Paula* was furious with herself. Usually she was perfectly dressed and made up, but that day she sat across from me in baggy sweats, with no makeup and her hair pulled back into a tight pony tail. “How could I be so stupid?” she demanded. “I’ve ruined everything.”

She had been on a strict diet and exercise regimen and had lost nearly ten pounds. She had also been restricting her compulsive buying habit. “I was sure I had it licked,” she said to me. “I was feeling so good. And then I went and ruined it all.”

In the years that I have worked with people with these companion disorders, I have heard these words many, many times. Like many people who suffer from both shopping and eating disorders, Paula had put herself in an impossible situation. She had taken away the two activities that soothed and calmed her better than almost anything else, and had put nothing in their places. And she was beating herself up because she could not manage without them.

As I described in my last post, eating and shopping are often companion disorders. But they are also companions, plain and simple. I have talked about this in a chapter I wrote in the book  Using Self Psychology in Psychotherapy, edited by Helene Jackson, and also in my chapter in April Benson’s book I Shop Therefore I Am.  Many of my clients speak of their binges as their friends. So a strict diet or severe buying restriction can be like cutting yourself off from your best buddy – the person who helps you calm down when you’re upset or sympathizes and then makes you laugh when you’re sad.

There are many reasons we turn that these behaviors become our companions – They are patterns we probably developed when we were quite young and may have strong connections to positive or adaptive experiences with people we love or feel safest with. They are also trustworthy, in that they’re always available and, whatever the after-effects, they always work.  You may feel bad after you’ve bought an expensive pair of shoes that you didn’t need and will never wear, but you feel wonderful while you’re shopping and trying them on and imagining yourself wearing them. And you may hate yourself for destroying your diet with a binge, but the food tastes good and the feeling of being completely, utterly filled up is so soothing that you really can’t stop yourself.

So here are five suggestions for dealing with these companions:

1 – Get support wherever you can. Many people keep these behaviors secret, because they’re ashamed of them. But the more you keep them secret, the harder it is to replace them with other activities. Support groups like Overeaters Anonymous, Weight Watchers, Gamblers Anonymous and Debtors Anonymous can help, but so can psychotherapy, whether individual or in groups. There are a wide range of therapies for these symptoms, from insight-oriented to behavior management. You may need more than one to help you stop the behavior. That’s okay.

2 – If you can, talk to friends and family to get support from them. But be careful – do not turn over the responsibility of managing your behavior to them!!! Try saying something to a friend like, “Can I call you if I’m feeling like I’m going to binge? I don’t want you to try to stop me; just ask me what’s going on. I may not be able to stop myself from bingeing, but if I do, it’s my responsibility not yours.”

3 – Start cultivating other behaviors to make yourself feel better. Marcia Linehan, who created Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, suggests trying small behavioral changes like making yourself smile at other people, or buying yourself some flowers. In many years of discussing this with many clients, I have found that people are also soothed by listening to music, taking a shower or bubble bath, going for a walk, reading a really stupid book, watching television, and going to a movie. Giving yourself a manicure and/or pedicure, getting your hair cut, getting a massage or giving one to yourself, by smoothing on body cream and rubbing it into your skin can also help. So can exercise – even if you can’t get outside or make yourself do anything active, lie down on the floor and stretch. You’ll be amazed at how helpful that can be.

4 – Go slowly. I write about taking things one step at a time in my blog on the Psychology Today website. It is, in my experience, the most successful way to conquer these behaviors.

5 – Be nice to yourself. It does not help to criticize yourself when you slip up – as you inevitably will. Human beings are never perfect, no matter what you think you should be. So when you binge, know that you did it because you needed to, and remind yourself that you are slowly learning new ways of managing the feelings that lead you to binge. And remember, no one gives up a good friend easily.

It took Paula about two and a half long, slow years. After many stops and starts, she realized that dieting was one of the causes of her binges. We worked on her finding a lifetime system for eating, which allowed for times when she ate much more than she thought she should. To her amazement, she eventually discovered that if she did not beat herself up after a binge (which was much smaller than her old binges), she actually got back on track quickly and her weight evened out within a few days.  The same was true of her shopping. Paula could not always stop herself from shopping; but with the help of a behavioral program, she began to pay more attention to what she was buying; and she also learned to return items instead of storing them, tags still on, in the back of her closet.

We never figured out whether she started to make new friends because she felt better about herself, or started to feel better about herself because she was making new friends. I suspect it may have been some of each. But not only did she make two new best friends; she also fell in love with someone who has become her new full time companion.   

*Names and indentifying information changed to protect privacy