I'm hypomanic and have been for at least a couple months.
I'm already christmas shopping, and it isn't even halloween yet.
Not only that, I'm being wildly generous.
The first example was a $3000 gift to a young lady who teaches piano to international students in a boarding school in Germany. She used it, along with other cash gifts to purchase a piano for her apartment.
The second example was a $3800 acoustic guitar for my son for his birthday. He played guitar in a jazz band when he was in high school and is talented but sold his instruments some time ago. He asked If I would buy him a cheap guitar for his birthday. I chose the one I bought.
Now I've ordered him a $10,000 electric guitar for Christmas. The model was first made in 1922 and made electric in 1951. It has been in production up until the present in very small numbers. It is a collectors item as well as a musical instrument.
I chose between the guitar for my son, and an $11000 lens for my camera. It is the kind of lens that National Geographic photographers use when they go after polar bears. Now that I've ordered the guitar, I've been able to stop wanting the camera lens.
I've ordered my other son and daughter in law a $1500 pair of goose down sleeping bags for christmas. I bought my nephew a $1000 set of kitchen knives for his wedding. It wasn't that I'm particularly close to my nephew. It was that the knives are the very best and I was able to get them for 40% off.
Everything I do is extravagant.
I received some money in 2012 and can afford to do these things but that doesn't make it smart. Many people who receive large sums of cash blow it all in a couple of years and end up right back where they started. I don't want to do that.
I don't know what I want you to say. Just taking the time to itemize the binge I have been on makes me look at the big picture and see what I'm doing. Now that I can see it all at once, I'm able to say this has to stop now.
This isn't the kind of spree that I have heard about in my support group. There are people who, when manic, but 3 new cars in a week. They end up in hospital and totally broke. That doesn't make my binge okay.
Thanks for listening.
Writing it all down has been helpful.