“I’m seeking a dopamine hit, and it’s the pressing of the ‘buy’ button that gives me that.”

Adulting in such a capitalist society is hard at the best of times, but try having a mental illness that makes this even harder. I’m one of many who struggle to manage money during episodes of being unwell. I have several diagnoses, but my impulsive behaviour is usually attributed to Borderline Personality Disorder.

It’s not often talked about, and if it is, then my mental health team are just usually happy that I haven’t hurt or killed myself. Trust me though, wild and compulsive spending sprees are just as damaging, and when faced later with the consequences of your actions, it can put you at risk of those things.

There are two types of spending habits I struggle with. The first is through deep depression, where I personally fund Jeff Bezos and his family- piles of Amazon boxes arriving through the post. The delivery driver, my own personal Santa Claus.

Usually the items sit unopened for days after, because what it comes down to is that I’m seeking a dopamine hit, and it’s the pressing of the ‘buy’ button that gives me that. Dopamine has a lot to answer for. It’s something I chase wildly. I can never get enough and will seek it at any cost. Along with the spending sprees come other damaging behaviours like bingeing, drinking and taking drugs, all of which exacerbate my financial difficulties.

The second type of spending habit I struggle with is when my mood is elevated. Buying is compulsive, but the dopamine hit is even more addictive. I buy all sorts of things I don’t need, like expensive equipment for new hobbies and adventures that I will later bomb out of, because my mood ultimately will return to my severely depressed state.

When I’m like this, the dopamine hit makes me feel high- I’m invincible and I have no regard for consequences. In my head, money is unlimited and nothing is ever enough. I am reckless, gambling with my money, spending hundreds on food and drink and even acquiring drugs on the dark web.

I will open credit cards, max out my bank accounts and sell my possessions to acquire new and exciting things- and when you’re flying high you can make anything feel exciting. The world is fast, colourful and loud, and you never want the feeling to end.

Ultimately though, it does end. The crash becomes inevitable. I start to experience the consequences of my actions. My cards start to decline, bills mount up, I find trails of evidence of what I’ve spent money on and it’s not pretty.

Recently I blew £2500 in two days. This was the entirety of my savings that I had spent a long time building up. I maxed out my credit cards and was left with my tail between my legs, and less than a pound in my bank account.

Much of the stuff was not returnable. I was scammed out of around £500 because you don’t see the dangers when you are in the virtual toy shop making all your ‘wonderful’ purchases, and usually the scammed money is linked with behaviours which are questionable in nature. That’s what makes vulnerable people so easy to scam.

One of the hardest things is that my financial life has been fraught with bad decisions since I started to manage my own money in college.

I just didn’t have the best skills to manage my money. If I wanted something, I would spend impulsively without thinking of the consequences. At that age, I was left without bus fare or lunch which looking back was the good life. Cue bank of mum and dad to save the day.

As I got older and became a student at university, I suddenly had grant money paid in one big lump sum, and banks were keen to give me a credit card and overdraft. I left university in deficit and was unemployed for six months, so when I finally got a job and a wage, I was already fighting a losing battle.

Most people would be able to plan and spend in a way that was reasonable and addressed the debt I already had, but my mental health meant that I continued to make poor decisions which felt out of my control.

After a long time struggling financially, my mental health was so bad that I thought taking out a payday loan would solve my problems. And for 30 days it did. It meant I could eat and pay all my bills. But the interest was so high that when I inevitably rolled it over at the end of the month, it started an inescapable cycle whereby I would rob Peter to pay Paul.

Things got so bad with my mental health that I couldn’t deal with the situation. I didn’t open my post for over 12 months, I had bailiffs knocking at the door and a pending CCJ- all of which would have been avoided if I could have just picked up the phone, overcome my anxiety and spoken to someone.

I impulsively took out a second payday loan to pay off my first one when things got desperate, by the end of the week, I had taken out nine. Yes, you read that right. About five years passed and the mess just grew. I was so ashamed that I was hiding everything. I didn’t have anyone to bail me out and I almost took my own life on several occasions.

Eventually I accessed StepChange, a debt charity, and ended up going through insolvency which wrote my £15000 debt off. I’m still dealing with the consequences of bankruptcy today, but I’m generally better at managing my money when my mood is balanced.

Unfortunately, I am yet to conquer the cycles where my mood is so low or high that I feel compelled to spend, but I’m certainly not as bad as I was before. Debt problems can feel inescapable but there is always a way out. All of them start with asking for help.