You know you're borderline when...

You don't know what you believe so you let someone decide for you. And your'e okay with that.

You tell anyone who will listen, for weeks prior to the holidays, that you really do not like anything about Christmas and wish you could Just. Stay. Home.
and then when the relatives don't call to invite you over, you feel abandoned and hurt.

You spend a lot of time in lotion shops. The smell and texture of the different moisturizers sooth you.

You buy some nice smelling hand cream to add to the 253 bottles you already have.

You are following an email thread and you just can't not have the last word, so you escalate the tone until somebody really is pi.ssed. Then you feel really, really sorry, and then you feel like a victim because you only said those things because no one was taking you seriously, and they weren't being very nice. You vow never to post after certain people post ever again.

You read the thread about the book "I hate you dont leave me", and having read it yourself and not heard other opinions on it, assumed you thought it was a good book. Then you find out others didn't like it so now you dont like it either. You look at other BPD books that they have suggested online, and read reviews of those- some people don't like those books either. So now, you have no idea which book you DO like and which book will be most helpful.

Someone please just tell me what I like

Well....every book in the field is a good book about something, for a particular audience, and in a particular time...omebody...How's that? (wiggle, wiggle, stall, stall)

I hate you, don't leave me was published in 1989: twenty years ago...(!) It did so many good things: describes the DSM criteria fully, offers mini-case histories sympathetically, discusses bpd in light of what they wonder might be, actually, a borderline society (that the US is becoming pretty borderline in toto), gives the SET script for communication with a borderline (Support, Empathy, Truth), explains why some therapies (like psychoanalysis) can actually damage an individual with bpd, a summary of historical figures and movements in the mental health field....all in a small paperback in accessible language.

Also, I like the second half of the book better than the first...

When I read the book, 6 or 7 years ago, I was so grateful to find others like me--just like I was tremendously relieved to find other women like me in DBT (maybe the major benefits of that therapy for me!), and it was very useful to get an overview of the considerations in treating bpd. My husband read it and was relieved to read about what kind of crazy I was, to read that someone understood what he faced in living with me, and to read that there were treatments--that we could find help.

So...it's not really that I don't like the book, I guess...It's that I don't recommend it. There are newer books based on current understanding and treatments than that one. It was a rather ground-breaking book in it's time. And I am grateful for that.

(Maybe more than you wanted to know? Sorry I get so long-winded!)

That is a very good insight, bpd2. I took the book to read there are these evil group of people who lurk in society and if you happen upon them they will suck the life out of you just as they do any therapist who dares to help them. So if you see ANYONE who fits this criteria, run for the hills NOW!

Re the changes in society, I particularly didn't like this section because it seemed critical of society's evolution. It was implicitly normative. While society has its ills, I am glad it has progressed so that women can work and have the option to put their kids in daycare.

The funny thing is about America. It actually encourages borderline behavior: Reality shows, promotion of early sexualization on TV/Internet, clothing etc.

Borderline behavior is actually very good for the economy: the more crap we break the more crap we need to replace.

Psychoanalysis doesn't damage a person with BPD. It is one of the falsities of the books, amont many.

Fu-NEEE, Baltazar!!!

Echoes: For sure....It really irritates me that the book keeps going through reprints. I don't know if it's the title that grabs so many buyers' attention, or if it's word of mouth from people who read one book on BPD and thought that was enough.

You think this might be your real mom:

But it's so true. How about this. Your so sure he will eventually leave you do or don't do things to hurry up the process. Emotioanally leave him before he can leave you. Plan on leaving him. But then need him so much. So you stay. Now he is going to visit his daughter in washington for a few weeks. Ok a few days, It's a vacation, I can do what I want. But a week or two? And I have to take care of myself and get to work on my own in this snowy weather? But when he's here you ignore him.

You give a complete stranger in the grocery store the look of death because her cart inched toward yours. Then you give it to the pharmacy for not having your meds ready. Then your fine.

Oh, yeah! The dreaded grocery store....such opportunities!
Anyone else have trouble with the grocery store in particular? I mean, the way it feels...like the shelves are going to fall in on you?

I've always hated food shopping. I will eat peanut butter sandwiches and cold cereal for dinner instead of food shopping.

Maybe it's because it's always so cold in supermarkets that make them unappealing. Not sure.

Absolutely!

Think about it. You are trapped between these large walls of product. Then there are the strangers that are also there, between these same walls. Some are stranger than others. You look at them & try to assess them, but try not to get caught looking because that might invite conversation, which is to be avoided at any cost.

Unsure of these strangers, you proceed down the aisle. You formulate a plan. Well, really many plans. A plan for each stranger in each possible scenario that occurs to you. You try to figure out how you will handle that person in each scenario before they act, in case, so you will be ready. So if that harmless looking lady with a baby smiles at you, you might smile back. But if that woman in the suit smiles, she will get a scowl in return. But what if someone acutally speaks? Anxiety heightens.
Then I can speak back, or not. I don't have to speak to them. I don't have to take care of them. Remember what your T. said. You need to focus on you. if you want to speak tio them, that's OK. If not, that's OK too. A few people down the aisle with you & a thousand possible scenarios & plans going through your head! UGH! Got Ativan?

And the fun doesn't end there! I remember last month in the grocery store thinking that perhaps the FBI should get some pointers from this store on disorienting people with sound! The music they play. Loud enough to annoy, but not to hear, really. Sound quality is very scratchy & yet airy. The beat is always dysrhythmic. Very unnerving stuff.

Uh, Are you sure about that?

I'm sure. Once someone realizes they have BPD there is almost an immediate improvement. Education and acceptance of this diagnosis is very healing- IMO.

I thought I was the only one who freaked out over being in public.

From reading this this by Reiland and reading post her from you gals I believe that the bpd experience is different for men and women. I am probably wrong (I usually am) but that is just because I have noticed that my experience is different. I have given dirty looks to strangers but usually only when I'm in a really bad mood. Normally I put on a mask in front of the straights. I pretend everything is OK even though inside I am plotting against them. Day dream of some way of getting my revenge for their perceived wrong doing. Because I just know they are all meeting in private to discuss How they will be rid of me. I still loose touch with reality but I normally only go off the deep end with family. And the times it has happened at work folks chalk it up to he's having a bad day or if they did not witness the act they find it hard to believe that he would act so disrespectful to a senior person. Not me. It was all the other persons fault. I was just minding my businesses when... I don't know that has only happened a few times. For he most part I have slipped through the cracks so to speak. Keep my head down and stay out of the way. Of course if You get promoted enough they eventually start to notice you. Some times I think there are a lot of folks I the military with BPD. We all are Moody SOBs sometimes. Maybe it is the same feeling of emptiness and yearning to belong that makes us gravitate to the military. I have lost friends to suicide. I wonder sometimes if that is how I will end up. Well anyway I know my experience has not been as bad as others but it has not been great either I have had times when I was as bad as some describe. My wife as called the cops and paramedics because I was out of control. One minute I think I am OK and there is nothing wrong and then the next minute I'm contemplating my demise.

Yay!!!! DocJohn changed my name back to Amy!!!!!

Now I don't have to explain why I gave myself a guys name (Baltazar) so I can spy on Richard...

...I never said I wasn't borderline.

This is funny.....ah, the lives we lead...
(So....uh...do we make friends with Amy now that Baltazar has been poofed?)

you go to the same supermarket to buy the same foodstuff everyday thinking beforehand that when you get there everything will be in the same place as yesterday only to find they have been relocated to the ar.se end of the store, you challenge the manager of said store and ask them to explain why the coffee sugar and milk are in contstant flux and located in three different locations that are on some kind of hidden rosta dependent on the day of the week, that there is no conformity, and can i have a managerial job application form?

Just the name changed but the account is the same. You are still on my friends list

TY

Just have to say without you guy's and this very thread my life would never seem "normal".... Thank you....Even when I can say nothing, nothing seems right this right here makes everything okay? OMG I KNOW I AM BPD!!!! That's all I got for now,