[.ca] I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline ... (ISBN 0380713055)

The Best Book On This Issue:
I Hate You, Don't Leave Me : Understanding the Borderline Personality is by far the best book on this issue, which is why I list this book on my website as a must read. Worth your money... worth your time. Rick Goodner, Author of "Co-dependent... What a Bore and Other Clinical Observations"

Super!:
I found this an extremely helpful and sophisticated basic guide. Many readers seem to feel it is too negative, but for someone who feels perplexed and hopeless about life with a "borderline", it offers the reassurance that what seems like pure craziness on the part of a loved one actually corresponds to defineable complex of traits and behaviors. Loving a borderline can be a very lonely and frustrating experience, and this book offers support, insight and qualified hope in simple language, and without the annoying dumbed-down tone of most self-help books. I admit to having read it around ten years ago, and I will explore other guides recommended by readers. On the other hand, I have noticed that Prozac, Paxil, etc. don't work as an all purpose panacea for everyone with BPD. Paxil may control one symptom (borderline rage) while not alleviating another (depression, sense of worthlessness). Even if this book doesn't help borderlines themselves, I believe it does help their intimates find ways to be more creative and patient supporters and to take conflicts less personally.

ABUSED CONFUSED ANXIETY RIDDEN AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE:
Other related books I strongly recommend for anyone seeking to find help with BPD related symptoms of loneliness and emptiness, mood disorders, any type of addiction, identity issues, self-esteem issues, reoccurring unresolved anger, troubling relationship and trust issues: Excellent compliments to this book are: The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders by Joseph Santoro and Ronald Cohen; Emotional Blackmail: When People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You by Susan Forward and Donna Frazier; Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism by Sandy Hotchkiss and James Masterson; The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman; Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable and Volatile Relationship by Christine Ann Lawson; Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man by Scott Wetzler; Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited by Sam Vaknin and Lidija Rangelovska (Editor); Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents by Nina Brown; Treating Attachment Disorders: From Theory to Therapy by Karl Heinz Brisch and Kenneth Kronenberg; Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job by Alan Cavaiola and Neil Lavender; Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge and Combat Workplace Bullies by Tim Field. And if you want to pursue the subject even further, you may be interested in reading The Narcissistic / Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective On Marital Treatment; Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Jim Fay and Foster Cline.

Dispassionate, Discouraging and Incomplete:
The difference between a 'qualified' psychologist/clinician and a truly helpful one is the ability to listen well enough to understand what's happening uniquely INSIDE, not just outside, and to pragmatically approach both the inner and outer dysfunction with common sense and compassion. This book describes the theoretical and behavioral frameworks of BPD without ever truly touching the inner reality of this condition, and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, presents BPD as a nearly hopeless condition with a high mortality rate. I Hate You Don't Leave Me is a caricature of the BPD sufferer and the illness itself and I believe lends itself to creating more of a divide between the person with the illness and the loved one who reads it with its tendency to objectify the person with BPD. For the BPD sufferer, as someone else pointed out, this book is potentially very destructive to read. I fervently wish I could recommend another book on BPD for you but the fact of the matter is, there has yet to be written a definitive, practical and compassionate guide to this consuming disorder. As someone who has more than 20 years experience with BPD, I will say that love, patience, telling the truth and gentle boundary setting are very good beginnings on the road to recovery. It has been written that there are some people who 'outgrow' BPD in their 30s and 40s, however, while the symptoms may diminish in intensity, the perceptual inaccuracies and emotional/behavioral maladaptions continue to affect the quality of life for the BPD sufferer and her or his loved ones until/unless they are directly addressed. If you are considering treatment options, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy both in individual and group settings may be an excellent place to start. For an idea of what DBT looks like, read Marsha Linehan's skills manual. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy may be helpful for the non-BPD sufferer coping with the stress of living with a loved one with BPD--and potentially helpful medications exist now that simply weren't around when I Hate You...Don't Leave Me was written. A good firsthand account of successful recovery is I'm Not Supposed To Be Here (which I don't believe is available through Amazon at this time). Whatever may be happening - don't give up on yourself or your loved one.

Good read for non-BPDer:
I like non-fiction books. I received this paper back edition as a gift from an acquaintance. I never knew about the disorder before receiving the book. After reading it, I was motivated to look the illness up on a medical search engine. I learned there has been research done recently testing a medication for it and that there are certain neurological abnormalities in the body of a sufferer. I can say with confidence that this book is a good read for a non-BPDer.