Shopping Addiction

I have over and over again racked up insane amounts of credit card debt, struggled for years to pay it off only to turn around and do it again.  I blame my bipolar.  When I spend money, I feel good.  When a package comes in the mail I feel good.  This last year I justified the increase in credit card debt because I had to completely furnish a house and buy all new clothes and shoes for the kids because when I was told to leave my husbands house I had my clothes and my vehicle.  Now, replacing those items probably hit between 10-12K but why I'm now in the hole 30K is beyond me.  I don't really have anything to show for it.  I don't make big or expensive purchases, but when something is on sell I am getting 3 of them.  It's a compulsion like being a gambling addict or an alcoholic and I don't know how to stop.  Each month it's a roulette game - do I pay my utilities or my credit cards with one of my paychecks and my other goes to my mortgage.  I'm so over extended I don't know how I am going to make it.

Then the bills come in.  Then the depression hits, then the anxiety attacks begin.  It's a vicious cycle.  I have made some steps to get some of it consolidated to lower my payments per month but it's still tight on the budget.  I feel awful because my shopping problem has caused me to cut back on taking my kids out for a movie or getting a new toy when we go to the store for needed items like toilette paper and laundry soap.

I'm also struggling because the only way I will go back to my husband is if he sells his house and we buy one together that is in both of our names..... Well - with the debt I have buried myself in, that will not happen until I get it paid off... that could be 5-10 years.  I'm fucked.  Just totally fucked and no one to blame but myself.  I understand why people begin having suicidal thoughts after prior attempts, it certainly seems like a good way out of this mess.  I'm worth so much more if I were dead than alive - however the insane amount of life insurance I have is voided if I were to do so.  There went that idea.  My thoughts are racing, I'm sick to my stomach and I have got to get it figured out.  I wish that I had an understanding person by my side to help me with my pain, whether it's my bipolar ups and downs or poor financial choices.  Everyone has turned and ran ever since I lost my shit.  They keep their distance and never reach out - and this has gone on so long, I have pretty much written them off.  It's like I'm invisible and non existent, I fear this is how it will always be.

Do any of you suffer issues with debt and or shopping?
How do you cope?
Any advise what to do to curb the creation of this mess?

#shoppingaddiction #debt #bipolar #nosupport