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Sometimes I Act Crazy: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
by Jerold J., M.D. Kreisman, Hal Straus
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Wiley (2006-04-14)
ISBN: 0471792144
EAN: 9780471792147
Dewy Decimal #: 362
Paperback: 256 pages
Edition: 1
SKU: 08090293
Condition: Very Good As issued
Comments: Trade Paperback. Very Good condition with no markings. No highlights, underlines or notes in text. Creases in front cover. Minor wear to cover. Tight binding and clean crisp text. Very Nice copy.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A source of hope, expert advice, and guidance for people with borderline personality disorder and those who love them
Do you experience frightening, often violent mood swings that make you fear for your sanity? Are you often depressed? Do you engage in self-destructive behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse, anorexia, compulsive eating, self-cutting, and hair pulling? Do you feel empty inside, or as if you don't know who you are? Do you dread being alone and fear abandonment? Do you have trouble finishing projects, keeping a job, or forming lasting relationships?
If you or someone you love answered yes to the majority of these questions, there's a good chance that you or that person suffers from borderline personality disorder, a commonly misunderstood and misdiagnosed psychological problem afflicting tens of millions of people. Princess Diana was one of the most well-known BPD sufferers.
As a source of hope and practical advice for BPD sufferers and those who love them, this new book by Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus, bestselling authors of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me, offers proven techniques that help you:
* Manage mood swings
* Develop lasting relationships
* Improve your self-esteem
* Keep negative thoughts at bay
* Control destructive impulses
* Understand your treatment options
* Find professional help
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Customer Reviews
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At last some bloody commonsense
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-12-22
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
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Easiest book for a layperson to understand...
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-09-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
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.
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Informative yet dry read
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-09-21
I have been looking for a book that describes what BPD is all about without having a biased opinion about it. It was a very informative book, tons of facts, lots of statistics and patient cases, however this very thing is what can make it a dry read at times. The interludes of patient cases are what make this book relatable and enjoyable.
I would recommend this book to to anyone who has been diagnosed with BPD or lives with or has a loved one with BPD. It will hep you learn how to cope with ongoing paradoxes of mood swings and how to handle life on this emotional roller coaster. It's a bit heavy and dry at times though, so i wouldn't recommend reading it for enjoyment, I would read it in small doses accompanied with a book for enjoyment to take a break from it.
Overall, great book on the topic, but a dry read.
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GREAT BOOK
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-16
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book was so helpful, not only to me but to my husband and parents. It gives suggestions on how to handle each of the symptoms of the disorder and provides stories to explain further how that symptom has an impact on both the person with BPD and those around her. Also it has a very helpful chapter for family to help communicate with the BPD indivdual so as to get through and not stir the pot so to speak. Great great book, if you or someone you know has Borderline Personality Disorder you need this book!
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Found "Action Steps" Very Helpful
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-07-25
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
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.
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