The Purging of Negative things
Minimalism is a different experience for each person and throughout my years of being on and off with it, I am diving back headfirst into it again. I am going to be real though, this has been a long time coming and it has been something I have needed to do for years now. I don’t follow any “mainstream minimalism” trends or people because I truly believe they are hypocrites and disingenuous because all they care about is making money with people buying their shirts, books, etc. I believe minimalism has to be a labor of love and compassion, and to me these people have no real class. To be fair I have never been mainstream anyway.
Before I get to the topic of this post: I just have to say a cliche here. Minimalism has saved my life and made my perspective more open. I respect people who can live with less. Granted the opposite of that is I cannot really be around clutter anymore as it hinders my ptsd. There is always give and take in everything. My personal minimalism is only buying essentials and hobby stuff and thats it. So:
Over the last few days I got the stimulus check and I have been buying like it was my last day on earth. However, I realized that buying is symbolic for me for a couple of reasons. One: it makes up for all the awkward Christmases and birthdays I have had. It makes up for the things I didn’t really have as a kid. Two- It finally lets me step out of my parents shadow of sorts. In a sense that I finally feel like I bought my own stuff and no one can pretend to love me or make me feel like a piece of shit or guilty. Three- I bought everything I have wanted to. I was able to get a new wardrobe literally- I was able to build my switch collection (gaming is one of my biggest hobbies), I bought a new notebook, I was able to gift people, I bought a lot of essentials.
I know this doesn’t seem very minimalistic, however it is for me because in the past I would buy what I would deem useless things are this time while I did buy a few useless things most of the things I bought were useful.
On another topic: For me minimalism isn’t just about physical things, there is a huge mental aspect as well: for example relating to myself- I am purging my facebook, youtube, phone apps, and physical things as well. I only kept very few things because I have PTSD and depression and I don’t really want to be reminded of my past anymore. So that is another reason I bought so much, to feel like a new person and to wear what I want to.
With Facebook I am going to delete most groups and pages I am on and only keep positive ones or ones that make me happier. With Youtube it will be the same except with people I follow or music I listen to.
I have been wanting to do this for a long time now and it is a great feeling, because I now have more courage to not care about what people think and to do my own thing. Oh and also the ability not to buy useless things anymore helps too. This is all thanks to my therapist
