Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder

by Paul T. Mason, Randi Kreger

Overview

If the answer is "yes," someone you care about may have borderline personality disorder (BPD). 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.

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572247161
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	04/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	590,545
File size:	862 KB

About the Author

Paul T. Mason, MS, is vice president of clinical services at Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in Racine, WI. Under his leadership, the mental health and addiction care service line has expanded the number of inpatient services and outpatient programs it provides for patients, family members, and loved ones affected by borderline personality disorder (BPD). His research on BPD has been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology and his written work has appeared in the news and print media.

Randi Kreger has brought the concerns of family members who have a loved one with BPD to an international forefront through her website, www.bpdcentral.com, and the Welcome to Oz online support community. Through Eggshells Press, she offers family members a wide variety of more specialized booklets and other materials. She was also instrumental in the formation of the Personality Disorders Awareness Network (PDAN), a not-for-profit organization. Kreger is author of The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook and The Essential Family Member Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder. She speaks and gives workshops about BPD internationally.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue xiii

Introduction: Intimate Strangers: How This Book Came to Be 1

Part 1 Understanding BPD Behavior

Chapter 1 Walking on Eggshells: Does Someone You Care About Have BPD? 9

Chapter 2 The Inner World of the Borderline: Defining BPD 21

Chapter 3 Making Sense of Chaos: Understanding BPD Behavior 49

Chapter 4 Living in a Pressure Cooker: How BPD Behavior Affects Non-BPs 67

Part 2 Tacking Back Control of Your Life

Chapter 5 Making Changes within Yourself 83

Chapter 6 Understanding Your Situation: Setting Boundaries and Honing Skills 107

Chapter 7 Asserting Your Needs with Confidence and Clarity 135

Chapter 8 Creating a Safety Plan 159

Chapter 9 Protecting Children from BPD Behavior 177

Part 3 Resolving Special Issues

Chapter 10 Waiting for the Next Shoe to Drop: Your Borderline Child 199

Chapter 11 Lies, Rumors, and Accusations: Distortion Campaigns 213

Chapter 12 What Now? Making Decisions about Your Relationship 225

Appendix A Causes and Treatment of BPD 237

Appendix B Practicing Mindfulness 243

Appendix C Reading List and Resources 257

References 257

Editorial Reviews

"Stop Walking on Eggshells makes good on its promise to restore the lives of people in close relationships with someone diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). It is a rich guide to understanding and coping with the reactions aroused in others by troubling BPD behaviors that negatively impact relationships. Readers will find this book very useful and beneficial."

—Nina W. Brown, EdD, professor and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, author of Children of the Self-Absorbed

"This book is the absolute go-to guide for my clients who are dealing with a loved one with borderline personality disorder. Readable and thorough, it strikes a perfect balance of practical advice and emotional sensitivity. This book has helped so many people break through their sense of confusion and isolation by helping them to name, understand, and respond to the difficulties of this complex and misunderstood disorder."

—Daniel E. Mattila, M.Div., LCSW

"This book is urgently needed now that a National Institutes of Health study shows that 6 percent of the general population has borderline personality disorder (BPD). I constantly get requests from families needing resources on BPD, and I recommend Stop Walking On Eggshells almost every time. This second edition is really easy to read and packed with even more useful tips for family members in distress."

—Bill Eddy, LCSW, attorney, mediator, clinical social worker, and author of High Conflict People in Legal Disputes and Splitting

"Amazingly, Stop Walking On Eggshells not only teaches readers how to recognize the signs of borderline personality disorder, it also shows how they can make life and relationship decisions based on what they want and need instead of decisions controlled by the illness."

—Julie A. Fast, author of Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder

From the Publisher