Bipolar and financial issues

[fedupwithdeployment]

I would like some advice on how to help someone who is bipolar. This has been recently diagnosed, and the person has been given drugs (not lithium but something similar) to control the mood swings. Apologies if my terminology is not correct.

One of the issues is that the person is a compulsive spender, and any attempt to tell the person that they need to live within their means goes down like a ton of bricks, and risks sending them into a huge depression. The family is not exactly on the breadline, but the mortgage huge and they have taken out payday loans etc and are regularly exceeding overdraft limits as a result of the spending. This behaviour is putting a big strain on the rest of the family.

To get back on an even keel, they will need to reduce expenditure significantly. This will be difficult for someone used to living beyond their means, before you even get to the mental health issues.

Does anyone have experience of this, or advice as to how this might be best approached? I am a black / white type person, and what is commonsense to me, is clearly not the best approach here.

Thanks in advance.

while hyper spending is a symptoms of bipolar1 this should only happen during hypomania type 2 or mania type1 which is episodal ( the person won't listen if episodal and cards should be removed until the episode has passed) which the meds should stop if it happens all the time then it is more a character flaw and not the illness.

Also people with bipolar don't just go on a episode because someone said something they didn't like they have a episode because their serotonin melatotin and dopamine levels are dropping or raising it doesn't happen because someone upset you. As a sufferer of bipolar1 the worst thing friends and family can do is treat me differently like I'm weak and need to be tiptoed around I prefer to be treated the same as everyone else so my advice is if its all the time it's the person and not the illness in which case tell like you would any other person. If it comes and goes hide the credit cards during the episode hth.

I'm going to disagree with crawling. I'm also bipolar 1 and something someone says most definitely can send me into a depressive episode. Less likely if I'm medicated to the hilt but as I prefer not to be.

Not sure how you address the issues though.

I'm BPD, but they have similar traits.

Frankly I don't think there is anything you can do. It is down to the person to recognize and alter their attitude towards issues such as over spending. Know that is really hard to hear (and even harder to do, trust me!!).

Thanks for the advice - I wish there was a "right" approach, but interesting to hear the differing views.

Do you think intensive CBT would help? Or would the advice of an independent debt counsellor be better received than advice from family?