Not being able to change clothing.

It's a problem for me as well. I could buy new clothes or wear my others but I don't like to. I feel comfortable in this black top, white cardi and black skirt. My family don't like it but I can't help it, I don't like changing. It's the way I am.

Hi, I never got into buying expensive labels even when I was younger. Strangely 90% of my clothes are blue. Normally blue jeans and a Primark  dark blue T shirt. I have never owned jogging bottoms and know I couldn’t wear them, too baggy. I’ve got two suits, both dark blue for matches and dispatches!

I haven’t actually bought new clothes since before the first lockdown. The weird thing is that I never noticed till last year that most of my clothes are blue. The other clothes are Christmas presents No accounting for others tastes!

I know exactly how that goes. Sometimes with a heavy heart I put myself through a clothes shop. My mission is to find something as conservatively non-descript and in my limited range of plain-as-possible blue/grey shirt or whatever - much harder than it sounds as fashion is so perplexingly insistent on making thing stand out with vibrant patterns, or quirky details that would look right on a 'cool' person but disastrous on me. If I'm lucky I get one or two things that seem like they won't attract negative or (almost as bad) positive comment. At least they seem that way in the fitting room. When I get home, something unseen at the time will jump out at me: the collar being too big and turning me into Harry Hill, the tailoring at the back insufficiently disguising my Quasi-Modo-ish figure, etc. Then I get upset wondering of I'm experienceing a dysmorphic body image, or if the objective truth is exactly as it seems: I'm a fashion disaster and a grotesque. Sometimes, months or years later, when other stuff is literally falling apart, I'll find one of these things at the back of the wardrobe, try it on again and think... 'it's not as horrific as I maybe thought. And I need something...' So it becomes part of the new three-things-in-rotation system unless and until it gets commented upon by anyone. If it does, I have failed to be sufficiently non-descript and the struggle resumes. 

Why am I like this? My favourite character of all time - the Doctor - is willfully individualistic in their fashion choices in each incarnation - sometimes even being an intentional symphony in bad taste. I love that, but could never be that way in a million years. Of course it helps if you have a superb BBC costume designer making even your bad taste stuff deceptively co-ordinated in actuality. Meanwhile, in real life... the horror. 

My issues with wearing the same thing all the time are very extreme. I feel trapped in a nightmare i can never wake up from. I don't understand why i continue to wear clothes that are falling apart and extremely uncomfortable. Yet i can't seem to wear new clothing as i always find a fault with them and can't wear them either.

I do get caught in the cycle of wearing the same things on repeat for months at a time, and I get distressed when they aren’t washed or available, and then have a teatime trying to find another outfit. So much so, over the last few years I’ve learnt to  buy at least one duplicate of my favourite items.

I also find it hard to find something to wear when I need to go out in public and dress differently. 

I must try on at least 20 outfits and nothing works, and the room is always a mess after and I’m exhausted. 
The thing is, everyone always compliments me on my style, even though I don’t actually put real effort into my outfits. I know what suits me, and what I like and that’s it.

The only effort is the awful try on process because everyone feels wrong. 
When I get home, I strip off and put my comfy safe clothes back on, whatever they are for that period in time….

True within my family too.  I wish I could find out more about how to help with this.

Sorry to hear that. At least the hardest bits done - picking the stuff, and then you can change the size. But I know it feels like a slog to do when you thought you’d completed an already far from joyous task. 

I've got the clothes home and realised they don't fit me. So taking them back in the morning. Feel very upset with myself. :-(

NAS80428 said:

today

Hey nice one. It’s the weather for both I guess! 

I managed to go to Millets today and buy some shorts and t-shirts with the help of a support worker from the Independence Trust. Not 100% about them, but this is step in the right direction i hope!

It's a mental problem. But i managed to go to Millets today and buy some shorts and t-shirts. I did this with a support worker from the Independence Trust in Stroud, Gloucestershire which is near where i live. I'm not sure about them though. Need to try them on again this evening.

I was at Next this afternoon. Bought a pair of Joggers, at an outrageous price, and the trousers were all too wee for me. 

Fortunately, Next in Cookstown is in the same location as the Tesco there. Bought trousers which fit, and was affordable. 

This reminds me of a side-issue I have with regard clothing. I can't usually bear to wear anything that doesn't cover everything except my hands and neck up. I only ever wear long trousers and long sleeve shirts/long sleeve t-shirts, or jumpers or hoodies. Certainly when out, and about 99% of the time indoors as well. My lounging about 'scruffs' are jogging bottoms or pyjama-style 'lounge pants' and again something long-sleeved. Same for bedtime attire. I don't like the discomfort (both sensation wise and having to show more of my awfulness than necessary) of uncovered skin except where absolutely necessary. And I feel the cold too easily - I'm often amazed at how many people can wear so little even in winter with no apparent discomfort at all.

Before my falls I  wore a t shirt and elasticated  trousers with braces. Now I wear a t shirt with jogging bottoms. My stepdaughter gets my clothes. I change my t shirt everyday and my jogging bottoms every 2 days. Mondays and Thursdays are the days I wash my clothes.

Is your problem financial or mental?

I know several family members who can afford new clothes and possess clean decent clothing, but choose to wear old worn out and often filthy clothes.

My first post here… I wear pretty much the same narrow repertoire of clothes every day. Dark trousers, T-shirt with a zippy top. It’s what I’m used to, it doesn’t draw attention and I like the feel of them. The zippy is like a comfort blanket.

I haven't always been this way with my clothes, but it's been worse since i've been living on my own.

I can relate! 

Hello, thankyou for your post. I've got in to a really bad routine of wearing the same clothes all week then washing them on a Friday night to wear again for another week. Been doing this for the last few years and now all my clothes are falling apart and have lots of holes in, which makes me even more distressed.

I seldom go clothes shopping and these days just buy things from Sainsburys when I do. I’m so glad to no longer be young enough to feel I should try to navigate  clothes brand shops like Next or whatever. Environments where there’s music blasting, the floodlit rows of garments are a nightmare of variety and sameness somehow Co-existing in some kind of enigma code, and the staff try not to pity the shuffling mutant hobo (me) that just apologetically infiltrated a (too) trendy  environment. The dread of it all. I have no clue about fashion, so when I find a some basic plain stuff in the supermarket within a limited palette I keep three to five combinations in solid rotation for ages - usually eventual wear and tear means that only about three viable ensembles for venturing outside in are at at any point in service - and some things are in the line-up for years. I stick to blues and greys for shirts and jumpers as well (my complexion looks weird in anything else) especially after some random comments in the past left me feeling deeply self conscious so I only wore the commented on thing once and was in agony to get home and get changed out of it asap. For example, I wore a black shirt into work one time (after very nearly bottling out on stepping out of my strict established parameters but getting myself into a ‘you overthink this stuff’ mode for once) only to be instantly greeted by colleagues singing Johnny Cash songs at me. I laughed it off in the way that the NT social code requires of me, but every second of that day I was crawling out of my skin and counting g the seconds until I could close my front dor behind me, confine the shirt to a permanent home in a drawer or bin, and go back to the frayed but familiar stuff I already had. It was very upsetting and I felt like once again I just wasn’t managing the instincts for dressing ‘right’ that 90% of society has down from no age. And money had been wasted once again on a failed attempt to be inconspicuous while, of necessity, replenishing the wardrobe. 

I imagine that for autistic women it must be even a hundred times worse. All the nuances and combinations and accessories that have to be intuitively matched to get remarked on positively (or ideally, not remarked upon at all perhaps?) are like a super-complex equation that I can’t begin to understand. I can barely even comprehend what acceptable colour/style combinations for weird looking men should be. TK Maxx or something would be a total nightmare - how does it all make sense to anyone?  

I should say that I’m scrupulous about being clean and keeping my clothes regularly washed. It’s just that the same ones stay in service for a long time. And are never ‘on trend’