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I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality
by
"AM I LOSING MY MIND?"
People with Borderline Personality Disorder experience such violent and frightening mood swings that they often fear for their sanity. They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. There are an estimated 10 million sufferers of BPD living in America today—each displaying remarkably similar symptoms:
● a shaky sense of identity
● ...more
People with Borderline Personality Disorder experience such violent and frightening mood swings that they often fear for their sanity. They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. There are an estimated 10 million sufferers of BPD living in America today—each displaying remarkably similar symptoms:
● a shaky sense of identity
● ...more
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
February 1st 1991
by Avon Books
(first published 1989)
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Start your review of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

I may be in the minority here, but I hate this book. Its stance on those who deal with BPD is far from empathetic - rather, it perpetuates this myth that all people with BPD are ridiculous and potentially dangerous individuals who care only for themselves; it is also incredibly pessimistic about any good or meaningful treatment outcomes for BPD sufferers.
In the years since this was written, not only has the BPD diagnosis been given more discerningly (with many people who were once called BPD no ...more
In the years since this was written, not only has the BPD diagnosis been given more discerningly (with many people who were once called BPD no ...more

To sum things up:
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships, It is one of the most common of all of the personality disorders.
Most people who have BPD suffer from:
-Problems with regulating emotions and thoughts
-Impulsive and reckless behavior
-Unstable relationships with other people
Women with BPD are more likely to have co-occurring disorders such as major depression, anxiety disorders, or eating disorders. In men, BPD ...more
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships, It is one of the most common of all of the personality disorders.
Most people who have BPD suffer from:
-Problems with regulating emotions and thoughts
-Impulsive and reckless behavior
-Unstable relationships with other people
Women with BPD are more likely to have co-occurring disorders such as major depression, anxiety disorders, or eating disorders. In men, BPD ...more

This book is terribly outdated. It lists homosexuality as sexual deviation, and was published before the advent of SSRIs. It also predates the current treatment for borderline personality disorder, Dialetical Behavioral Therapy. Don't bother reading this.
...more

This book uses astonishingly stigmatizing language. It uses phrases like, "The borderline does this" and "The bordline feels this" throughout. It's the same kind of language that, for example, old-school anthropological studies (ethnographies) tend to use-it renders "the borderline" as both a monolithic type and as other. It is insulting to presume that all people with this diagnosis are the same. Borderline was originally a diagnosis for people, nearly all women, who sought mental health care b
...more

This book does nothing to convince me that the diagnosis of BPD is coherent or particularly useful. As always, case stories that neatly dovetail with the author's point of view are included, but I found the inclusion of gratuitous diagnosis of famous (and usually beautiful) women as BPD to be highly distasteful. Both Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana are dissected. I can see the appeal of fantasizing about offering therapy to such women, but working out those fantasies in book form is in questio
...more

Tl;dr this book is a pile of garbage.
This is an out-of-date book written by a sexist old man and I can’t believe this is considered among the best in BPD literature. It’s borderline hate speech. The author refers to people with bpd as “the borderline”. Incredibly dehumanizing. I actually made an entire note in my notes app dedicated to all the things I found problematic and infuriating about this book as I read it.
My biggest beef is that he portrays people with a BPD diagnosis as irrational, so ...more
This is an out-of-date book written by a sexist old man and I can’t believe this is considered among the best in BPD literature. It’s borderline hate speech. The author refers to people with bpd as “the borderline”. Incredibly dehumanizing. I actually made an entire note in my notes app dedicated to all the things I found problematic and infuriating about this book as I read it.
My biggest beef is that he portrays people with a BPD diagnosis as irrational, so ...more

Is this book in dire need of an update? Yes! Published in 1989, it is about time for a re-haul or at the very least a new introduction. Furthermore, whether it was published in the 1980's or now, it lacks a feminist analysis which in turn normalizes violence (and in particular intimate partner violence) and heterosexist stereotypes about women and men's behaviors and emotions. This absence proves dangerous for both individuals suffering from BPD and their family members. The authors propose gene
...more

While some of the information given by the book can be useful I have stopped reading at 15-20% of it as i couldn't stand the patronizing tone and the way they say borderlines do things as if they wanted to instead of sometimes being just an acquired answer. Yes, I know we can somehow learn how to deal with things and control the answer to a degree, but it doesn't always work and it is not as if the borderlines want to or enjoy it. It is like an anxious person suffers from anxiety and you can't t
...more

4.5 stars - While in dire need of an update, this book gives a multitude of case studies of fictitious people who are dealing with borderline personality disorder. Many of the other reviews for this book who suffer from BPD said it made them out to negative people and one person actually said something to the effect of the book making her want to "slit her throat" and made a sarcastic joke about how borderline that made her. In my opinion, as a diagnosed borderline myself, I feel that her comple
...more

As a mental health professional, I can say that I found this book to be among the best written to help a person better understand their spouse, friend, parent, sibling, etc. who is suffering with Borderline Personality Disorder. It helps the reader to understand how one develops the characteristics one may encounter in relationships with these individuals. A bit technical at times, but true to the criteria as indicated in the Diagnostic and Statistical manual.

This book is about people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), who experience violent mood swings, which interfere with their leading a normal life. The symptoms are: •A shaky sense of identity, •Sudden violent outbursts, •Severe mood shifts, •Oversensitivity to real or imagined rejection, •Brief, turbulent love affairs, •Frequent periods of intense depression, •Eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse, and other self-destructive tendencies, •An irrational fear of abandonment and an inabil
...more

I read this book after watching the series “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”. I was curious about the main character’s mental illness and wanted to know more. This book was highly recommended to me (via the internet).
While I learned a lot from the book I have major problems with some of the gendered terminology and examples. Also, the consistent use of gendered pronouns (particularly “he/his”) was distracting and rather annoying. The authors mention the usage of pronouns in the preface but state that despi ...more
While I learned a lot from the book I have major problems with some of the gendered terminology and examples. Also, the consistent use of gendered pronouns (particularly “he/his”) was distracting and rather annoying. The authors mention the usage of pronouns in the preface but state that despi ...more

This was an interesting read, but the main reason I read it was for research purposes. I have since learned that one of the characters in my book actually has a case of "The Double Bind" personality. Which is why I read The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian; an enjoyable read, but again, not relevant to my research. The places research can take you! :)
...more

I was initially going to leave this one off Goodreads, because it's on a somewhat personal topic. But it is so terrible I feel it would be a dereliction of duty to let it pass. I honestly gave up on this book early and hate-read the rest, so I guess you could say I still enjoyed it. That said, if you or a loved one are suffering from BPD and you are genuinely looking to learn more to help contextualise/cope, please do not buy this particular book.
Because this book was awful. It was astoundingly ...more
Because this book was awful. It was astoundingly ...more

May 13, 2019
Meonicorn (The Bookish Land)
marked it as do-not-read
reason why it's on my "not-to-read" shelf: extremely stigmatizing language towards mental illness, suggesting women tend to more have BPD with ridiculous reasons.
...more

This is the first book I read about BPD. Being a patient myself I found the personal stories of other BPDs and explanations of our conducts to be really good and felt like looking at myself in the mirror. I got a bit bored on the section about the types of psychotherapy because it was a little bit too technical for me but overall is a really good book about the disorder especially for the professionals and the people looking for different types of treatment available (at least in the USA). Must
...more

A brief knowledge of unpopular mental illnesses is sometimes required to understand people's sudden unusual behaviors, or yours. Understanding and fighting the negative feelings could lead to a much better and healthier situation than quick judgements and eventually loathing everything/everyone altogether. It's definitely not a way to diagnose people or yourself, but getting to know that such world exists—with all its symptoms and stories—could lead to a whole different and new perspective.
* "If ...more
* "If ...more

This was the ONLY book I could find when searching for something to help me understand my loved one's Borderline Personality Disorder. The book is amazingly detailed, easy to understand with numerous examples and suggestions.
...more

The title is very misleading. This is a dry, informative, academic book with detailed outlook. Besides communication techniques, it doesn't offer any specific plan of recovery or self-diagnosis. For anyone interested in the subject it is an obligatory read. For anyone looking for a helpful coping strategy or plan, not so much.
...more

Sexist! Yuck.
Keep pushin' me, keep pushin' my lo-oo-oove. ...more
Keep pushin' me, keep pushin' my lo-oo-oove. ...more

I recently found out an acquaintance had been diagnosed as being bi-polar. I got this book at the library, and lo and behold found out that having a "borderline personality" is a similar but not same diagnosis as "bi-polar". They are similar conditions, but evidently bi-polar or manic-depressives have swings from one extreme to the other that follow cycles. Inbetween the opposite swings, they can be fairly stable. People with borderline personality condition (BPC) live constantly in a kind of fr
...more

This taught me so much about myself and gave me the words to explain things I didn't know how. It filled in many of the gaps I was looking for in order to understand my diagnosis more. Information that was harder to find elsewhere, at least all in one place. Sometimes I thought the case studies or psychological explanations would bore me to death, but they were nothing but compelling and only helped me to understand myself more.
There are some questionable statements towards the start of the boo ...more
There are some questionable statements towards the start of the boo ...more

Okay, so there are several things about this book.
It is an older book written about Borderline Personality Disorder. I believe it's intended audience was folks living with borderline or folks who know folks living with borderline. It is not clinical, but does present itself as helpful to counselors as an overview.
As an overview of Borderline it was okay. There were lots of examples, which I always like.
There were, unfortunately, some major hang-ups for me. One was that in the examples the autho ...more
It is an older book written about Borderline Personality Disorder. I believe it's intended audience was folks living with borderline or folks who know folks living with borderline. It is not clinical, but does present itself as helpful to counselors as an overview.
As an overview of Borderline it was okay. There were lots of examples, which I always like.
There were, unfortunately, some major hang-ups for me. One was that in the examples the autho ...more

As it's a relatively old book it uses a patronizing tone and gives you less than no hope if you have BPD. On the other hand, if you have not read anything about BPD it's still a good book to get an overall feeling of BPD and get clues on how to recognize it in yourself and the people around you.
...more

The first couple pages were informative and useful. The rest of the book is complete utter garbage. His use of words is so demeaning that I could not imagine giving this book to a loved one to read and understand your bpd. In fact: don't. There are other books out there more recently published. I found this book so fucking problematic. From his victim blaming to his use of "borderlines". Don't buy this trash.
...more

Nov 29, 2021
Derodidymus
added it
good introduction, useful information on symptoms, treatment, therapy and at the end lots of resources (thank you!)
the heavy info is correlated with examples so the book is comprehensive, easy to understand.
over all, a great start.
but not enough!
you don't stop here. it's not enough.
✨and so i dive further into bpd world✨ ...more
the heavy info is correlated with examples so the book is comprehensive, easy to understand.
over all, a great start.
but not enough!
you don't stop here. it's not enough.
✨and so i dive further into bpd world✨ ...more

This is a great read for those who are living with a loved one with borderline. It could give you insight into how difficult it be, but as someone with the disorder, I only gained some validation. It's of course outdated but I think still really holds true today.
...more
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Jerold Kreisman, M.D., is a psychiatrist and best-selling author. His books, I Hate You, Don't Leave Me, and Sometimes I Act Crazy. have been translated into several languages around the world. He is an Associate Clinical Professor at St. Louis University and has been designated a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has lectured widely in both this country and abr
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“A borderline suffers a kind of emotional hemophilia; [s]he lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate [his or her] spurts of feeling. Stimulate a passion, and the borderline emotionally bleeds to death.”
—
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“The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that "loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude." Because the borderline finds solitude so difficult to tolerate, she is trapped in a relentless metaphysical loneliness from which the the only relief comes from of the physical presence of others. So she will often rush to singles bars or with crowded haunts, often with disappointing--or even violent--results.”
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