I’m scared of using new/nice things

[thecherryfox]

Ok, the title sounds a little strange but I have anxiety over using nice things. I guess it stems from not having much money and if it breaks, I can’t afford a replacement. But it’s like I buy new clothes and I always think ‘I can’t wear that, I’ll save it for best’ and years later I never have an occasion to wear it and it just sits there unworn going to waste. I end up wearing ‘crap’ clothes whilst my good clothes sit untouched because I’m scared to wear it. This also applies to household items too, I have a food flask in the cupboard that I’m too scared to use incase I ruin it, so I keep that for best whilst I put leftover food in bowls with clingfilm or tatty plastic pots.

Does anyone else relate? Please share your stories so I don’t feel alone or crazy

Like this.

Just wanted to add
'Saving for best'
You are the best.
So that time is now.
Light the best candles
Wear the best clothes and spray the best perfume.

@TammyJones Exactly ♥️

Exactly ♥️ so many of us are always waiting for the future to happen and not enjoying the now.
The now IS our life!

The more money than sense comment is unkind and lacking in understanding.

What comes to mind is the story of the mum with a daughter at the primary school in Aberfan. The little girl wanted to wear her new shoes and mum said not today. That day her daughter died and it pains mum even now (at the time she was interviewed) she didn't just let her wear them.

Appreciate you've worked to earn the money to buy these things then enjoy them, use them, wear them etc.

Yes you’re probably right, it was unkind. I just can’t get my head around the sheer waste of money/goods/the world’s resources that is buying things that you don’t use

Get that Sindy doll on eBay you will make a tidy sum.

But it’s very common and often steeped in a lack of money mentality. That if you get something nice, you must cherish it. Keep it for good, as you won’t be able to replace it. So things get wasted, unused.and then chucked, the opposite happens of what the intent was.

The lady with the eight year old candle is a good example, it will have deteriorated, and will keep deteriorating, so when she lights it it will not now smell as it would have when fresh. The same as people not wearing their good clothes, I was one, then it ends up in a charity shop, dated and unused. It is wasteful, when it’s intended to be frugal

I wear all my nice stuff now, every day, and I’m lucky I can afford good quality clothes, so I’m no longer wearing the crap ones. So what if they go done. It’s better than them being given to charity in ten years unworn.

I guess it’s the ‘lack of money’ thing that I’m struggling with. Lack of money to me means not buying things you don’t need in the first place. And they if people aren’t using these things, they can’t need them, can they? They’re just sitting in a drawer, going to waste.
I don’t buy much. What I do buy, I use, because it’s needed. I can’t imagine having pairs and pairs of unworn trainers in a cupboard, for example, like a PP upthread. What a sheer waste of money.
Anyway I am willing to accept that I am both wrong and unkind, I’m just struggling to get my head around it.

There are lots of reasons people have given though, if you read the posts. For me, it wasn't related to lack of money growing up (though we were poor) - it was OCD linked to the trauma of watching my DH get trampled by a horse, nearly die, then have to learn how to walk again. Whilst juggling two young children. I'd never suffered from it before, and had absolutely no issue using or wearing nice things before that day.

You can't choose how trauma rears its ugly head. I have nice things because I can afford them, or loved ones give them to me. Some of those nice things I struggle to use, because for whatever reason, my brain thinks they're going to get ruined or broken. I once didn't wear my engagement ring for six months because I was terrified it would break. Does that mean I shouldn't have an engagement ring?

Other people have differing reasons, as many have expressed. They also don't feel good about it - it's not as though they're deliberately hording these items because they're so rich and uncaring. For many, it's the opposite - they care so much they don't want to ruin them.

And, as many on this thread have written, they're trying to overcome it. Some of the comments have been beautiful, thoughtful, considerate, and inspiring. Yours was deeply unkind. Perhaps read some of the stories again and re-think with other people's struggles in mind.

Anyway, today I wore my cream cashmere jumper. Not a jot of tomato soup, tea, or anything. Just as I knew there wouldn't be. Just as I realistically knew that locket wasn't broken. I can't find the post now, but to the pp who suggested this should be a goal of 2025 - thank you! I'll certainly be doing my best. 😁

magicalmrmistophelees, you don't understand it because to you it makes no sense. That's because you don't know the timeline. I haven't been using my 'best' stuff (that I've either bought or been given) due to my experiences as a child where we had very little family money.

As I've got older, I've coveted and kept things 'for best'. I have the money to buy them and many were gifts. I have a block about using them but, I'm going to take the excellent advice on this thread - and make a start. I'm looking at one of my expensive notebooks now and thinking that tomorrow, I will write something in it, even if it's just my name and for that notebook, the 'spell' will then be broken.

I did wince a bit at your first post but it's clear that you just didn't understand. People who buy something because they need it and then use it, will most likely find this 'thing' foolish indeed - and it is, but can be very hard to unpick.

I’ve already accepted I was unkind, twice!

Posters are just explaining some of the reasons why, mistermistopelees. You said you didn't understand it, you might perhaps want to?

It was probably the most lacklustre acceptance I've ever read, but okay. 👍 This is a nice thread, and I'm not getting dragged into a derailment with you.

My grandma was a holecaust survivor and because she and her family starved, in later life she was like this. If I bought her perfume for her birthday she wouldn't open it. I used to have to throw out rotten eggs from her fridge amongst other things.

I opened a brand new Naked eyeshadow palette today in honour of this thread and did a full makeup for work. I also wore some brand new shoes that I have had for years that were 'for best"- they had a lacy material bit on them and my toe has gone through it after one day!!! I suspect the material had aged-what a waste not wearing them.
I am using my things from now on!

I love that this thread has had that impact on you!

👏👏👏

Totally agree!

I have also found this thread helpful and am taking concrete action, e.g. wore my nice jacket today. I may even wear the 'nice' winter coat this week ;)

I can't help putting things away for best. I have copied it from my mum, who in turn copied it from her mother.

My daughter is the opposite who I think doesn't look any different day to day. She always looks smart/immaculate. I always look dowdy/tired day to day and people tend not to recognise me when I get dressed up for special occasions.

I can't change - I've tried.

I think it's fantastic that my children haven't copied me. That would've been something else to feel guilty about.

Do eeet ♥️♥️

I can generally understand keeping new clothes 'for good' although I tend to buy for occasions or holidays, so they get their first use and are no longer new

Here one that makes no sense, I bought new oven gloves this week in a supermarket sale because they looked nice, my existing oven gloves are over 20 years old and beyond their best. I can't actually bring myself bin the old ones and use the new ones incase I get them dirty or covered in sauce! Duh!

I get that and I've done it recently with both oven gloves and new, expensive (and very pretty) teatowels.

I'm trying very hard to have a word with myself. What's worked for me in the past few weeks is to make a mental note of the tatty stuff that needs to go (teatowels, oven gloves, old bits of make up etc) then on bin day, about half an hour before I know the bin men will be coming, I snatch everything up, chuck it in a bin bag - preferably one that's currently been used for food waste so I can't change my mind - and throw it outside in the bin) It's a great feeling watching the bin lorry sail past and thinking to myself "right, it's gone now. You can move on and use the nice, new stuff"

I also do the same with charity bags. Last minute snatch of things that keep surviving a cull, then just be brave and bold. Similarly, I've hung on to two tops with holes in because I love them. They are way past darning. I was doing some crafts and as I had dressmaking scissors thay were nice and sharp, I snipped up the holey tops for dusters before I could change my mind.

I definitely have some hoarding tendencies. I know and understand the reasons why, but it's taken me ages to start to be able to use lovely things. I've not missed a single thing I've chucked and I've enjoyed using the lovely things previously kept for best. I still have to work very hard on it though.

Thanks to this thread I've just been out to check my sheep and break the ice in the water troughs drenched in 25 year old perfume. It was Lancôme Poême (there are several different old perfumes all 95% full but the rest are lost in clutter somewhere) and smelled OK to me , well the sheep didn't mind anyway. I downgraded a pair of trousers from "just about OK to wear to work" to "farming trousers" and wore those, and a new not expensive pair of gloves I bought last winter, promptly lost, and found when I was looking for the perfume. When I got back I picked the old sheep trousers (ancient jeans with the knees out, heavily frayed hems and the cotton worn thin and starting to shred round the back pockets) off the bedroom floor and took them to the outside bin.

Lovely to read of so many people beginning to use things previously kept aside.
What a positive thread! 😍

This thread has done me a world of good thank you
No raggedy indoor clothes today
Properly dressed , even though I’m housebound due to weather
I also sprayed on my expensive perfume!!!
now a declutter next
keep up with the decent stuff