I’ve been impressionable my entire life. I liked to think I was above commercials, advertisements, and trends, and for the most part, I was. But give me a plucky book heroine, a television character who had their shit together, or a celebrity with utter confidence and I was a sucker. I wanted what they had and thought I could get there by copying.

It was even just celebrities or media portrayals. When I was six or seven and started seeing my extended family more, I noticed how cool and self-assured one of my cousins was. She was only a few months younger than me, also with blonde hair. I was obsessed with Mary-Kate and Ashley at the time and decided we should be twins (the fact that it was genetically impossible did not seem to bother me). I copied everything she wore and a lot of things she did, even though most of it wasn’t my taste or personality. If she showed up to Easter wearing an orange tank top and jeans, I’d beg my mom to take me to Walmart and buy me the exact outfit. It got to the point that on a family vacation, I brought multiple suitcases of clothes just so I could be sure there was something that would match what she was wearing.

Obviously, she noticed this bizarre behavior. And she even went along with it and posed for pictures in our matching outfits. But she was annoyed. Of course she was! It was absolutely bonkers of me to do that. She later told me she stopped wearing new clothes to family events so I wouldn’t copy them. All she wanted was to be her own person and have her own style. I wanted that too, but was stuck in very flawed thinking that I could achieve it by copying every inch of someone I admired.

I eventually stopped copying my cousin. I wish it was because I matured and saw the error of my ways, but I think it was really because I just found other girls I admired, mostly fictional, who I could imitate.

Hermione Granger, my favorite fictional heroine basically since I could read, was now being portrayed on screen. Veronica Mars had come onto the scene. Later, Taylor Swift debuted her first album and Disney Stars like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus became well known for their portrayals of teenage girls with confidence and success, respectively. I wanted to be like all of them. I wanted to be smart like Hermione, fearless like Veronica, cool like Selena, likable like Miley, and sensational like Taylor.

So of course I didn’t just work on myself and develop those personality traits in a way that was healthy and meaningful for me. I decided to go the quickest route and wear what they wore to automatically become all those things.

I know, super logical, right?

Lucky for me, there were a lot of style sites and blogs dedicated to what these people and characters wore and helpful enough to tell you where to buy these exact things or similar items. So convenient!

Of course, at first I couldn’t afford to buy the actual outfits. So I substituted with Forever 21 and things found in the Kohl’s clearance rack. I thought I looked awesome and I did receive a lot of compliments, but that wasn’t the point. I was wearing what someone else had picked out. And, actually, in a lot of cases, was probably wearing what a wardrobe assistant (or whatever they were called) had picked out for a make believe character. I was literally buying what they were selling.

As I got older, the characters and the women changed (though Taylor Swift was an ever-present icon through it all). Hello Vampire Diaries and Revenge! And oh, look, it’s the Duchess of Cambridge! And Oliva Pope in those fierce, fierce pant suits! My habits, however, hadn’t changed. I had a little more money, so I was able to buy the actual pieces now if they were on sale or clearance. Eventually, enough time had passed from when these outfits were actually worn or on air that I was able to find everything used on ebay, Poshmark, and Thred Up for a fraction of the cost.

But it all added up.

As I’ve mentioned in bits and pieces before, my bad shopping habits went into hyperdrive in 2019 and 2020 after my aunt’s death and everything going on in the world. This was definitely a part of that. There was a point in time when I owned almost everything Caroline Forbes (The Vampire Diaries) or Emily Thorne (Revenge) had ever worn. I wasn’t even in love with most of the outfits; I just didn’t want to be myself anymore. I didn’t want to sit with my feelings and acknowledge and work through my grief and anxiety. I just wanted escape.

This was also going on when I was rapidly gaining weight and was the heaviest I’d ever been. So as I was ordering these clothes, I was buying much bigger sizes than what I’m sure their original wearers wore. So obviously, they didn’t have the same effect when I wore them, making me even more depressed and anxious. And on top of all that I was especially anxious about how much money I was spending.

I hit a breaking point when I couldn’t pay off my credit card for the first time in my life. So I stopped. I promised to do better. But I could feel the pull, every time I watched Taylor Swift be Taylor Swift or someone be awesome and look awesome doing it. It was hard to fight, even when I wasn’t buying what other people were wearing. I still had a larger problem buying designer clothes for 95% off their retail price at Thred Up. I mean, yes, at least I was buying almost my entire wardrobe (except for undergarments) used and I was getting high quality pieces for insane prices. But I was still spending money I should have been saving on things I absolutely didn’t need (seriously, why does someone who spends most of their days working in a library need a Vera Wang ballgown or bedazzled Chanel heels?).

I do believe you should wear what makes you feel happy and confident, but it should make you feel like you. And I also believe you should limit yourself to space and budget constraints. If there is nowhere to go but piles on the floor, bins in the basement, or a closet in the guest room, is it worth the stress it’s causing? Is it worth the money not being saved? Probably not.

So, over the last couple years, I cleared out almost all my closets, piles, and bins and donated about fifty garbage bags of clothes. That’s right, FIFTY. And I still have a full closet and bins in the crawlspace for my formalwear (but I’ll get more into that insanity in a different post). Most of those clothes I got rid of were the ones that I bought because someone else wore them. Once I forgave myself for buying them in the first place, they were easy to part with.

And the more layers of somebody else that I peeled out of my closet, the more I saw myself underneath. It was like sculpting, chiseling away at what isn’t part of the art to leave what is.

Like I said in yesterday’s post–I’m not suddenly perfect. I still struggle to not immediately open Thred Up when I get squirrelly. But I’m getting better. Every time I look at my closet and see only thing that represent who I am, I feel awesome. Which was what I was chasing all along.