Trauma and the shame of spending money on yourself

One of the first things trauma teaches us is to self-sacrifice. Meet others’ needs first to protect yourself and avoid negative outcomes. It’s not usually to get good things like love, care, or attention, but to avoid the bad outcomes, like punishment, shame, and pain.

When we start to heal and come out of self-sacrifice mode, we start to set boundaries, act in our own best interest, and take time and space for ourselves.

Progress, lovely. Well done.

And then you get blindsided by the pendulum and the guilt, shame, and self-judgement smacks you in the face. When you’re used to self-sacrifice and come from a world where having your own needs has been punished and judged as “selfish”, listening to your needs will make you feel like you are the most self-centred, narcissistic asshole that you swore to never become.

This is where I will kindly and brutally need to check you. Even if you really really tried to solely listen to your own needs right now, you will likely struggle to nudge that pendulum into a happy healthy middle ground, let alone all the way into narcissistic asshole territory. It’s like fearing that you’ll accidentally train too hard and win the triathlon world championship. Your risk is low, you can listen to your needs as hard as you can.

FYI narcissists tend not to worry about whether they are too selfish and narcissistic. Your concern itself is diagnostic of the opposite.  

However, you will feel selfish and all the other things people will have branded you in the past when you wanted to express your needs and defend your boundaries. It has served them to have you self-police and invalidate your own needs that way.

I like tapping into my inbuilt anger and stubbornness in my process and I invite you to do the same. Reclaiming your own needs can be the biggest FUCK YOU to your abusers. And doesn’t that feel satisfying? Lean into big and little acts of rebellion, reclaim parts that have been denied. What would your abuser(s) really hate? What rules did they hold dear? Be small and shut up? Break every single one of them and see how you feel.

So how is trauma & money connected? Spending money on yourself is part of meeting your own needs and wants. And this is particularly tricky because there is a quantifiable amount attached to meeting your needs. This is money you think you could have spent on others, groceries, etc. You can’t run from the price tag and its accompanying cringe, shame, and doubt.

Boundaries technically also restrict the time and energy given to yourself vs other people. But those feel like vague units. Money is hard number that shows you the opportunity cost most clearly. “I could have spent this on others” is fed with a specific number and becomes undeniable ammunition for your guilt gremlin.  

If you are reluctant to spend money on yourself or are hit with intense guilt and shame for not-actually-that-extravagant purchases, please know that you are not sucking at recovery and reclaiming your needs. This is recovery at level hard.

So keep practising. Take time for yourself, give yourself space, and learn to spend money on yourself. Start small and work yourself up. Or go big and make sure your brain gets the message. It can be a coffee, or it could be that holiday. You deserve it.

Remember, this is your own adult money. You answer to no one.