I think this website is mostly based in the UK, but I live in the US for reference. I've been shoplifting for years. Never anything of significant value, but I am in college and an artist and I can't always justify purchasing things that aren't necessary to survive, which has only gotten worse during the pandemic. I lost my job and, considering so many businesses are closed, it's been incredibly hard to find another job that works with my college class schedule. I have to buy art supplies for school constantly, which as any artist knows, is incredibly expensive. I try to avoid it as much as I can and make do with whatever I can recycle from old projects, but it's getting harder and harder. Not to make excuses, but sometimes it is hard to feel bad for doing things like this when our capitalist society makes it so hard for young adults especially to survive on minimum wage while grinding through college just so we can hopefully make more than minimum wage one day. Yesterday I was shopping at a store getting groceries and a few other things I needed. I spent a while browsing around and I noticed a rack with some blue-light glasses, which I've heard are good for people who have to sit on the computer for long periods of time. I have to be on my computer all the time and I've been getting the worst headaches recently, so I thought it might be a good idea to try them out until I saw on the price tag that they were almost $30. Now, this store is not even close to high-end and there was no prescription or anything, so I thought the price was a bit ridiculous, but at that point I had spent so much on advil to get rid of my headaches that I was willing to try anything. Now, it was not my first time stealing from this store and it wasn't even the first item I had snuck into my bag on that day alone, but I carefully took the barcode tag off and put them in my bag when I thought I was hidden enough. It wasn't until I went to check out for the rest of my items and leave the store that I was stopped by a security guard who asked if I had any unpaid merchandise. I had headphones in so I thought I misheard him at first but I stopped, took them out, and asked what he said. He asked again and I immediately started to panic. At some point in the conversation there were four people surrounding me which, during the pandemic, was really freaking me out. I handed my receipt to one of the employees and opened the bag of things that I had just bought. Then the first guard asked if I had any glasses and I knew there was nothing I could say so I immediately caved and handed him everything in my bag, which was maybe three total items. They told me they were just going to collect the items and that I could go as soon as I handed over everything and they checked my receipt for the items in my shopping bag while I apologized profusely, but I was panicking so badly because in the years that I've been doing things like this both back in my hometown and when I moved to go to college, I had never been caught before. It wasn't even that bad, as they let me go and didn't even take down my name, but that whole conversation was a blur and it hasn't even been 24 hours, but I feel physically sick to my stomach and don't know what to do. Of course, this morning I get an email from one of my professors telling me I need to buy this huge list of items for our class tomorrow and I would normally steal at least a couple of the things but I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it after what happened yesterday. I'm just trying to not starve while I look for a new job amidst keeping up with school and I know I'm not a great person, but this is literally the only law I've ever broken and don't know what I'm going to do since I'm never going back to that store again. Not to throw myself a pity party or anything, I know I rightfully got caught doing something I shouldn't be doing, but I just can't stomach it. It physically hurts just thinking about it and I honestly don't know how I'm going to be able to afford going to school with all of these extra payments and also paying for food without a job.

I think this website is mostly based in the UK, but I live in the US for reference. I've been shoplifting for years. Never anything of significant value, but I am in college and an artist and I can't always justify purchasing things that aren't necessary to survive, which has only gotten worse during the pandemic. I lost my job and, considering so many businesses are closed, it's been incredibly hard to find another job that works with my college class schedule. I have to buy art supplies for school constantly, which as any artist knows, is incredibly expensive. I try to avoid it as much as I can and make do with whatever I can recycle from old projects, but it's getting harder and harder. Not to make excuses, but sometimes it is hard to feel bad for doing things like this when our capitalist society makes it so hard for young adults especially to survive on minimum wage while grinding through college just so we can hopefully make more than minimum wage one day.Yesterday I was shopping at a store getting groceries and a few other things I needed. I spent a while browsing around and I noticed a rack with some blue-light glasses, which I've heard are good for people who have to sit on the computer for long periods of time. I have to be on my computer all the time and I've been getting the worst headaches recently, so I thought it might be a good idea to try them out until I saw on the price tag that they were almost $30. Now, this store is not even close to high-end and there was no prescription or anything, so I thought the price was a bit ridiculous, but at that point I had spent so much on advil to get rid of my headaches that I was willing to try anything. Now, it was not my first time stealing from this store and it wasn't even the first item I had snuck into my bag on that day alone, but I carefully took the barcode tag off and put them in my bag when I thought I was hidden enough. It wasn't until I went to check out for the rest of my items and leave the store that I was stopped by a security guard who asked if I had any unpaid merchandise. I had headphones in so I thought I misheard him at first but I stopped, took them out, and asked what he said. He asked again and I immediately started to panic. At some point in the conversation there were four people surrounding me which, during the pandemic, was really freaking me out. I handed my receipt to one of the employees and opened the bag of things that I had just bought. Then the first guard asked if I had any glasses and I knew there was nothing I could say so I immediately caved and handed him everything in my bag, which was maybe three total items. They told me they were just going to collect the items and that I could go as soon as I handed over everything and they checked my receipt for the items in my shopping bag while I apologized profusely, but I was panicking so badly because in the years that I've been doing things like this both back in my hometown and when I moved to go to college, I had never been caught before. It wasn't even that bad, as they let me go and didn't even take down my name, but that whole conversation was a blur and it hasn't even been 24 hours, but I feel physically sick to my stomach and don't know what to do.Of course, this morning I get an email from one of my professors telling me I need to buy this huge list of items for our class tomorrow and I would normally steal at least a couple of the things but I know I won't be able to bring myself to do it after what happened yesterday. I'm just trying to not starve while I look for a new job amidst keeping up with school and I know I'm not a great person, but this is literally the only law I've ever broken and don't know what I'm going to do since I'm never going back to that store again. Not to throw myself a pity party or anything, I know I rightfully got caught doing something I shouldn't be doing, but I just can't stomach it. It physically hurts just thinking about it and I honestly don't know how I'm going to be able to afford going to school with all of these extra payments and also paying for food without a job. 