[chicken_wing]

I began reading this book today. Have any of you read it? It makes me feel very pathological and hopeless that I'll get better anytime soon.

[ECHOES]

I read it and it is not my favorite book on BPD for the reason you mention.

I have read other books and articles that I appreciated more. I take what I can from something and leave the rest

http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/

http://www.borderlinedisorders.com/public.php

[bpd2]

Ditto Echoes.

[whenwillitend]

I didn't like the book either.

[Jewels]

the best book that I know of about BPD is this one:

Sometimes I Act Crazy by Jerold Kreisman, MD and Hal Straus

the authors of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. If you ask me, this book should have been written first, and I Hate You...later. It is much easier to read and easier to understand, and helps you learn how to live with BPD. This book, complete with resources, will help you more than you know. Before being diagnosed with DID, I was diagnosed with a whole litany of dxs that ranged from mild depression (if it was mild, I would hate to see what severe is), to bipolar, to schizoaffective, to BPD, and then finally DID. I was even diagnosed as DDNOS...even though my psychiatrist doesn't know my alters and what happens to me when I really wig out. So, after my dismay with the first BPD book, which I thought just like the rest of you thought, that I was pathological and doomed to die in some psych ward in some mental institution somewhere. I felt no hope at all. This book helped me some during the time I was seeing my psychiatrist, and before I took all the tests and went to the hospital to really be treated, only to be told I had DID...which I found was a kind of relief after reading I Hate You...

I hope you find this other book a better read for you...and I hope you find some information in there that you can use. I did, and some of it I still relate to...I think if we look hard enough, we can see ourselves in virtually everything we read about psychological stuff...IMHO

[PleaseHelp]

I agree with Echoes and Jewels. I've read both of them and I preferred Sometimes I Act Crazy over I hate you... I also think Sometimes I Act is more useful for partners and families of those with BPD. There is hope, so please hang in there!

[ECHOES]

The 2 books that helped me see myself and understand a bit about the diagnosis are
Get Me Out of Here by Rachel Rieland and
Understanding the Borderline Mother (Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship) by Christine Ann Lawson--this one helped me see that in my family BPD is generational and I think I am a 3rd (at least) generation BPD. Not that it is genetic, but developmental and a dysfunctional mother passes the dysfunction along.

I was also very fortunate that my therapist, who I chose because she is an analyst, also just happened to be experienced with BPD. So she really 'gets' it.

[chicken_wing]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I just finished reading the book, and if it were not on my iPad, I would trash it!! Ugh, I feel ever the horrible, uncuttable person and now I wonder what my T must think of me. I think I'm going to read get me out of here next. Thanks again

[bpd2]

Uh...I just wrote a long-winded "review" of I Hate You--don't leave me (#281) in our thread "you know you're borderline when." Maybe take a look at it?

[Perna]

I like autobiographies/memoirs better than most books written by "experts": http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net...dex.php?id=393

[Skully]

I have not read it but it peaks my interst now.....hmmm.....

Chickenwing, I found this book very judgemental and by about half way through I also felt certain my future was either to die by suicide or be locked up for life. Luckily mine was a second hand copy (not on an ipad!!) so I threw it away! 'I hate you don't leave me' (or at least my copy of it) was written in the 1980s when people still believed that BPD was effectively a death sentence for which there was no effective treatment. I found the Rachel Reiland book very real and it resonated deeply, but it was hard going and quite triggering. I think she was also treated at a time when professionals had no hope for BPD.

There are two newer books that I like- Lost in the Mirror, and The Borderline Personality Survival Guide- which both describe psychological treatment options like Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Schema Therapy and Transference Focused Psychotherapy. Both are written by professionals but are sympathetic. I also like the way Marsha Linehan (the therapist who developed DBT) talks about BPD. She was really the first person to stand against the idea that BPD patients are 'master manipulators'. She argues this implies patients are highly skilled at getting what they want, when actually it is a desperate lack of skill which leads them to resort to destructive behaviours. She also talks about people with BPD having a 'thin emotional skin' and having 'third degree emotional burns'.

I find that I am very affected indeed by how people talk about 'us'. I recently started reading a book on Compassion Focused Therapy, which I thought would be useful for combatting the toxic shame I feel. All was going well until about page 5, when the author (and developer of the therapy) started talking about clients 'threatening' suicide (ugh) and then said 'some are also demanding'... Doesn't sound very compassionate to me!!

[bpd2]

Whole-heartedly agree! The comments I wrote in another thread (scroll back a couple of posts in this one and the number in the thread is listed) about Don't Leave me touch on some of these points--and others.

Don't Leave Me was published before DBT was...3 or 4 years...something like that.

I found both of the books listed by Improving to be at the top of my list, too.

[mr09]

borderline and the buddah is really good too or maybe its the buddah and the borderline. one of the two but its a good one! the author's name is kiera

[ECHOES]

Originally Posted by Jewels

the best book that I know of about BPD is this one:

Sometimes I Act Crazy by Jerold Kreisman, MD and Hal Straus

the authors of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. If you ask me, this book should have been written first, and I Hate You...later. It is much easier to read and easier to understand, and helps you learn how to live with BPD. This book, complete with resources, will help you more than you know. Before being diagnosed with DID, I was diagnosed with a whole litany of dxs that ranged from mild depression (if it was mild, I would hate to see what severe is), to bipolar, to schizoaffective, to BPD, and then finally DID. I was even diagnosed as DDNOS...even though my psychiatrist doesn't know my alters and what happens to me when I really wig out. So, after my dismay with the first BPD book, which I thought just like the rest of you thought, that I was pathological and doomed to die in some psych ward in some mental institution somewhere. I felt no hope at all. This book helped me some during the time I was seeing my psychiatrist, and before I took all the tests and went to the hospital to really be treated, only to be told I had DID...which I found was a kind of relief after reading I Hate You...

I hope you find this other book a better read for you...and I hope you find some information in there that you can use. I did, and some of it I still relate to...I think if we look hard enough, we can see ourselves in virtually everything we read about psychological stuff...IMHO

I am bumping this up to say Thank You to Jewels for posting about this book. I am reading it and I find this book to be absolutely wonderful. I am amazed at how well BPD is explained and explored in this book. I am reading and nodding, and reading and nodding. It is really helpful to me and I hope to use it to help my therapy, too!

[Martina]

What I liked about "I Hate You - Don't Leave Me" is that it made me confirm in my mind that I was, in fact, Borderline. At that point I wasn't diagnosed or in treatment - a friend from the internet suggested I read it. It was a wakeup call. Until that point, I hadn't even HEARD OF Borderline. I didn't know what it was. But the stories in that book were exactly like me.

I guess it was sort-of comforting to know what I really had.

But I agree - it's not really a "self-help" book. Try Sometimes I Act Crazy, or the other books mentioned here.