I just don't like them anymore. I have nothing nice to wear, since my wardrobe consists of tee shirts and jeans. We have a family thing to go to this weekend, so I knew it was time. Scott was encouraging me to go shopping, and wanted me to get anything I wanted or needed, because let's face it: I'm a grownup, and I need to dress like one. Tee shirts and jeans are fine for working in my lab, because I hate wearing a lab coat and my clothes often take a beating. But after work and on weekends, I really need to put a little more effort into my appearance. I really should start wearing some makeup, but I need to take this one step at a time.

So yesterday morning, I made a plan. I psyched myself up to where I was excited about it. I knew what stores I wanted to hit, and roughly what I wanted to get at each one.

Right after work, I started at Victoria's Secret. I knew this would be fine, because I knew what I wanted, and it only took about 20 minutes to get in and get out of there with what I needed.

It was after that that my problems started.

I've been to Downeast Basics before and found shirts I really liked there, so I didn't anticipate any problems. I made the mistake of going to the one in the mall instead of the other, larger one in my town, so there wasn't much of a selection there, and that was a bit discouraging. Oh well, I had the entire mall left, right?

Next I planned on going to Maurice's. Everyone I've talked to has said their jeans are awesome, and I wanted to get one nice pair of jeans for weekends. Like, a pair I would spend more than $15 on. I had been on their website earlier in the day, and there were so many cute things that I was planning on trying on. I walked around the whole store, and all the things I liked only went up to a size large. Boo. So, I tried on jeans. I like higher-rise jeans, because all the lower ones show too much bottom in the back (I have yet to find a pair of jeans anywhere that doesn't have this problem to some degree). So I grabbed a pair of their highest-rise jeans, and oh look, my butt was hanging out the back. Suck. So that was the point where I started feeling...panicky. It wasn't too bad; I was able to hide it from all the people around me.

I stopped in to a few more stores, and there were a few places that had shirts I loved, but once again, they didn't have my size. Finally I took a deep breath and went into a plus-size store, hoping their smallest size wouldn't be too big. I didn't even try anything on; everything in there looked like grandma clothes, and I'm only 25, so...yeah. All this time the panicky feeling was getting a bit worse.

I was parked outside of Macy's, so I headed back there, and decided to stroll through the clothing section there, and same thing...and at that point I lost it. I felt like tears were about to come, and I was getting short of breath, so I all but sprinted out to my car, and as soon as I was in with the door shut I just started sobbing. I couldn't stop. It was awful. I just wanted to get home as soon as I possibly could, so I drove home (fortunately only about a mile away), let Buster out, and then went up to my room and just collapsed.

•  I couldn't find things in my size. Most stores had XLs, but just not in the specific shirts I was interested in. My main problem is my chest. I'm big-busted, and clothing manufacturer's don't take into account the fact that as women get bigger, their chests get bigger, too, so all the things I was able to get my chubby self into were completely wrong proportion-wise.
• I was in several dressing rooms. Dressing rooms, as we all know, have terrible, harsh lighting, and they're small, so you're right up in front of the mirror, and I was feeling particularly bloaty, and I looked at my giant stomach and hated myself more and more by the minute.
• I went shopping right after work, so I was in my work clothes, meaning jeans and a tee shirt, and my hair was up in a plain ponytail, and I wasn't wearing makeup, and when I came into each store, instead of asking what they could help me with, all the associates seemed to be...ignoring me. Now, maybe this was all in my head, but I couldn't help but feel like I was being ignored because I wasn't looking "fashionable". Ironically, I probably had deeper pockets than most of the pretty girls they were helping.
• My plan wasn't working. The specific stores I went to for specific things didn't have the specific things I wanted. When I make a plan, I need things to fall into place, or it adds to my frustration.
• It all felt so hopeless. I hate my body. I know I haven't been doing the things necessary to get it where I want it to be, such as eating well and going to the gym, but I'm just so depressed about it that I feel like I don't even have the motivation to try. A small part of me doesn't care, and thinks it shouldn't matter what I look like, and that part has been taking over lately. But not yesterday. Yesterday the part of me that just wants to starve myself came out, and that didn't help at all.

All these things together were what made me lose it in the middle of the freaking mall.

To be continued...