My sister in law was just diagnosed as bi-polar and she has had a long, painful love affair with shopping. Her nickname is Quantity Kerry if that tells you anything. If she finds something she likes she will buy it in every color. She has taken over both walk in closets in her bedroom, leaving her husband to hang his clothes in the spare room closet. Family members just thought she liked to shop and have new things. Her and her husband have a ton of debt because she buys without thinking. Her rationalization is the fact that she works and contributes to the family money so she should get to spend it. Her husband never buys anything for himself and works a lot of overtime to make more money. Once she was diagnosed everything made sense. In her manic phase she would have to purchase whatever she wanted at the moment;clothes, books, makeup, you name it. Since she was just diagnosed in the past 2 months she is still struggling with controlling the impulse to buy. She tries to limit the number of times she has to go to a store in an effort to avoid temptation. At least she has an idea of why she feels the need to buy things, hopefully she work it out from there.
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