Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder PDF Download Free

Ms. Manning writes that two conditions must exist for a person to develop BPD: (1) an extremely emotionally sensitive personality and (2) an invalidating environment. With respect to invalidating environments she writes that “Sometimes a child who is extremely emotionally sensitive is born into a family who is substantially less emotional”. She says she does not judge parents, but she makes clear her belief that a child must have grown up in an environment of “pervasive” invalidation to develop BPD. She makes the case that that some parents are more emotionally sensitive than others, and that this plays a crucial role in whether an already emotionally vulnerable child will develop BPD. She writes “There are lots of us in the world who are emotionally sensitive….but we do not all have BPD”.

As the parents of an adult daughter who has recently been diagnosed with BPD, my wife and I know in our hearts we we were emotionally sensitive and did all we could to provide a healthy and loving environment for both our children. We constantly encouraged and supported them and tried our best to be sensitive to their needs (emotionally and otherwise). Of course we have always questioned what we could have done differently. But until we learned of this diagnosis and finally could start to understand it, we had no way of knowing that a loving, healthy environment and a traditional approach to parenting could not work no matter how much we tried. For Ms. Manning to generalize and imply that we weren’t sensitive enough and “not a good fit” while other more emotionally sensitive parents are is not only hurtful, it is wrong. To me the judgement that she claims not to make is quite obvious.

I’m now reading and learning all I can about BPD and effective treatments. One excellent book I found is “Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder” by Valerie Porr. Ms. Porr understands the pain of those suffering from BPD as well as that of his or her family. She does a great job explaining (in-depth) evidence-based treatment alternatives. Importantly, she is genuinely nonjudgmental.

I am in DBT treatment for Borderline. My therapist studied under both Shari Manning and Marsha Linehan, and recommended this book to me. For 3 years prior to me starting treatment, my fiance had been looking (unsuccessfully) for a book just like this one to help him understand how to deal with me. In his words:

“All the information I found said that if I was so messed up that I would try to make a relationship with a Borderline person work instead of heading for the hills, there was little hope for ME – let alone the Borderline person. This book was the first time I saw information about people living with BPD and the people who love them that doesn’t villify behavior or emotions but expertly explains the logic behind BPD and gives concrete, simple ways to both protect yourself and engage constructively with your loved one in the face of emotional chaos.”

Even though this book is intended for someone who has a relationship with a Borderline person, it is also extremely helpful information for someone with BPD who is completely baffled, seeking answers or in the beginning stages of treatment to understand what is going on with them.

I’ll start with the positives. I got this book because other reviewers said it humanizes people with BPD, which it does. It has a very hopeful outlook, which I appreciated. I did learn at least one useful thing. She suggests that when someone with BPD is in a state of self-loathing and saying excessively negative things about themselves, instead of contradicting them and saying they’re not terrible and listing wonderful things about them, you should first validate that you understand why they would feel awful about themselves and that it’s a reasonable emotion to have considering x, y, and z, but that still doesn’t make them a bad person. Otherwise, they’re less likely to listen because they don’t think you *truly* understand how awful they are and how they view themselves, or think you do see and you’re just being nice. Validating your loved one’s feelings was obvious advice to me, but that’s one situation I hadn’t considered because I’ve always had high self-esteem and didn’t think of that perspective even when trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes, so I must thank Dr. Manning for that. It’s a new tool in my interpersonal toolbox.

Now onto what I didn’t like as much. She gives so much advice on how to communicate with a loved one with BPD and help them in various situations, but she doesn’t pay enough attention to the needs of the other person in the relationship. She gives examples of how the behavior of someone with BPD may be frustrating, exhausting, or fear-inducing to their loved ones, but doesn’t show how the loved one can communicate what *they* need out of the relationship, how they can get their needs met by that person, or how they can feel like an equal in the relationship instead of it being one-sided (if it isn’t a parent-child relationship.) Which, if you’re not fragilizing your loved one like she suggests you don’t, is absolutely vital. She does suggest the other person validate and cheer-lead themselves, but that doesn’t address unmet needs. Also, I was shocked there was only one page addressing abuse, and only in reference to childhood abuse. I feel like she put on rose-colored glasses and tried to write a positive and non-stigmatizing book by completely ignoring the abuse that can happen between someone with BPD and someone who loves them, in either direction. By doing so, she completely misses the opportunity to offer practical suggestions to address it in the most positive and productive way possible. Which is bizarre, because it’s not like she’s shying away from difficult subject matter. She has a whole chapter on addressing suicide attempts and suicidal behavior, and if anything I thought the personal examples of the behavior of a person with BPD were a bit too extreme and weren’t balanced out by more mild examples. Which was another weakness of the book.

There were a few other things that bothered me on top of that. Some of the advice can be kind of vague, and while she gives very concrete personal stories, it’s not always clear how to apply the principles she’s laying out in other situations. One example that comes to mind of vague advice is a loved one using “wise mind” to find out if they did anything to violate their principles and whether their guilt is justified. She doesn’t give enough concrete examples of when you actually *should* end a relationship with someone who has BPD, just telling the reader to make their own double-sided pro-con list. I’m okay with a book that suggests to be compassionate and err on the side of not ending the relationship, but not if it’s not tempered by reality and concrete examples. I also, frankly, found it dangerous when she suggested in one sentence that it’s best to call the police in the case of a loved one’s suicide attempt without any discussion of the disproportionate violence faced by the mentally ill, people with disabilities, and people of color by the hands of the police, or any of the cases in which the police have shot suicidal people during suicide attempts. Especially since Dr. Manning actually lives in the United States. Calling the police is still the best option in many cases, but not discussing that was irresponsible on her part. And despite training with Dr. Linehan, there were some passages in the book that made me question the author’s scientific accuracy in writing this, such as an analogy about how children in the Ukraine with smile at a kitten just as much as anyone in the world because it’s an automatic response to emotion (this is demonstrably false; emotional responses are cultural and there are many cultures who don’t smile to signify happiness the way Americans do), and another passage about the 12 step program (I don’t remember where in the book or what it was.) Finally, and this is just a trifle, but I would have preferred her using the gender-neutral They in the book instead of switching back and forth between he and she, both to eliminate confusion on the part of the reader and to be inclusive of non-binary people. Perhaps she can do so in an updated edition, as well as fixing the dead URL links.

Overall, I feel like giving this book 2 stars because the negatives weigh so heavily, but there’s such a crucial vacuum for a non-stigmatizing and humanizing book about BPD that I have to give her another star.