Customer Reviews

Sometimes I Act Crazy: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

For months, my wife was searching frantically for a book that explains what BPD is and what the treatment options are. She found exactly what she was looking for in Sometimes I Act Crazy.

She actually bought a few other books first, but they were just too dry. What sets this one apart is that it contains accounts of real people that let you experience what it's like to have BPD. She was able to identify with these people, and it helped her so much to know that she's not alone. The book also explains the causes and the reasons for the various symptoms, so you can really understand what's behind them.

Once she got started, she couldn't put it down, and then made it required reading for me. I also identified with people in the case studies, the husbands and wives, and friends, moms, and dads, of borderlines, who are also suffering. I know now that I'm not alone and this has made it easier for me.

Most important, the book gives valuable practical advice on how to cope with this excruciating mental illness and how to go about seeking help step-by-step. We probably saved ten times the cost of the book just by reading the chapter on what to look for in a therapist! We had no idea this kind of help is available.

The reader gets to experience the patient's stories just like a psychologist would, with patient stories in bite-sized portions. The explanations are unusually good. The index at the back of the book is more thorough than the first book; I looked to see if Woody Allen's movie "Zelig" was listed in this index, since it was mentioned in both books, and there it was! The book was reader friendly. It was also thoughtfully written, so that a person with a short attention span and unlikely to read the whole text would be able to get the important message that there is a "cure." I was surprized at the sexuality in some of the stories, but I was grateful for these examples because they were necessary to understand the thinking of the BPD patients. The authors presented astonishing evidence of successful treatment methods. The book mentioned many of the illnesses that are similar to BPD and what exactly the defining symptoms were. What BPD was, how to identify it, and how to respond when a person with this disease exhibits its symptoms, is the focus of the book - A new hope for a future without BPD! It may take ten years, but for the ones suffering, it is something - Satisfying to read.

I've read more academic books (and think those are important, too. For that, I recommend "Demystifying Borderline Personality Disorder"), but this one was accessible and engaging, and had useful and practical advice for people with the illness and those around them. Because of that, the book gives the reader a sense of hope. In this field, that can be rare. There is some sexual content, and I can understand why some people would find that offensive. I personally didn't. Any misgivings I have about the book are offset by my enthusiasm about its readability and its usefulness to the people for whom it is written: borderlines and their families.

Good advice despite flawed writing. This book serves both as a good introduction to borderline personality disorder and general advice for persons with BPD and their families, partners, etc.... . I recognized many of my own observations and experiences with my mother, who suffers from BPD. The book summarizes the different ways of understanding and treating BPD; each chapter highlights a key aspect of the disorder, how it manifests and how one can deal with it. There's a healthy degree of empathy, and illuminating explanations of what appears to be peculiar and eratic behaviour. Each chapter closes with "action steps", reasoned responses to the challenges and crises that BPD creates, though sometimes they are intended for the person with BPD and other times for the persons around them.

But the short stories or monologues that begin each chapter, serving as "case studies", read as shallow and sensationalist, cramming all sorts of possible permutations of the disorder in one scenario; I would have preferred to read a personal account by someone affected by BPD in their own words, or various accounts that allow you to see a range of experiences. It doesn't help that the characters are rather homogenous - from a middle-class, white background; it limits one's ability to relate. And while the authors' cultural references - from Shakespeare to Frank Herbert to Nora Ephron - can be interesting, they don't add much substance and are sometimes distracting. And one last gripe: the BPD "checklist" seems like a dangerous exercise in self-diagnosis - particularly when "sexual confusion (e.g., bisexuality)" is listed as a warning sign without explanation; I could do without the pathologizing of bisexuality. These are, nonetheless, all flaws I could read around, and there is valuable information here.

This is one of the best introductions to borderline personality that I know of. It is thorough and does a great job of explaining how the disease works in layman's terms. It also illustrates all the important aspects with excellent short examples.

This book is well written and is an enjoyable read. It is compassionate, but doesn't gloss over the facts. It also develops the topic in a logical manner and is easy to read over multiple sessions without having to do a lot of reviewing.

The sections on therapeutic approaches are very good and there is some excellent advice on finding a good therapist. While it lacks the detail on brain chemistry and research that is present in Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified, it makes up for in its readability and straightforward approach.

This is a good book for therapists, people from this affliction and also people dealing with family members or friends with this disorder. I highly recommend this volume as a first introduction to Borderline Personality Disorder.

In reading about mental health issues, so many times one can read a book about the problem and ongoing research and still be left with a sense that nothing concrete can be done now. After reading several books on borderline personality disorder (BPD), what I liked in particular about this book is that it provides a list of "ACTION STEPS" at the end of each chapter. This has greatly helped in giving me some specific ideas that I can apply towards helping my adolescent who has several BPD traits. Many of the book's suggestions have already influenced how I approach the situation on a day-to-day basis as well plan for the future in terms of choosing the best kind of school and other activities for my child. For example, the book recommends steps on managing impulsiveness. While I have been told my child is impulsive, this book gave me specific ideas on how this condition can be better managed by "keeping good company," using healthy distractions to divert onself from destructive activities, and staying engaged in healthy activities. It also mentions spiritual exercises like contemplating forces outside oneself and 12 step groups to help combat the feeling of emptiness.

It also provided me with a number of very helpful insights in terms of how BPD can co-exist with other illnesses such as bipolar disorder. The authors discuss how "...BPD can be veiled by other diagnoses. It can hide behind labels such as depression, bipolar disease, and impulse disorder."

Best of all, this book gave me hope that "borderlines can get better" as three therapists (all seemingly well-educated and informed) have cautioned me on how BPD can be a devastating diagnosis and how terrible it is. It appears that though this condition is still greatly stigmatized in the mental health professionals and by insurance providers. Maybe good books like this can help to raise awareness of this mental illness so that more individuals can get the help they need.

It is my desire, that by successfully applying now what I am learning from this book and other sources, that I can avert a case of full-blown BPD in adulthood and instead pave the way for my child to become a happy productive adult.

If I were to rate a book by how many times I underlined important ideas and passages, this book would be "off the charts" in terms of the number of stars! It has provided me with a great number of "aha," now I understand, moments. And this is saying a lot as it has taken me YEARS and several diagnoses to try figure out why my child was behaving this way. Unfortunately there is no definitive "catscan" or blood test for mental illness and one often has to play Sherlock Holmes to put the pieces together. This book has not only helped me to figure out this puzzle, but given me some suggested coping techniques and best of all...hope for the future.

Other books that have helped me include "Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified" by Robert Freidel and "The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook" by Randi Kreger and James Paul Shirley.

I read "I hate you don't leave me, understanding BPD!" and I was amazed at how all of a sudden my life changed. I had been struggling with what I thought was depression a long time. That book made me realize why SSRI's (type of drug) didn't help me and then this book came along, by the same fantastic writer and once again has confirmed my long time issue with BPD and has helped to start on a new path to a better thought process, I struggle with BPD, but it doesn't mean I have to let it rule me. This is a good book for someone who wants to understand themselves and an excellent book for someone who loves someone with BPD.

I absolutely loved this book. It was something I read about halfway into my transformation. I read reviews and my mom read a bunch of books, but some were too technical and BORING for me to get into and in true borderline style I quit reading with out even getting halfway through them; but this one kept me interested. And now after more then a year of what will be life long treatment I am happy to report I have not been suicidal in over a year, I have not wanted to hurt myself in over a year and I have been in a stable marriage for over a year. (Can you guess my transformation started over a year ago :D )

This book really showed me that there was hope for people like me, and that I needed to keep working hard and that it would get easier and it has gotten easier to cope, easier to live my life. But most importantly it showed me that even if these "people" weren't real people someone out there had enough knowledge of what goes on inside my head to write a book about it, and that is truely helpful.

I've lived with BPD since chilhood. No I don't have two heads. am not a stalker etc. It was refreshing to read a book with a range of traits and spectrum of severity represented. Not a tome of gloom. A practical breakdown of likely scenerios. This is a book useful to those diagnosed and those who love and support them. Well worth reading

The hardest problem of living with (or treating) a person with BPD is that of maintaining empathy. Due to the BPD's early experiences in receiving appropriate care, the person with BPD wears acid-laced kaleidescopes for lenses on the world. Mostly, life is confusing or empty; and at times, life is experienced as dangerous. This creates the constellation of BPD behaviors--impulsivity, anger, repeated interpersonal problems, various addictions, self-mutilation, and the compulsive "search" for the magical "Other" who can care, and so forth.

This book helps re-establish empathy with the person with BPD. The authors are realistic: at times, the partners of BPD's must "let go;" there is no gain to either masochism or getting welded into a BPD's double-binds. The authors (a physician/psychiatrist and a layperson assistant) are helpful in recommending treatments, and are very specific about what to look for in a therapist and the type of therapy.

This helpfulness is why I recommend this book to laypersons who are trying to live with or help persons with BPD. To have BPD is to have a bleak diagnosis and prognosis; but this book helps lessen the collateral damage.