Unbearable supermarket hell

[Exefex]

Its getting beyond bearable now , I cannot cope with supermarkets. Nobody understands what I mean when I say I can't cope there but I really really really can't anymore.
There's a certain supermarket that I've been going to for twenty years but which had now become a depressing hell for me.unbearable painful memories from unrequited gay lust and loneliness from 2003 and terrible obsessive lying voice in my mind from 2005 and being called an obscene name in 2007 and my aunty dying a couple of years later and mum getting very ill and having treatment - all these painful engrams in my mind, all this unbearable pain all adds up and its such a terrible depression comes over me every time I go there, and I hate having to walk for what seems to be ages andall the way up the entrance path and the sight of hundreds of the same product and the dismal sight of the place and the people and the mounting cost of shopping then the rundown decrepit taxi area and the whole pain of life and death, I hate supermarkets. I am a Jewish gay man and I feel like I'm being persecuted for being Jewish and for being gay every time I go to this particular horrendous place.I hate supermarkets, they are the bane of my life, they've ruined years of my life and I feel I don't want to carry on going ever again I've had enough.unbearable depression fills me and drivers find it funny by the look on their horrible faces.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

I know the feeling, I hate them too, yes they are an unbearable hell :(

 

[ladee]

Will suggest you read about distorted recognitions, it WILL help you.... to understand why you see it the way you do... not dismissing your reality.... but there is a lot more going on here than t he supermarket.....You are very welcome here, and not judged for anything... we all come from all over the world and have a tremendous amount in common...

I appreciate that you reached out.... I used to get panic attacks in the supermarket, for different reasons... but it's just as real for all of us....
Hope you check out the link and hope we hear from you again.

 

[Sideways]

but there is a lot more going on here than t he supermarket...

This!

I'm a supermarket-hater from way back. They give me panic attacks big time, and I lived off breakfast cereal for 6 months straight to agoid having to go at all. That worked out pretty badly for me and eventually I had to address the underlying issues.

And my issues with supermarkets are different than yours, but important thing is: the supermarket is actually an innocent party here. The supermarket isn't making us feel anything, think anything, or reach any conclusions about ourselves or the world around us. It's just a place, and it not only has no opinion about us personally, it doesn't even notice that we're coming and going.

So all the stuff that goes on for us when we go there, is cognition-junk going on in our mind. The supermarket isn't controlling our mind, it's just triggering our own thoughts and feelings, in our mind, that then run rampant.

The good news is that we can get on top of this. Throw some serious cbt at it with the help of a good T and the supermarket will become just another place you go, meh!

In the meantime, can you shop somewhere else?

 

[Justmehere]

@Exefex - do you have PTSD?

 

[LuckiLee]

Some supermarkets let you order your things online so you can pick them up at your convenience.

Sorry you're struggling.

 

[Prough]

It sounds like you are being overwhelmed. You're not alone. Supermarkets are very stressfull, due in no small part to the volume of stress. A supermarket contains 100s of people all thinking about you. The thing that worked for me, was to start small. Online retailers>corner store>dollar store>restaurants>supermarkets. I hat to start over a few times, but after six years, as long as I go on a weekday I can usually get my groceries with little more then sweaty palms.

 

[The Albatross]

A trick I used when I was doing exposures for markets and stuff (I had a period of agoraphobia) was to challenge myself to scan for people that I knew instead of focusing on the uncomfortability and stress levels. Repetition and frequency helped.

It can also be instructive and assistive to do exposures because you can learn so much about what it actually is that makes you uncomfortable. For me it was the noise, the aisles crowded with people and the fact that in some places I could not see over or around the ends of the aisles... so I learned I didn't like to be in the middle of superstore aisles.

So I adapted for a time, very early or very late shopping times to minimize the amount of shoppers and the noise, and goal challenged myself to shop for items in the middle of long and high aisles until it normalized.

 

[Justmehere]

I used big noise canceling headphones and dark sunglasses for awhile. It helped. I don't have to do that anymore:

 

[shimmerz]

I used to go to the supermarket with my SO. If we were walking through and I started to feel 'it' (whatever it was) he would send me to an isle to pick out something like soup. I would just stand there, overwhelmed with the choices. Much of my issue I think was about not being able to make decisions so I would just 'stand' in some kind of crazy loop.

Anyway, afterwards we would make jokes about it - laugh. It wasn't a humiliating type of thing, it was just - good natured. It switched things around in my brain. I have been functional ever since.