Lucy
When I was 25, I took a fateful job in London. I had graduated Newcastle university in mathematics and taken a graduate job in Essex before the move. The pressure of London workloads and a predisposition to mental heath problems due to my mother’s bipolar, led to a breakdown a year later. I was hospitalised and ended up on the drug Arirpiprazole which caused me to have compulsive behaviours.
One lunchtime at my new job back home in Essex I saw a scratchcard out of the corner of my eye which said ‘rich for life’. I had never bought a scratchcard before but I felt completely devoid of hope. I had lost my career and my future and wanted a cheat to get to the future I’d worked so hard to get to. That first scratchcard I won £100 but after a short time I was filling my car glove compartment full to the brim.
This was the first behaviour change I noticed the second was compulsive eating. When I was ill, I had shrunk to a size 6 but due to compulsive eating over 10 years I grew to a size 20/22. I started eating baguettes instead of rolls, 30 packets of crisps a week and ordering desserts of Deliveroo. I mentioned this to my psychiatrist and decided it was better to be gaining weight then back in hospital.
During this time my relationship with men changed I had multiple partners at the same time and just wanted to have sex. It was a compulsion I quickly tamed as I knew it was wrong but the urge almost ruined my trip to Australia where I jumped into bed with complete strangers just to satisfy myself. I don’t know what risk I put myself under being thousands of miles from home no one knowing where I was or who I was with.
After a relapse due to not taking my medication, I ended up sectioned and to keep my adherence to my medication because I kept forgetting the doctor suggested I go on a depo injection of aripiprazole each month.
This led to a complete loss of control of my gambling I ended up online gambling roulette and slots for the first time. I lost £25000 on the first night and bet £4000 a virtual dog named Taxi which I felt was an omen as I was a taxi controller I didn’t check the odds and when the bet was placed, I looked at the odds they were the longest. The dog won some how and I signed up to gamstop straight away. I gave my bank cards to my mum and put my money in bonds I couldn’t touch for 5 years. With all this though the gambling continued stealing my card back and blowing £10000 every 6 months.
I spent money on friends continually buying them presents and my mum would joke about my online clothes shopping. I went through ten jobs as the compulsion to get things done led to shoddy work and arguments with colleagues which was not in my nature.
I had money as before I was ill, I had bought a flat with my ex-partner in London we later split up, sold the flat and he bought me out. I had always been a saver saving £500 a month of my first pay cheques and this new found fondness to spending didn’t make sense. I thought my diagnoses of Paranoid Schizophrenia had caused my change in behaviour. It wasn’t till I told a friend about my problems begging them to take my bank cards to keep them out of my house as I was starting to feel suicidal due to the amount of money I was spending that the truth came out. She phoned a gambling hotline and they were told that the drug I was on aripiprazole was causing my problems.
It took six months for the doctors to take me off the drug and in that time, I lost another £10,000. I had to stay on it to keep well but they only got round to look at my case because the doctor was leaving and wanted to tidy up everything.
It’s been three years since I came off my medication and I have not had a thousand pound plus relapse on gambling and I’m down to a size 14. I feel that these medications need to be explained to patients as the ramifications for me were huge I believe I spent over £150,000 gambling over 12 years.
You can also listen to more of Lucy’s story on the Impulsive podcast starting at episode six
