Anonymous Addictions: How Retail Therapy Saved This Woman's Life

ORLAND PARK, IL — When Summer Shatat was 16, her life changed forever. As a teenager, Shatat was a straight A student, set to graduate high school as a junior and head off to college, with the hopes of becoming a doctor, making her parents proud. She was a shy teenager with a keen eye for fashion and a promising future. But one day, her plans took a turn in a different direction after losing her mother, who was fatally struck by a car just before her teenage daughter's eyes.

After her mother's death, Shatat’s shyness had transitioned to silence. Her focus on school began to shift. College started to seem impossible. She felt frozen in time, while coping with PTSD, depression and denial of her mother’s death.

“I pretended that it didn't happen. I basically blocked that part of my life out and completely turned it off. [I told myself] she was overseas, and I was going to see her. That was the only way that I was able to cope and go on with my life,” Shatat said. “I was a complete zombie … There physically, but mentally … I was living in the moment, pretending that this world was a completely different world than what it was.”

Despite the traumas and growing pains, as Shatat grew older, she turned a page from books to looks, following her creative passions for fashion and business. She took on a job for a retail company, where she enjoyed styling clients and “making them happy and feel great.” She felt great for a while, too. But she realized she hadn't healed from her past, and left the job, suicidal, seeking therapy to help move forward with her adult life.

It was in a therapy session that Shatat was first introduced to the concept of retail therapy.

“My therapist asked ‘Summer, what do you love? You’re always talking about your last employer. Why is that?’ And I said ‘because one thing that gave me satisfaction is not just talking to people and styling them, it was the amount of people that literally use retail as therapy, who would rather tell a stranger their emotions and feelings, than the closest people to them,” Shatat said. “That felt great to me because even if they did not buy a single item, I know that they walked out feeling better than when they came in … My therapist looked at me, smiling, and said ‘You’re a retail therapist. You make people feel seen and heard through fashion.’”

That's when Shatat took one of the biggest steps in her life: she started her own online fashion boutique, called Anonymous Addictions, in 2017. She later opened up her first shop in Orland Park, at 9500 W. 143rd St., in 2018. The boutique featured high-end women’s clothing, and aimed to provide inclusivity for all body types, ages and levels of preferred modesty.

A key feature of the boutique, Shatat said, is that everything was exclusive and could not be found anywhere else.

The fashion stylist said the name of the boutique was something that surprised even her at the time; the newly discovered love of meeting new people, styling clients and building relationships all under one roof, where her past remained “anonymous” to those around her, and her “addiction” is the happiness she felt while following her dream.

“I was at my lowest when I opened Anonymous Addictions. That's actually what gave me the push and gave me the hope … something to look back at and say, ‘wow, this is something that I accomplished during my worst time.”

Just when life began to come together again, Shatat said the coronavirus pandemic put her back in the initial state of denial she tried to steer from as a teenager. The store was closed for four months, and Shatat said she did her best to remain positive during. But ultimately, in January, the boutique folded amid the pandemic, much like many other local businesses in suburban Chicago and various areas of the country. The closing turned Shatat’s coping mechanism into a memory.

“I kept telling myself that a lot of people are going through it … but when we walked away … when we closed the doors … it hit me very hard,” Shatat said. “I couldn't get myself together. All of my hard work and everything I put into this is completely gone. You start to question yourself, ‘Did I do enough? Did I work hard enough?' It’s hurtful and heartbreaking.”

Shatat said residents need to do more to support local businesses within their communities.

“As a small business owner and someone who was counting on this as a future for myself and especially my kids … it's really heartbreaking when you see, a corporate [or national] company that has a line out the door, and people going in and supporting them during a pandemic.”

Although Anonymous Addictions has closed, Shatat said she isn’t giving up on her passions and dream of growing the company.

“I'm a fighter, I don't give up,” Shatat said. “[Anonymous Addictions] was a safe place for people like me. People that have gone through a lot … I will literally put my heart and soul on a table and bring it back to life.”

The businesswoman is currently rebranding and searching for a new method of distribution. She plans to relaunch the store’s website and build from there. Until then, she is doing her best to support other local businesses here in, and surrounding Orland Park.

“I truly and wholeheartedly believe that when a door closes, one, two, three more open, for every hardship we endure,” she said. “I fought really hard to get where I am today and be able to open a business from of my hardships. After everything that came from it, I know that everything happens for a reason and every hardship brings opportunity.”

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