Stop walking on eggshells pdf download

Any time you want to write off a narcissist, read through this book again and get to see where you can place that person as far as categories of narcissism are concerned. Then see what the book says about handling such people. You may be surprised that some steps you may pick from this book can be the solution nobody ever suggested to you before.

And hence the person you loathed begins to make fruitful contributions to your group or community, and incidences of friction between the narcissist and other people begin to reduce. Do you feel as though you are constantly trying to avoid confrontation?

In fact, the person you care about may have traits associated with borderline personality disorder BPD , such as emotion dysregulation, impulsive behavior, unstable sense of self, and difficulty with interpersonal relationships. No matter how much you want to be there for your loved one, at times it can feel like you are walking on eggshells. This compassionate guide will enable you to: Make sense out of the chaos Stand up for yourself and assert your needs Defuse arguments and conflicts Protect yourself and others from violent behavior Stop Walking on Eggshells has already helped nearly half a million people with friends and family members suffering from BPD understand this destructive disorder, set boundaries, and help their loved ones stop relying on dangerous BPD behaviors.

This fully revised edition has been updated with the very latest BPD research and includes coping and communication skills you can use to stabilize your relationship with the BPD sufferer in your life. With her new book, she continues to make the dynamics of Borderline Personality Disorder BPD readily accessible to those of us who love, live with and treat people who suffer from this complex condition.

Extreme mood swings, impulsive behaviors, unfair blaming and criticism, and suicidal tendencies common conduct among those who suffer from the disorder leave family members feeling confused, hurt, and helpless. Mason outlined the fundamental differences in the way that people with BPD relate to the world. Now, with The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder, Kreger takes readers to the next level by offering them five straightforward tools to organize their thinking, learn specific skills, and focus on what they need to do to get off the emotional rollercoaster:Take care of yourselfUncover what keeps you feeling stuckCommunicate to be heardSet limits with loveReinforce the right behaviorsTogether the steps provide a clear-cut system designed to help frie.

Publisher : ReadHowYouWant. This resource articulates specific strategies that those close to the person with BPD can use to effectively cope with these behaviors. Mason and Randi Kreger, is a guidebook for loved ones of people with borderline personality disorder BPD. The book was originally published in and has sold more than half a million copies.

The book was originally published in and has sold more than half a million copies. Purchase this in-depth summary to learn more. Are you trapped in a toxic relationship? Have you been led to believe that it's you who's always wrong? Are uncontrolled emotions isolating you and destroying everything they touch?

Are you afraid of what will happen if you decide to break out of your relationship? Being in a relationship with a person who has a borderline personality means living a love-hate relationship that's obsessive, complicated and unstable. Unfortunately, these kinds of relationships can be particularly difficult to escape from. However long the relationship has lasted, a relationship with a person who has BPD typically creates a destabilizing impact on the psyche of those who live with it, and leaves emotional wounds that are very difficult to heal.

Sadly, sometimes, these relationships produce more than just psychological wounds. Stalking, threats and physical violence are all possibilities when a person breaks up with someone who has a serious borderline personality disorder.

Threats of suicide, self-harm or even revenge attempts are all common issues in such situations. Sufferers of BPD live at the limit, they are acrobats in a precarious balance on a razor's edge.

This book is essential reading if, in the last three months, a person that you are close to has been overwhelmed by: Anxiety, depression and anger, often for reasons that others find difficult to understand or that they consider inconsequential. Intense or uncontrollable emotional explosions. Instability in interpersonal relationships and self-esteem. Concerns about abandonment. Desperate feelings of being misunderstood. Feelings of powerlessness and despair.

Doubts about themselves and their sanity. A person who comes into close contact with a sufferer of BPD will, over time, be exposed to a variety of manipulative behaviours. Normally the BPD sufferer will use sophisticated manipulation techniques in order to decline even the most minor of life's responsibilities. To put it briefly, as suggested by one of my readers, "BPD people put their entire lives in your hands and then blame you and punish you if something goes wrong.

Nothing can fill this void. The person closest to the BPD victim can experience the following feelings that prevent that person from moving away from their BPD: They will feel used and manipulated. They will be forced to sacrifice their personal needs in a dedicated existence, devoted to the sufferer of BPD.

Concern about what will happen to the BPD sufferer if I leave. How will the BPD sufferer react to a break up? Will they try to self-harm or commit suicide? If I abandon the BPD sufferer, then 'I am the bad person' who has been selfish, and disregarded him, so what he says is true. There are many other situations that are listed within this book. Knowing the right information allows you to limit the damage and avoid unnecessary suffering. This resource articulates specific strategies that those close to the person with BPD can use to effectively cope with these behaviors.

Kiera Van Gelder's first suicide attempt at the age of twelve marked the onset of her struggles with drug addiction, depression, post-traumatic stress, self-harm, and chaotic romantic relationships-all of which eventually led to doctors' belated diagnosis of borderline personality disorder twenty years later.

The Buddha and the Borderline is a window into this mysterious and debilitating condition, an unblinking portrayal of one woman's fight against the emotional devastation of borderline personality disorder. This haunting, intimate memoir chronicles both the devastating period that led to Kiera's eventual diagnosis and her inspirational recovery through therapy, Buddhist spirituality, and a few online dates gone wrong.

Kiera's story sheds light on the private struggle to transform suffering into compassion for herself and others, and is essential reading for all seeking to understand what it truly means to recover and reclaim the desire to live.

Skip to content. Stop Walking on Eggshells. Author : Paul T. Mason M. Stop Walking on Eggshells Book Review:. The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook. Stop Walking on Eggshells for Parents. Walking on Eggshells. Walking on Eggshells Book Review:. No More Walking on Eggshells. Author : I. Splitting Book Review:. Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.

The discovery that he was a victim, too, turned some of my anger into compassion. The stories from the family members on the Internet were just as horrify- ing. Partners told me about spouses who told damaging and embarrassing lies about them—or even filed false charges of abuse. Loving, bewildered parents of children diagnosed with BPD traits spent their entire life savings trying to help their children, only to be implicitly or explicitly accused of child abuse.

Adult children of BPs talked about their nightmarish childhoods. With the assistance of volunteers I met on the message boards, I estab- lished a website about BPD www. Most were flabbergasted to discover that so many other people shared an experience they thought was unique. For example, three members of Welcome to Oz reported that major arguments had taken place at airports. Paul and I began to organize this mass of information very slowly. We developed a system: I would come up with ideas and suggestions based on Internet discussions and give them to Paul, who would revise them, expand on them, and put them into a theoretical framework.

They confirmed that their patients and family members had the same kinds of con- cerns as our Internet corespondents. To further ensure the accuracy of our data, we asked Edith Cracchiolo, MA, a professor of psychology at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, to conduct a survey of the non-BPs in our Internet support group. Several months into the project, the reasons became quite clear. Borderline personality disorder is a controversial, complex topic. Just defining it is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands, blindfolded, and in the rain.

Theories on what causes BPD are plentiful but inconclusive. Treatment is hotly disputed by reputable researchers. Most frustrating of all was the lack of recognition of BPD by the mental health community, and, consequently, the general public.

Yet most professionals we interviewed acknowledged that their training did not adequately prepare them to diagnose and treat this challenging disorder. Some had heard only one or two lectures on the subject. Writing this book proved to be as emotionally difficult as it was intellec- tually challenging.

Many people with BPD included veiled or explicit suicide threats in their responses to my questions. Each day, I received at least one desperate letter from someone who had just discovered the existence of BPD from www.

The result of our three years of effort is the book you now hold in your hands. It is not the last word on the subject. It is only the beginning. We hope that it sparks interest in new research, helps clinicians educate their clients, provides support and comfort to family and friends, and offers hope that people with BPD can get better.

I researched in libraries, talked to doctors, spoke to counselors, read articles, and chatted with friends. I spent fifteen years wondering, worrying, and believing too much of what she was telling me about myself.

I doubted myself and hurt so much without knowing why. Then one day, I finally found the answers on the Internet. I started crying with relief. Now I know the truth. Are you blamed and criticized for everything wrong in the relationship—even when it makes no logical sense? Does no one believe you manipulated, when you explain that this is going on?

Is there sometimes emotional blackmail? Do you feel that your needs are not important? Do you feel that their expectations are constantly changing, so you can never do anything right? If you try to leave the relationship, does the other person try to prevent you, using anything from dec- larations of love and promises to change to implicit or explicit threats?

Do you make excuses for their behavior or try to con- vince yourself that everything is okay? You may share these experiences because someone close to you has traits associated with borderline personality disorder BPD. Even when I do exactly as she asks, she gets Right now, are mad at me. One day she ordered me to take the you thinking, kids somewhere because she wanted time alone. When through this!

She wondered why I was still upset and told me that I have problems letting go of my anger. Before we got married, we had a whirlwind, fantasy courtship. She idolized me—said I was perfect for her in so many ways.

The sex was incredible. I wrote her love poems and bought her expensive gifts. We got engaged after four months, and a year later we were married and on a ten-thousand-dollar dream honeymoon. But right after the wedding she began taking meaningless little things and turning them into mountains of criticism, interrogation, and pain.

She became threatened by my friends and began cutting them down. She said bad things about my business, my past, my values, my pride—any- thing connected to me. She thinks that crazy. How your fault. And can I make her get the help she desperately needs? He was cranky, cried a lot, and would scream for three hours straight. At age two, he began having several tantrums a day—some lasting for hours. His elementary school teacher referred us to a local psychiatrist, who told us he needed more structure and consistency.

We tried positive reinforcement, tough love, and even diet modification. But nothing worked. By the time Rich was in junior high, he was lying, stealing, skipping school, and raging out of control.

The police became involved when he attempted suicide, started cutting himself, and threatened to kill us. He would dial the child abuse hotline each time we disciplined him by sending him to his room. Our son manipulated his teachers, his family, and even the police.

He could be very sharp and charm people with his wit, good looks, and sense of humor. Every counselor was convinced that his behavior was our fault. By the time they saw through his deception, he would refuse to go back. And each new therapist never took the time to read through his chart, which by now was several inches thick.

Finally, after threatening a teacher at school, he wound up in a short- term treatment center. At various times we were told that he had attention deficit disorder or suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from some unknown trauma. After four hospitalizations, our insurance company told us they would no longer pay. The hospital said he was too sick to come home. And the local psychia- trists were advising us to go to court and have ourselves declared unfit parents.

Somehow, we found a state-subsidized inpatient hospital where he received his first BPD diagnosis. They put him on various meds but said that there was little hope of him getting better. Rich did manage to graduate from high school and start college, which ultimately was a disaster. His friends come and go because he can be overbearing, obnoxious, manipulative, and opinionated. So he depends on us for money and emotional support. But when she needed love, she would become affectionate, hug me, and talk about how close we were.

There was never any way to predict which mood she would be in. My mother got resentful if she felt someone else was taking up too much of my time and energy. She was even jealous of our dog, Snoopy. I always thought I had done something wrong—or that there was something wrong with me. She took it upon herself to improve me by constantly telling me how I needed to change.

She saw something wrong with my hair, my friends, my table manners, and my attitude. She seemed to exaggerate and lie to justify her assertions. When my father protested, she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. She always had to be right.

Over the years, I tried to meet her expec- tations. But whenever I did, they changed. Despite years of stinging criticism, I never became accustomed to it. Today, I have trouble getting close to people. When I feel especially close to her, I brace myself for the inevitable rejection I know will come.

But I feel powerless to stop it. They do many of the same things that other people do. Although this concept was discarded in the s, the name stuck. Unfortunately, BPD is not always recognized, even by mental health pro- fessionals. Several factors may explain why. This is becoming less common as the research has mounted over the years; BPD is the most researched of all personal- ity disorders. Some clinicians believe that BPD is so stigmatizing that they will not label patients with the diagnosis for fear they will become outcasts within the mental health system.

Or they mention it briefly but do not explain it. As you read this book, you may be eager to talk about BPD with the person you think has it. This is understandable. Learning about the disorder can be a powerful, transformational experience. The fantasy goes like this: the person will be grateful to you and will rush into therapy to conquer their demons. Unfortunately, the reality differs. Family members repeatedly told us that their loved one instead responded with rage, denial, and a torrent of criticism.

Frequently, No celebrity has ever admitted the person with BPD traits accused to having the disorder although the family member of being the tabloids and biographies one with the disorder. Issues like too: The person with BPD traits eating disorders, domestic may feel such shame and despair violence, AIDS, and cancer that they attempt to hurt themselves.

Discuss your thoughts with a qualified therapist who is experienced in treating people with BPD. If the person is to want to change their an adult and is currently seeing a thera- behavior. You can, however, share disorder—they are coping your concerns with the counselor. Keep in mind that it is not your job to convince anyone of anything. People have to be ready and willing to learn.

Do not make this promise lightly. Making it and breaking it can be worse than not making the promise at all. Since finding out about BPD, my interactions have become softer and more compassionate—but certainly just as frustrating. At times, it feels like the tremendous volume of information I have gained has been killing me. We offer sugges- tions for choosing a therapist in Appendix A. You may feel that the BP is responsible for all the problems, but set this aside for now.

Your message should be that when there are problems in relationships, both people need to work on them together. If the person with BPD cannot seem to take a cooperative approach to working on the relationship, you may wish to simply focus on setting limits chapter 6. Your message should Remember, the other person may or may be that when there not have BPD. And even if they do, that may not are problems in completely explain their behavior.

Switch the relationships, both focus from wondering about the possible causes people need to work of their actions to solving problems that result on them together.

It is meant to be digested in small bites. The knowledge you gain in each chapter serves as the foundation for the next. This is especially true in part 2. We reiterate some fundamental concepts in several chapters; this is to help you integrate them into a new way of thinking about yourself and your relationship. Some non-BPs are very supportive of the people with BPD in their lives; some may be verbally or physically abusive.

Non-BPs may have mental health concerns of their own, such as depression, substance abuse, attention deficit disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Some people with BPD were sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by their parents or other caretakers. Others had very good parents who have dedicated their lives to getting treatment for their children. The parents we interviewed fall into the latter category. They were not perfect parents who among us can claim perfection?

But their behav- ior was not abusive. When we discuss parents we mean ordinary parents who make ordinary mistakes. In the absence of a formal diagnosis, you may feel uncomfortable calling this person borderline.

A diag- nosis can only be made by a professional who is experienced in assessing and treating people with BPD. You may never know for sure if the person you care about really has BPD. The person may refuse to be evaluated by a mental health professional—in fact, that person may deny that he or she is having difficulties.

Or he or she may be seeing a therapist but choose not to share the diagnosis with you. Remember, this book is about you, not the BP. You have the right to seek help. And if you are being confronted with behavior patterns like those listed on the previous pages, you will be able to benefit from the strategies in this book—regardless of the presence or absence of a BPD diagnosis. To examine the complex interactions between BPs and non-BPs, we must often differen- tiate between them—sometimes several times in the same sentence.

But actually, we are not discussing seem like a the relationship as a whole at all. Our focus is very betrayal of the narrow: coping with BPD behavior. Hundreds of factors unrelated to BPD affect them. We do not address these factors because they are beyond the scope of this book. The BP is responsible for 50 percent of the relationship, and the non-BP is responsible for the other half. At the same time, each person is respon- sible for percent of their own 50 percent.

And the biggest misperception is that people with BPD never get any better. In reality, medications can help reduce depression, moodiness, and impulsivity. Certain treatments have been shown to be effective in empirical research. We have met many recovered borderlines who no longer feel compel- ling urges to hurt themselves, who feel good about them- The biggest selves, and who give and receive love joyfully.

By examining your own get any better. The illness not only causes instability but symbolizes it. Borderlines recover. Ultimately, the only person who can control the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the person with BPD is the borderline him- or herself. The Criteria for bpD The DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder reads as follows: A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self- image, and affects [moods], and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following: 1.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in 5. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships char- acterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

Identity disturbance: Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging e. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behav- ior covered in 5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood e. Chronic feelings of emptiness. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger e.

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. Dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria. Your mom was there a second ago, holding your hand. Suddenly the crowd swept her away. You look around, frantically, trying to find her. This is how people with BPD feel nearly all the time: isolated, anxious, terrified at the thought of being alone. Caring, supportive people are like friendly faces in the middle of the crowd. The person may burst into rage or beg the loved one to stay.

The fear of abandonment can be so strong that it can overwhelm the BP. For example, when one man told his BP wife that he had a potentially fatal illness, she raged at him for seeing the doctor.

If your BP was neglected as a child or raised in a severely dysfunctional household, he may have learned to cope by denying or suppressing his terror at being abandoned. After many years of practice, he no longer feels the origi- nal emotion. When your BP becomes upset or angry, it may help to think about whether anything has happened that might be triggering fears of abandonment.

She pages me constantly. I panic. I feel betrayed and used. One night I called my boyfriend, and he said he would call me back because he was watching TV.

So I did my ironing to pass the time. I waited. This terrible feeling of being abandoned came over me again. It hurt so bad because the day before, I had started to believe Sometimes the person with that he really loved me.

BPD will tell you outright By the time the phone rang at 10 P. But just as rid of him before he could get rid of me. I expressed in other ways— felt so ridiculous, but the pain, the fear, rage, for example.

Feeling and the poker in my gut were very real. Most of all, they are searching for a nurturing caregiver whose never-ending love and compassion will fill the black hole of emptiness and despair inside them. Beverly BP I used to approach every friendly looking person with a deep hope that they would take care of me. Then I began to realize that none of them were able to nurture me the way that I wanted because although I felt like a child inside, I looked like an adult on the outside.

She is depressed and needs to be comforted. People with BPD look She needs help in thinking through solutions to others to provide to everyday problems. She cries and bleeds things they find from self-inflicted cuts. All of my themselves, such as time and energy goes to her, and my other self-esteem, approval, children resent it. For people with BPD, the potential loss of a relationship can be like facing the loss of an arm or leg—or even death.

But the things they do to get it often drive people away. You can take a break and get away from it for awhile—go to a party, read a book, take a walk on the beach.

But the BP lives with the fear and panic twenty-four hours a day. Understanding Splitting Many BPs fluctuate between extremes of idealization and devaluation. When you seem to be meeting their needs, they cast you in the role of superhero. But the who lacks a short-term memory. Nuances and shadings are grasped with great difficulty, if at all. When there is a problem, some people with BPD may feel as if there is only one solution.

For example, when one borderline woman was given new work duties she dis- liked, her solution was to quit her job. For example, a borderline college student became so involved with a political campaign that he flunked all his classes but then dropped his political activi- ties in favor of school the next semester. Difficulty Defining Relationships. People with BPD may feel that relation- ships must be clearly defined. Someone is either their friend or their enemy, their passionate lover or a platonic buddy.

This is one reason why people with BPD may have a hard time being platonic friends after a romance ends. This need for definition does not just apply to others; people with BPD also see themselves in black and white. In his self-help book for borderlines, Lost in the Mirror: An Inside Look at Borderline Personality Disorder, Richard Moskovitz writes: You [the person with BPD] may strive valiantly for perfection and feel, at times, that you have achieved it, only to condemn yourself when the smallest flaw appears.

When you are good, you may feel entitled to special treatment and live outside the rules made for others. You may feel entitled to take whatever you wish and have everything good for yourself. Dealing with Splitting. People with BPD are fully convinced their skewed feelings and beliefs— be they positive or negative—are unquestionably true.

Therefore, your mission is to maintain a consistent, balanced view of yourself despite their ups, downs, and sideways. Partially because of their habit of splitting, people with BPD—especially those who were abused as children—find it extremely difficult to trust others. This lack of trust causes a great deal of turbulence in relationships; for example, while they are seeing you as a villain, they may accuse you of not loving them or of having an affair.

Non-BPs in this situation often try harder to show their trustworth iness, but often to no effect. So I diversified. If I let my guard down and one friend found out how weird I was and they backed off—well, I had fifty-nine others. But now a romantic relationship has kicked in. The stakes are high, with one person meaning so much.

This is different—the guy needs me, too. Be with me, please. Every day and every night. Look at me, listen to me. See me? Finally, the one person who can take all of this need! What a relief!

Hey… wait a minute! What the hell do I do now? Ooohhh, am I frustrated. Damn it. I hate this guy! How dare he rather be out with his friends than be right here? How dare he find out what kind of a completely disturbed person I am? Embarrassed, I lash out. Let him have it! Take this—take that!

I rage, I scream until I collapse in exhaustion. And I despise myself more than I could ever imagine. I do need you! How can I show you? I cry, I beg, I tell him what an incredible man he is, how patient he is. I just know you hate me! You should hate me! No, I mean it—I wish I were dead. Oh, please, let me make it up to you. Let me show you the best side of my passion. It feels so good to be with him. He cares. I need him. And go through the whole damned thing again. But most of us take certain things for granted, such as our likes and dislikes, our values, our reli- gious beliefs, our positions on important issues, and our career preferences.

They lack an essential sense of themselves, just like they lack a consistent sense of others. Without a sense of self to cling to, they are like passengers on the deck of a ship during a typhoon, getting tossed about and battered.

But all they see are other passengers wearing life jackets, lashed to poles for security. But the life jacket is only big enough for one person. Normally, we experience ourselves consistently through time in different settings and with different people. This continuity of self is not experienced by the person with BPD. Instead, borderline patients are filled with contradictory images of them- selves that they cannot integrate. Never Good Enough. They become known for their achievements at work, in their commu- nity, or at home.

But they often feel like actors reciting their lines. When the audience goes home, they cease to exist. For example, during group therapy, a borderline man complained that his landlord had evicted him and he had no place to live. After twenty minutes of commiseration, group members began asking him why this had happened. Another borderline woman repeatedly battered her husband, had numerous affairs, and had her husband falsely arrested for possession of drugs after she planted them in his suitcase.

Eventually, she filed for divorce. Her ex-husband began dating a woman he worked with. Yet, when the woman described the breakup to her friends, she told them that her husband deserted her for a coworker.

These two BPs refused to recognize their role in the situations. Why Do They Do It? Another role common among people with BPD is that of helper or caretaker. This more positive role may help provide them with an identity, heighten feelings of control, and lessen feelings of emptiness. Salia BP I have a chameleon-like ability to take on the coloring of the individual I am with.

But the act is done more to fool me than to fool them. I am not some kind of a Machiavellian manipulator with nothing better to do than ruin lives. I feel unreal—like a phony.

Most people have varying abili- ties to control impulses and delay immediate gratification. But people with BPD are characterized by impulsivity—even recklessness. People with BPD may also try to fill the emptiness and create an iden- tity for themselves through impulsive behaviors such as bingeing and purging, indiscriminate sexual activity, shoplifting, compulsive shop- ping, drinking, or substance abuse. Another study Links, Steiner, and Offord reported that about 23 percent of borderline patients had a diagnosis of substance abuse.

This does not include BPs who engage in risky behav- ior that results in death, such as drinking and driving. Marsha M. Overdosing, for example, usually leads to long periods of sleep; sleep in turn, has an important influence on regu- lating emotional vulnerability.

In many instances, such behavior is the only way an individual can get others to pay attention to and try to ameliorate her emotional pain. Self-Mutilating Behavior Self-mutilation, without suicidal intent, is another BPD behavior that is very difficult for family members to understand.

Self-injury is a coping mechanism that BPs use to release or manage over- whelming emotional pain—usually feelings of shame, anger, sadness, and abandonment.

These chemicals lead to a general feeling of well-being. I can show it. So I take out the anger by cutting myself or pulling out my hair. It makes me feel better at the time, but later on I am ashamed of myself and I wish that I had not done it. Some people hide their self- mutilation, only disfiguring areas normally hidden by clothing.

People with BPD are often very aware of their own reasons for self-injury. There is a misperception that all people with BPD harm themselves or are suicidal.

Many high-functioning BPs do not. They can also control, to some extent, how much their moods affect their relationships with others. People with BPD have a hard time doing this. Their mood may swing from intense anger to depression, depression to irritability, and irrita- bility to anxiety within a few hours.

Non-BPs often find this unpredictability exhausting. Dina non-BP Living with my borderline husband is heaven one minute and hell the next. I call his personalities Jovial Jekyll and Horrible Hyde. I walk on eggshells trying to please someone who blows up just because I spoke too soon, too quickly, in the wrong tone, with the wrong facial motions. Borderline rage is usually intense, unpredictable, and unaffected by logical argument.

It is like a torrential flash flood, a sudden earthquake, or a bolt of lightning on a sunny day. And it can disappear as quickly as it appears. Some borderlines, however, have the opposite problem: they feel unable to express their anger at all.

In her text, Marsha M. She theorizes that anger was highlighted in the DSM criteria because anger is typically the feeling that causes the most problems for people close to the borderline. Linehan echoes this belief, often saying that people with BPD are like people with third-degree burns over 90 percent of their body. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement. We explain how to take steps to protect yourself in chapter 8. It gets much worse when I am under stress.

When triggered, I can go from perfectly calm to full-blown, white-hot rage within a fraction of a second. I think that my temper comes from the abuse I suffered when I was a child. Raging back became a matter of survival. Laura BP I think that borderlines are concerned with only one thing: losing love. When cornered, I get very scared and I show that by getting angry. Anger is easier to feel than fear and makes me feel less vulnerable. I strike before being struck. That would require a self.