The Characteristics of Findom Addiction

These Twelve Characteristics remind us of the ways in which our addiction manifests. We may identify with a few or many of these characteristics. They offer recognition for addicts suffering from findom addiction and help us feel connected and understood.

1. We lust after and put on a pedestal, people and things that harm us financially.
2. We sexualize feelings of stress, anger, guilt, loneliness, shame, and fear.
3. We mistake toxic findom dynamics for the connection of friendship and romance. And so, we engage with people who are unavailable for it.
4. We cycle through binding ourselves to findom through promises and trying to regain the freedom we sacrificed.
5. As we try to repair our financial self-harm, we are financially anorexic: we deprive
   ourselves and we alternate between giving ourselves to findom, and not giving to
   ourselves.
6. We mistake financial submission and adoration for both the giving and receiving of
   nurturing care and support.
7. Fearing the authentic connection we need, we seek intimacy in forms of self-harm and immorality, and substitute love with intense sexual arousal.
8. Drama and conflicts drive us to double down on our emotional investment, instead of guarding our dignity, safety, health, and sanity.
9. Giving away control through findom serves to alleviate our fear of responsibility for
   ourselves and our actions.
10. Being unable to set healthy boundaries, we become disgruntled when we don’t get
    what we think we deserve.
11. We sexualize powerlessness, failure, and the addiction itself, blurring the lines between our
    desire for living life fully and seeing relapse as a cycle that ‘improves’ the addictive rush.
12. We frame our lack of control in spending as generosity.