Why You Keep Spending When You Know You Shouldn’t | BPD & Impulsive Spending

Why can spending money feel like emotional relief when you have BPD?

You feel empty, lonely, rejected, angry or overwhelmed. Then you see something you want. And that little voice says, "Buy it!"

In this episode, I explore the complicated relationship between BPD, impulsive spending, emotional regulation and shame.

I look at why spending can become a way of escaping emotional pain, filling chronic emptiness, extending a good mood or even trying to buy a different version of yourself.

This episode is about understanding why the spending happens and what we can actually do about it.

🌱 Have questions, stories, or something you’d like us to cover? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] and let’s keep the conversation going.

🎧 Looking for meditations made for emotional regulation, BPD, and more? Check out Empowered Heroes Meditations on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.

If you’d like more support in your journey toward BPD recovery, Steff offers 1:1 sessions using evidence-based tools from DBT, Schema Therapy, and Mindfulness to help you heal. Email for a free 30-Minute Consultation:

📩 [email protected] or check out the website: www.bpdsupport.org

Free financial support resources:

UK: StepChange Debt Charity - https://www.stepchange.org | National Debtline - nationaldebtline.org

Ireland: MABS (Money Advice and Budgeting Service) - mabs.ie

Australia: National Debt Helpline - ndh.org.au | 1800 007 007

US: National Foundation for Credit Counseling - nfcc.org | CFPB- consumerfinance.gov

📚 Referenced Research Includes:

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787

Carpenter, R. W., & Trull, T. J. (2013). Components of emotion dysregulation in borderline personality disorder: A review. Current psychiatry reports, 15(1), 335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-012-0335-2

Glenn, C. R., & Klonsky, E. D. (2009). Emotion dysregulation as a core feature of borderline personality disorder. Journal of personality disorders, 23(1), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2009.23.1.20

Kujovic, M., Bahr, C., Riesbeck, M., Benz, D., Deiß, M., Margittai, Z., ... & Meisenzahl, E. (2025). Effects on impulsivity and delay discounting of intermittent theta burst stimulation add-on to dialectical behavioral therapy in borderline personality disorder: a randomized, sham-controlled pilot trial. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 12(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-025-00278-3

Lieberman, M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Crockett, M. J. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. PsycholSci18 (5): 421–428. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x

Ott, C. A., Voce, A., Grinband, J., Lopez-Castro, T., Fertuck, E. A., Stanley, D. A., & Lempert, K. M. (2025). The borderline personality disorder feature of identity instability predicts temporal discounting in a community sample: An exploratory study. Personality Science, 6, 27000710251374485. https://doi.org/10.1177/27000710251374485

Sansone, R. A., & Wiederman, M. W. (2012). Spending too much: Relationships with borderline personality symptomatology. International journal of psychiatry in clinical practice, 16(4), 316-318. https://doi.org/10.3109/13651501.2012.693186

Starcevic, V., & Khazaal, Y. (2017). Relationships between behavioural addictions and psychiatric disorders: What is known and what is yet to be learned?. Frontiers in psychiatry, 8, 53. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00053

Zac, A., Huang, Y. C., Von Moltke, A., Decker, C., & Ezrachi, A. (2025). Dark patterns and consumer vulnerability. Behavioural Public Policy, 1-50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2024.49