Impulse control disorder – oniomania

[waitforufo]

I have a sister, 45, who is a spendthrift. She has had this problem for years, financially ruining her family several times. She and her husband have declared bankruptcy twice. Our father passed away in 2000. Afterwards, I helped our mother arrange her very middle class finances, which our father previously managed. In doing so, to the surprise of my mother and me, we discovered that dear old dad had bailed out sis several times, each in the $10 to $50k range. Since mom is not a soft touch, and since there are time limits on how often one can declare bankruptcy, my sister is again in financial trouble. Since 2000 she has borrowed money from me and her other 3 siblings, her uncles and aunts, friends, and of course her mother. Everyone is long past throwing good money after bad.

My sister has 4 children, giving birth to the last at age 42. Among other things my sister is anorexic, and getting pregnant and carrying a baby to term has never been easy for her. Last Christmas at a dinner party she went on and on with my youngest sister-in-law about how difficult it was for her to get pregnant. My sister-in-law, not to happy about how much her husband has “loaned” our sister asked “Why on earth would you want to have a forth child at age 42?” My sister replied “I just love shopping for baby clothes.”

So now my mother is 75 and with age, her reason and will are weakening. She really just has enough to keep her comfortable. My sister however sees her nest egg as money to be spent. You see, my sister now realizes that mom is the last chance for cash. The rest of us will let her go to the poor house. She also knows we won’t let mom go there. So in a round about way, she is just getting her siblings to giver her the love (cash = love) she deserves.

In a quest to keep my mother independent, I have decided to try to learn a bit about my sister’s problem. To help her? No, my hope is that by providing this information to my mother, my mother won’t give in to my sister’s money demands. Time has shown me that giving money to my sister is just adding fuel to the fire.

My web searching to date has only come up with oniomania. Oniomania is a impulse control disorder to shop. I tend to prefer spendthrift. My history with my sister tells me that it is not the buying that’s the problem but the spending. The difference? Some of her actions tell me she would get pleasure flushing $100 bills down the toilet one at a time. She has been caught several times throwing out home decorations or new clothes she purchased just weeks before to replace them with nearly identical items. She will borrow money to give it to charity. She will sponsor parties for her children’s school classes. Her clothes are often mysteriously damaged by laundry accidents (e.g. bleach, ironing …). She has borrowed money from my mother for braces for her children’s teeth and then when showing them off her husband mentions that his work has such a good dental plan that it covers braces 100%. My sister has totaled 7 cars in the last 10 years. By her telling, none of these accidents have been her fault. Several of these “accidents” have lead to her receiving insurance settlements up to $20k. Where does all this money go? Now I do always see her wearing the nicest clothes and drinking a Starbucks coffee. She does have a nicely stocked wine closet.

My mother looks at her grandchildren and asks “how can I let them lose there home?” My answer is to keep from losing yours as well.

So if you know anything about my sister’s mental problems and can provide me with some information that will strengthen my mothers resolve, I would appreciate it.

[Mr Skeptic]

Can you tell us a bit more? Does your sister spend much of her time shopping? Does she or has she worked? Where does she get her money from (other than "borrowing" it)? I'd assume she abuses credit cards and/or cannot get one anymore. Did she mortgage her house? Does she admit she has a problem? What does her husband say?

 

I take it she simply likes to spend money whether she gets anything out of it or not.

 

The more you tell us, the better chance we may have to solve the problem.

[waitforufo]

Just to clarify, the purpose for my posting is not to find ways to fix my sister. Not directly anyway. I believe my best response to her behavior is to stop contributing to it. This means no more supporting her or any of her dependents. The goal of my posting is to find information which will help me and others, particularly my mother, understand her mental problem. Through this understanding, perhaps I will change my current chosen response, but I doubt it. If I gain knowledge here, I will share it with others who are impacted by my sister’s behavior.

 

More information:

My sister is married. She has worked part time in the past but lost her job about 6 months ago. She is currently looking for part time work. She is also currently earning cash doing home based day care. Her husband works full time and has union based seniority job security. I think he makes about $40k a year. So when she works, they make about $50k a year. All the reputable credit cards have dropped her. I think on occasion she finds a company that will issue a $500 credit limit but those generally drop her quickly as well. She has a subprime mortgage on her home that she negotiated about 4 months ago, so she has no home equity.

 

When it comes to spending, if she is awake and not under some obligation to be at a particular location, she is shopping. If she cannot sneak out of the house on weekends when her husband is preoccupied, or find a sitter when he is off someplace, she takes her 4 children with her. You have seen her; she is the one with the crying kids. I have not been at her home that there is not some evidence of a recent family meal of fast food. This is often because she is shopping after work and does not have time to cook. Her pantry is full of snack foods (chips, pretzels, etc) and the fridge is loaded with soft drinks. She is really into decorating her home for holidays. When the holiday is over she just throws out the decorations. Next year she buys again. For example, Christmas is just around the corner. Her home is the most decorated one the block. Lights, deer made of wire and lights that move, fake snowmen, candy canes, you name it. It is quite a spectacle. The inside is “Home Beautiful.” Next year will need a new theme. Then there are the clothes. Not just for her but for her children. She has two girls and two boys. The boys clothes are not too bad by comparison but the girls are a non-stop shopping opportunity. Her oldest, my niece, tells me that she has to be careful about saying she likes some outfit she sees on television. If she does that, she has a new wardrobe a week later and if she doesn’t start wearing it she finds that her old clothes have gone missing.

 

I could go on and on about all the lies but why bother. My favorite includes “I found this killer deal…”

 

She does not believe she has a problem. She is just a little behind or everything was fine but then a crisis hit. Like totaling the car (7 cars in 10 years). Just bad luck. By the way she will tell you that everyone lives just like her. She is just a bit unlucky.

[Mr Skeptic]

An incurable shopaholic, then. If she doesn't not admit she has a problem, it is unlikely that anything can be done with her. Her husband should be in charge of that anyhow. I'm worried she may have a bad influence on her kids, though.

 

The only solution for her is a cold dose of reality. If her husband could limit the amount of money she gets each month and prevent her from borrowing, that may be a solution.

 

As for your mom. You'd think that she would have learned something after all those years. In the end, it will be her choice -- even if she becomes easy to manipulate in her later years. Unless you can make her see that your sister is hopeless, she will likely try to help.

 

There are some people who plan people's retirement. If they are put in charge of your money, they will let you have only so much at a time, which would prevent her from giving it all away to your sister. Usually, they help people with bad planning/impulse control, but perhaps that would be a solution for your mother, though it will cost something.

 

----

Another thought has occurred to me. I seem to obsesively do various things (currently web browsing) as a way to procrastinate. My grandma, also a strong procrastinator, spends much of her time shopping and has bad impulse control. She also has financial troubles, and I don't know if there is anything I can do to help her. Procrastination also causes financial problems, and if the favorite activity to procrastinate with involves spending money (eg shopping), that will only make things worse. From my current reading, disruptive procrastination behavior can be a symptom of some underlying psychological problems.

 

As for your mom, don't be surprised if she is willing to do self-sacrifice to help her daughter. That is exactly the kind of behavior that the theroy of evolution would indicate. The best thing to do would be talk to your mom about the best way to help your sister, and the uselessnes of simply giving her money.

[Psyber]

Has she been checked out for mild atypical Bipolar Disorder??

Is there other family history of impulsive behaviour or mood lability.

It is a genetic predisposition that does not manifest fully in all carriers of the gene.

[choksey9]

i have a friend who cannot control him self from spending money and he agrees he has a problem he fools people telling them he will get their work done takes money from them and blows it up gives it to anybody he wants and half the time doesnt even remember where he has spent it what can be done

[pioneer]

The way it works is with unconscious projection/compulsion and something I call sensory expectation. The image of something appears in the mind or the imagination. The motivation is to make this image overlap reality.

 

An example, is getting the impulse to buy a new car, out of the blue. You go to the lot and there are hundreds of cars, but not all will work to satisfy the sensory expectation. But once your eye catches one in particular, you will gravitate the most toward it.

 

In the case of your sister and other shop-oholics, she is loosely analogous to a little omnivore animal that is hungry and begins to search for food. The animal has an impulse to find food, but only a nebulous image of what will work. It is not clear cut, for maximum omnivore flexibility. If something satisfies the sensory expectation, she will gather. The little animal may only find a seed, so it is still hungry and continues to search again, this time finding a bug, etc., until it is full. In primitive times, she would have been a gather/provider always gathering more than she ever needs. Or in the animal world she is analogous to the squirrel during the autumn with a strong hunger impulse, because it is being extrapolated in time.

[bob000555]

Before I give my explanation of your sister’s behavior I will have to explain the Freudian theory of psychodynamics. According to Freud we all have three main players effecting our behavior, they are the id ego and superego. The id is the primeval drive to seek pleasure and fulfill the lowest level of our needs hierarchy(physiological needs like food and water). The superego is our conscience which criticizes and prohibits our id’s drives. The ego is the mediator between the two, finding the rational middle ground. The analogy that is commonly used is that of an angel and a devil on a persons shoulder giving counsel, the ego would be the person, the id the devil, and the superego the angel.

 

 

Your sister’s ego is having trouble mediating between the id and superego and is defaulting to the id far to often, there are many possible reasons for this. If your sister lacked a maternal figure or had only a week maternal figure the superego could have failed to develop properly(the development of the superego is a result of an internalization of the same sex parent’s values). If your sister was at one point was functioning normally, or especially if she was functioning selflessly there is the possibility that she suffered an extreme negative consequence as a result of fallowing her superego(for example if the car crash you mentioned was a result of a selfless act) he ego then decided to stop listening to the superego. There are many other possible explanations.

 

Then agene there is the distinct possibility the Freudianism is pure bullshit in which case you can ignore this entire post.