I am such an easy mark, I am disgusted with who I am.

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I don't think you should be so hard on yourself. Maybe you were a bit impulsive but that is a nice quality - it stems from enthusiasm. So you didn't read the fine print its not the worst thing in the world. I don't think you should take the moral responsibility of someone else being deceptive.

True, but the deeper reality is that I did put myself in this spot. Impulsive retail therapy has gotten me into a lot of trouble in my past. I turn to it hoping that the acquisition of items will fill up the emptiness in my soul, but it never does. The fact that I turn to the same tactics again and again even though I know damn well they do not work and they usually end up making the situation worse for me later down the line is truly pathetic.

I put myself in that spot all the time. Not 'impulsive retail therapy' per se, despite being good at math, I am horrible at putting 2 and 2 together. So when it comes to finances I constantly forget a bill of some sort, and then I am attempting to balance the budget again. It's never a small bill, It is always something over 1000.00, and it is every few months. I constantly feel like I am starting to get ahead and then something comes along. I am also horrible about filling out forms to get reimbursed for stuff, I just don't have time, I don't remember etc etc. So I often feel the same, not necessarily a mark, but the disgust I get. I have to tell myself on a constant basis that I can't keep kicking myself about it, all I can say is try to do the same. Give yourself some leeway, and try to realize you aren't that bad. I try to channel my bad feelings elsewhere, doesn't always work, but does alleviate some of the feelings.

Happy New Year, Len. Did you get the charges reversed?

How are you feeling?

Hi Len,

I am 54 years old, and it wasn't until the last year or two I have finally become mostly free from chronic depression and angst. I, too, am impulsive. I also have been chided many times for being naive and an easy mark. Every school and job I've ever had, I've had bullies abuse me. All my siblings and both parents abused me. Both parents were alcoholics and narcissists. I was born in the early 60's, when every type of ASD was virtually unheard of, so parents and teachers just wrote me off as being lazy, selfish, stupid, and stubborn. I can't tell you how full of rage, anger, and frustration I was. Only after years of 12 step programs and individual therapy was I finally able to let go of most of my anger and rage. It sounds to me like you have a lot of anger and rage, but are directing it inward at yourself, and you end up whipping yourself with a belt and becoming suicidal and depressed. I can identify. I had to be hospitalized in a locked psychiatric ward for a week because I was suicidal about 8 or 9 years ago.

After I was released from the hospital I thought long and hard. I realized I basically was going to go down one of two roads: either become chronically and insanely depressed and probably end up homeless and/or in and out of psych wards for the rest of my life, or 2) have some type of radical miracle in myself or my life. I decided to go back into therapy, and I eventually got hooked up to this therapist that did some very deep and very intense anger and grief work with me. I had to do some physical therapeutic stuff to release all the anger and rage I had pent up inside over being treated so horribly all my life. It would take a book to explain the horrific physical, verbal, and psychological abuse I had experienced. I hated it when people told me to "just let it go". First of all to a literal and logical aspie, I had no clue what it meant to "let go" or how to do it. For me, it was not something I could just do in one day, like many of them seemed to be telling me to do. I personally needed to spend a lot of time purging all the toxic emotions I had stored up, because so much abuse was heaped on me, and I had NO WAY to emotionally process any of it. I had no clue what an emotion was, much less how to identify it, much less how to work through it and resolve it.

The other thing I did, is I developed a very strong faith life. By the way, I also HATE organized religion. However, I do read the bible and believe in Jesus Christ, that He died to pay for my sins, and all our sins. This allowed me to forgive those who had hurt me, because Jesus forgave every bad thing I did.

At any rate, I'm at peace now, and I no longer feel like a piece of s**t that doesn't deserve anything but to be ignored and abused.

Well, a refund is not coming. So pray that the tickets are good.

I cut up my debit cards. I'll be cash only from this point forward. Easier to manage the impulse buys that way, when the money is actually is my hands as an actual physical tangible object. Plastic makes impulse purchasing far too easy, because for some odd reason, money feels less real to me that way.

Good thing TicketMaster has actual physical venues near where I live that do accept cash.

Farewell, Amazon.com, and the XBox Live Marketplace, both places home to countless impulse buys over the last decade. My BluRay and video game collections are both obscenely large at this point.

That's a good move. I gave up credit (except for 2 smaller credit cards for emergencies and necessary trips- hotels) cards. I don't do cash, I just pay bills first (on payday), then what is left is for food, gas etc