I have bipolar disorder, and many (if not most) people with bipolar shop to excess during manic phases. One person in my therapy group spends several thousand dollars on clothing, shoes, technology, etc. in a single day roughly twice per year, and then brings it all back the next day when he realizes that he cannot afford it all. He's banned from J. Crew and Brooks Brothers. I've done similar things (although not to that scale). Ultimately, there can be many reasons for strange or even potentially harmful behavior that one cannot easily control.

Out of curiosity, what's going through your mind during the shopping spree? Do you just feel a lot of giddy excitement and anticipation about all the cool new stuff you (think you) are going to get?

Most people with bipolar, like myself, don't shop for shopping's sake; it's because they want to take on a new project or make a major change in their life. I'd buy things like homebrewing supplies, a project car, or athletic equipment. It all either gets returned or starts sitting around a month later, when things get worse.

Sometimes, the projects you failed at eat away at you, daily proof that you are as big of a failure as you think you are, marking your failure as a person. When it's already hard to get out of bed, having to walk past hallmarks of your incompetence makes it even harder.

Rinse and repeat a couple times a year.

That's what mania is for me: a surge of confidence in myself, visible to others as pressured speech and hyperactivity, occasionally leading to irritability. It varies from person to person, though.

Based on stories I've heard/read about manic spending, each person/episode can be different. Having said that, a common thread in many is some delusion of grandeur that could justify the expenses were it not a delusion.

Example I've heard: buying all the tubes of a certain kind of paint in an art supply store in anticipation of doing some huge project. The project realistically would've taken years to complete & their delusion was they were an unnaturally fast artist. Once they snapped out of it, they realized the work they'd done so quickly was shoddy, at best, though they couldn't tell in the grips of mania. They returned most of the unopened paint the next day.

I have mild bipolar myself so I definitely know that exact feeling, though I've never acted on the urge to spend tons of money (yet). That delusion of starting a grand project that would maybe feasible but take an insane amount of work can consume me fairly often.

How do they enforce that ban? Do they check the ID of every shopper who makes a purchase?

Set up the POS machines to refuse to process purchases using certain credit card numbers, or based on the name associated with the card, I'm guessing.

> or based on the name associated with the card

doubtful that that is a strategy or else there would be a ban on common names.

Multi-level process since a "ban" in online world is difficult to achieve:

1. Set a cookie (lowest form since cookies get cleaned/deleted, but useful)

2. Recognize username + email address (tied to cookie so multiple usernames/emails can be used)

3. Address - physical shipping address is difficult to constantly change (for a normal person, scammers that use drop addresses are a different story all together)

4. Credit Card number w/associated billing address. The billing address is also difficult to constantly change and would correspond to shipping address.

There are additional steps a company can take, if necessary.

Facial recognition + security guard

unfeasible.

Judgmental characterizations aren't necessarily inconsistent with empathy and compassion. Especially in the context of an LEO.

I probably wouldn't blindly trust someone who cycles in and out of addictive or manic shopping with a large line of credit or with carte blanc access to a lot of other people's valuables. Just because their addiction makes them untrustworthy doesn't mean they're a bad person.

Also, using Amazon as a library isn't necessarily indicative of manic shopping. It could just be that the person is acting in their own self interest and not taking into account the effects of their actions on Amazon's other customers.

Canceling valid CC charges has a lot of explanations -- maybe the person is just a habitual liar in way that's best thought of in a medical context.

But in all of these cases, empathy and judgement can go hand-in-hand.

I completely agree. In the future, I'd rather say I prefer to seek non-judgmental explanations before bringing judgment to the table, as it allows me to identify more potential scenarios.

People being assholes, dicks, or just plain evil is probably the most exceptional of exceptions. It's considerably more likely that there's a much more complicated explanation that deserves understanding and compassion.