Breaking Free From Boomerang Love: Getting Unhooked from Abusive Borderline Relationships Paperback – September 1, 2004

This is a unique book in that it presents how to become disentangled from a relationship with someone who has borderline personality disorder. Most books are aimed at the person with BPD and not the people on the receiving end of the dysfunctional behavior. I can see where this is very helpful, for many people and the advice is sound.

The basic premise of the book is that someone suffering from BPD is going to keep your life on a roller coaster and that you can't reasonably expect quick results or magical solutions. It puts the burden back on the person in the relationship to determine why they are in it and why they allow themselves to keep being treated poorly in the face of little change or no change.

The parts that were particularly poignant involved articulating the pain of someone who is in love with someone with this disorder. It really paints a clear picture of what it feels like to be in relationship with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.

The solutions presented are straightforward and practical. The premise is that the loved one of someone with BPD has to look at their own codependent behavior around trying to rescue someone who requires intensive psychotherapy and/or medication. It's a reality that BPD is difficult to treat under the best circumstances and it is just plain unrealistic to expect a loved one with this problem to suddenly get better by themselves or with short-term therapy.

People with BPD can and often are very intelligent and charming. When they are at their best, which could be for a considerable length of time, it is easy to believe they might change. The stage of over-valuation is also very seductive, unfortunately, it eventually swings to devaluation and acting out.Read more ›

The most striking part of this book is that it clears the mistaken notion that is prevelent in being involved with a personality disordered person that the underlying problem is you. Borderlines make a person feel so loved, so secure etc., in the begining (high value stage) and then a free-fall into insainity when the person completely morphs into a different personality, whom is cold, super angry, emotionally out of control and totally unreasonable and you find yourself lying emotionally wide-open, flat on your back, wondering what in the hell happened. (de-valuation stage) I have also found that these stages are predictible. In my case, the borderline I was involved with made a complete transformation every 90 days. Education and status are irrelevent with this disorder, my involvement was with a "mental health professional" whom was very adept at hiding the symptoms for BPD. One way of protecting yourself is to really try to know as much as possible about their relationship history. A middle age person, whom is over-adoring and loving, but has a history of failed relationships is displaying a huge RED FLAG, because BPD's cannot maintain long term relationships unless they become involved with a co-dependent, who keeps "hanging in there" hoping for that person to eventually begin to act "normal". This book is an excellent resource for anyone involved in a relationshp with a borderline. This book helps one to see that the only reasonable course of action is to remove yourself from the relationship, if at all possible. Borderlines very rarely improve and if they do, it is usually fleeting and generally they continue to get worse, regardless of medication and therapy. Positive outcomes with BPD is very rare, ask any experienced therapist, or read the DSM mannual. Suffering can be defined as trying to change the unchangeable. A great book for understanding whats really going on and regaining your life and well-being.

In her book Boomerang Love, Ms. Melville shares her insight and experience in surviving the insanity of a Borderline relationship. As I read her book I felt as though I was reading a journal of my chaotic marriage with my BPD wife; except I was reading Ms. Melville's words. Her shared experiences and life lessons served as great validation in gaining an understanding that I was not alone in my experiences with dealing with a loved one with this all consuming disorder. Ms. Melville's book belongs in every therapists office and every Non's book collection, as it provides a rare insight into the life of a person in the difficult position of recovering from the abuse sustained in a Borderline relationship. I would highly recommend this book to all friends and family members of someone diagnosed or suspected to have Borderline Peronality Disorder.

Lynn Melville's heart-centered, yet ever so direct, accounting of her personal journey helped to lift the dark and dreary clouds off of my own relationship with someone suffering from borderline personality disorder. Though my relationship was long ago, the devastation left following the storm had left me numb to life for quite a number of years.

More often than not, when Lynn expressed her "feelings" in Boomerang Love, I remembered that I had once "felt" that way. When she expressed her "thoughts", I realized that I once thought that way also. When she "voiced" her own painful experiences, I again relived my "own" past painful experiences.

Reading Boomerang Love helped me realize that even though my own experiences were now long behind me, they were somehow still a part of me. As I re-felt those old, painful experiences, I began to heal in areas where I never imagined pain was still being held.

Knowing that there was an actual "name to my pain" (borderline personality disorder) was like salve to my wounds, the healing element that had been missing all these years. At last I knew the "whys". Going back and re-living my pain, this time with "new eyes" that understood borderline personality disorder, released those many years of pent-up pain.

Because of my personal faith in a God who heals, I believe that it was He who brought this most valuable information to me through Lynn Melville's book. Not only did I need to understand the nature of my partner's disorder, I needed to be able to recognize my own relationship patterns. Now I know that I will never again participate in this precious life of mine with anyone else who is so personally trouble and damaged that they would try to destroy my very soul.Read more ›