My advice: Before you go any further, I think you need to talk to your mother, first, about whether or not she is borderline and open the door for looking into it with her, if that is still the way you want to go. Typically, when someone thinks they know what is "wrong" with another person, it scares the person and makes them feel vulnerable, especially if that diagnosis was achieved without their consent.

I wonder what knowing how well your mother fits the diagnosis of borderline would do for you? What are your goals? Is it so that you can improve your relationship by understanding her better? Is it to validate your own experience as a child with a mother "like that"? Is it just curiosity?

I can tell you that it would hurt me very much if my children were trying to understand me through a diagnosis. If your mother has a therapist, and if she is borderline, the question of her being borderline, if she is, would have come up. Asking her about it, in that case, would be a better experience for both of you.

If there has been no borderline diagnosis, and if your mother doesn't even know that you are researching a diagnosis of her, I don't see how this can lead to a good experience in your relationship.

Next, my opinion of Understanding the Borderline Mother: I absolutely do not recommend it. For one thing, the research in it is dated, and Lawson's expertise is EMDR and treatment for trauma victims. More importantly, though, the descriptions of the types of mothers, to my mind, only contribute to the stigmatization of borderlines. It is written for "victims" of borderlines. I put victims in quotation marks, because the book is oriented toward those stuck with a borderline mother--as children are "stuck" with their mothers. It is not, however, helpful for understanding the condition of bpd. Most unhelpful of all, while the book claims to offer specific strategies for helping children cope with their mothers, the conclusion the book reaches, time after time, is "get away," "flee," "save yourself."

If you decided to continue your research on your mother by reading about bpd, there are two guides that I would recommend. Both are (realistically) positive, and both take a family approach--the one most likely (statistically) to achieve the most improvement in relationships. I don't know how old you are, and what level of reading you find accessible, but one that everyone can read fairly easily is New Hope for People with Borderline Personality Disorder. The second book is a brand new book: Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder. It is stunning in tone, breadth of understanding and treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. It uses cutting-edge research, and rests upon decades of work with borderlines. It is a large book, but it is possible to read chapters as stand-alones.

If you are still living at home with your mother, whichever book you read, it's important that you read it with someone in the mental health field. They can help with perspective on what you're reading, they can help with the level of emotion that is likely to arise while you are doing your research.

Many of us who are bpd have been trying to understand our disorder for years. Some of our therapists struggle too. Part of that is because we are very much individual. For example: there are two typical patterns of response for a borderline: fight or flee...be extremely social, or isolate....that sort of thing. Some of those phases last for years and years, some of them alternate within a day, or a couple of times within a day.

And, finally, if you want to keep looking, there are websites for helping family members improve their experiences of living in a family with a member with bpd, such as bpdfamily.com (where Christine Lawson virtually resides, at least sometimes).

One more note, if you do read Understanding the Borderline Mother and use it as a guide, please don't leave it lying around for her to come upon.