Seven identical sweaters

I own seven identical sweaters. Baggy, old-fashioned, soft from being washed a hundred times. I found one in a charity shop that felt like it had already given up trying to be fashionable, and I loved it immediately. Went back three times that week looking for more.

This is not a fashion choice. It’s triage.

Shopping is overwhelming for me. I don’t mean inconvenient. I mean the lights are horrible. That flat, buzzing brightness they put in every chain store, the kind that hums at a frequency I can feel behind my eyes. And then there are the choices. Hundreds of items crammed onto racks, different fabrics, different cuts, tags sticking out everywhere, and I’m supposed to browse. I’m supposed to enjoy this. I can feel my breathing change within five minutes.

So I go fast. Always fast. In and out. I know exactly what I’m looking for before I walk through the door, and if it’s not there I leave. I don’t linger. I don’t look around. Lingering is how the overwhelm catches up.

Mostly I buy second-hand. Charity shops are easier. Smaller. Quieter. The lighting is still bad but the scale is manageable. And the clothes have already been washed, which matters more than I can explain to anyone who doesn’t have this brain. New fabric has a smell and a stiffness that sets off every alarm I have. Second-hand clothes are softer. Broken in. My skin doesn’t fight them.

The problem is I buy the same things every time. The same baggy sweaters, the same comfortable shape that hangs loose and doesn’t cling. They look old-fashioned. I know they do. I don’t care. They feel good and that is the entire criteria now. My autism side needs the sameness. Needs to reach into the drawer and find the thing that was there yesterday, reliable. The ADHD side gets bored with it sometimes, wants something different. But different means going back into a shop and starting the whole process again. So the boredom wins and I wear the same sweater.

Women’s fashion is built on the assumption that you want something new every season. The hem lengths change. The waist heights change. What was everywhere six months ago disappears. The jeans you finally got used to, spent years convincing your body they were acceptable, are suddenly not available in that cut anymore. And you start over.

I don’t start over. I buy seven of the same thing.

I know what the sensible advice is. Build a capsule wardrobe. Invest in classic pieces. I know it. But it doesn’t account for the fact that the shop itself is the problem. That trying things on under fluorescent lights in a cubicle with a curtain that doesn’t close properly is a sensory event I have to recover from. That the quality item I found will eventually wear out and the replacement won’t exist.

Some days I resent it. Seven identical sweaters. I had a version of a life in my head where I could walk into a shop and find something and feel good in it. That version of me didn’t stand in the doorway calculating how long she could last before the lights got to her.

She didn’t have this brain, though. So here we are.