Bipolar 2 From Inside and Out

Posts tagged ‘shopping’

Hypomania, Shopping, and Sleep

I hate shopping. Loathe it. Grocery shopping. Clothes shopping. Shoe shopping. Practically the only thing left for me is online shopping, and that can be treacherous – and not because I can so easily spend too much money.

Online shopping can push me over into hypomania. So can thinking about online shopping.

Recently, our house was destroyed by a tornado. We lost everything. And we have to replace everything. (Fortunately, our insurance company is paying for most of the lost items, as well as rebuilding the house.)

When I first got the inventory of things that needed replacing, I was too overwhelmed to do much about it. A window-shopping trip to La-Z-Boy left me bereft of spoons, as shopping always does. So I turned to the internet.

Do you have any idea how many companies are willing to sell me chairs, sofas, rugs, computer desks, jewelry armoires, electric fireplaces, and even walking sticks (to mention but a few items)? Lots. Lots and lots. Now I even get messages from many of them on my email and Facebook feed.

I have spent literally hours browsing online. And then I try to sleep. It’s an instant case of “Hamster Brain,” as my friends and I call it. I can’t sleep, even with my prescribed sleep aid and prescribed benzo. My mind starts whirling and my thoughts start racing.

Hypomania takes over. Oh, I don’t run to my computer and start ordering stuff. I’m keeping hands off my PayPal account, for the most part. But I lie in bed, eyes closed, trying to picture every purchase in what will be its new setting. I compare various color schemes for each room in the house, then change them each night – gold, brown, and cinnamon for my study? Blue and green with coral for the living room? And, oh, God, what about the bathrooms and the kitchen? I even arrange the furniture in my head – which wall will the computer desk go against? What will go beside the chairs? Tea cart? End table? Should we have a corner breakfast nook or a proper dinette set?

And how do I explain to my husband what my visions are? I can’t even decide between boho and country comfy. I can’t even define for him what I mean by boho. How do I keep him from sprinkling the house with 50s pieces (now called mid-century)? How can I integrate his treasures without spoiling my visions?

Most nights now I am up until 2:30 at least, which is when I take the benzo. When I wake, though, the hypomania is not over. It’s back to the computer with a new thing to search for, adding item after item to my favorites lists, comparing prices. I spend hours doing this. I email pictures back and forth with my husband as he gets caught up in my frenzy. This afternoon I spent several hours online buying replacements for books that were ruined. Tonight may be another case of no sleep till who-knows-when.

I’d like to stop, or at least slow down. Realistically, I don’t have to do anything now. I certainly don’t have to order or even browse choices. The house will not be rebuilt until at least the spring and we have no place to store any purchases until then. It’s silly to make decisions now, when between now and then thousands more choices will become available.

If I keep going at the pace I’m at now, I will be supremely sleep-deprived by the time I actually need to make purchases. And between now and then I see myself with a copy of the floor plans, making little cut-outs of different-sized furniture and trying them out for size and fit like those sliding puzzles we used to do as kids.

I see my pdoc this weekend and I’m going to ask him what to do about the hypomania and the lack of sleep. I get hypomania so seldom and it usually goes away so quickly. It’s impossible to think about it continuing at this level and going on for months.

Of course, it’s too simple for someone to tell me to calm down, not to think about it until the time comes. This is hypomania. That’s exactly what I can’t do. Once again, my brain is in control and running riot. And it won’t shut up, not even when I really need it to.

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Mental Health

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Handling Hypomania and Shopping

I know it’s common when hypomania or mania hits for the bipolar person to go shopping.

The thing is, I hate shopping. Always have. Probably always will. I don’t like to shop for clothes or groceries or shoes. I don’t like to go out to stores.

Ah, but there’s always the Internet (I hear you say). You can shop without ever leaving your house, or for that matter your desk chair.

The problem is, I don’t have any money to spend on online shopping. And that’s one of the reasons I don’t have a credit card. It’s too easy to spend non-money.

What I do have are a debit card and a PayPal account. If there’s no more money on my debit card, too bad – I have to reload it (or more likely ask my husband to reload it). This requires taking money out of the bank account.

The PayPal account is where I usually get paid for the bit of writing and editing I do from home. I really should roll that money straight into the bank account.

But sometimes I don’t.

In fact, when the PayPal well is dry, it reverts to my backup payer – which is my bank account. It does this automatically. My husband never knows about it, since I’m the one who handles the online banking.

You see the problem here. I could shop to my heart’s content, and pay with PayPal/bank account as long as there was money available. Theoretically, I could bleed it dry.

Even with my meds working and all the progress I’ve made, I still get hypomania occasionally. I try to keep the shopping under control as well as I can.

There are several dresses in my closet that I never wear because I hardly ever go out, especially to places where a dress is necessary. I even have a party dress that I bought recently. It’s really becoming. But I never go to parties. I was just overwhelmed with the butterfly pattern and how cheap it was ($20).

But still, five dresses in two or three years isn’t bad, considering. (I once actually hyperventilated over a dress, and often do over amber jewelry.)

The real problems I have always had are books and music.

When I was still going out to malls and shopping centers and the like, the bookstores were always my downfall. My husband would take my arm and steer me past them, unless he was jonesing for a book too.

I’m trying to keep my online book-buying to a semi-reasonable level, too. I buy full-price books only when they’re absolutely essential – the last book Sue Grafton ever wrote, for example, which is not going to be discounted anytime soon.

For the rest of my ebook purchases, I subscribe to various newsletters that present me with cut-rate book choices every day. (Early Bird Books and Book Bub, for example). These books sell for $.99 (rarely), $1.99-$2.99 (usually), or $3.99 (occasionally). Once in a while I can even get a free classic – for instance, Tess of the D’Urbervilles or Ivanhoe (which I don’t recommend) or Journal of the Plague Year.

Back when I was going out, in the days when I did that, my other hypomanic shopping thrill was the used CD shop. I had a strategy for curbing my hypomania there, too, even though I didn’t know that hypomania was what I was feeling at the time. I would fill my little basket with everything that caught my eye.

Then I would weed. I made three piles – must haves, can pass on, and maybes. Then I would angst over the maybe pile, juggling price, artist, essential tunes, and the like until I had the piles down to something more manageable. Under budget or just a wee bit over. I can do the same with my online “cart.”

Again, this is a thing that could get me in trouble on the Internet, but since I have all those CDs and have loaded them all into iTunes, I seldom get the music shopping urge anymore.

So, yes, I do hypomanic shopping and no, I don’t let it break the bank. Just chip away at the edges.

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Mental Health

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