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

Recognizing what you have neglected to see in your undiagnosed BP partner for years, this book can give your 20/20 hindsight a hopeful future that is less grim to settle for.

A professional recommended I read this book. The first few pages were a tremendous gift. I realized what was going on. The book is best read in small bites. I am getting help for my daughter and myself. Hoping my wife will, too - but now I have the peace that comes with understanding the dynamics.

This book is wonderful! As a clinician, I purchased this book to see if it would be a good resource to recommend to my clients, and it definitely fits the bill. I can recommend this book to many clients struggling with a loved one who engages in problematic behaviors, whether they are borderline or not, and I find the tips in this book to be applicable across many different relationships. I highly recommend!

I bought this earlier in the year to help me deal with a family member. I hoped to gain tools to communicate with her and avoid her volatile verbal attacks and vitriol filled text responses. I have good boundaries with her and able to walk away or hang up when she would become paranoid and vicious with her words but didn't want to cut her out of my life entirely. I love her son and husband and her and wanted her to be able to stay involved in my family. She can be so lovely but in a second so awful. I have no idea if she was ever diagnosed with borderline personality disorder but sure this was at least one of her issues. I found the book very validating and offered great tips. My cousin killed herself November 2018. We are all devastated. I read after she died and sent a copy to my aunt who said it described my cousin to a tee. When I feel it is appropriate I am going to send a copy to her husband.

This book saved my marriage. I was especially happy with the way it approached borderline personality disorder (and those undiagnosed people with similar traits) with compassion and respect for the borderline, and provided insightful testimonials from borderlines detailing how their thought processes often differ from non-borderlines. This book gave me the tools and confidence to stop trying to cover for my wife and save her from the messes she unintentionally creates, while also addressing my own issues with needing to constantly help and fix everyone. This is a book that helps you change your own behavior to protect yourself, but in doing so it also often helps the BP’s learn to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for their actions. For example, one of the many things I discovered was that my attempts to constantly help her fix bad situations was actually MY issue, and I was disempowering her. Stopping that was really hard for me to do, but sure enough it helped. I am happy to report that after applying the strategies outlined in this book, my wife, (who has consistently refused therapy or medications despite having substance abuse issues, severe depression, angry rages, and being extremely self-destructive) realized her behavior is out of control and voluntarily sought professional help. Her moods and behaviors have drastically improved, and she said she doesn’t feel on-edge, angry, and empty all the time anymore. I cannot stress enough though that these are strategies for the non-borderline, and you will have to address your own negative contributions to the relationship which might include your own feelings of inadequacy and need for codependency. You have to be willing to address your own demons. I recommend enlisting the help of a therapist while going through this book, it really helped me stay accountable for my own behavior.

Checklist: Does Someone you Care about have BPD? If you answered yes to many of these questions, we have good news for you: You're not going crazy. It's not your fault. And you're not alone. You may share these experiences because someone close to you has traits associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). For survival tips and strategies for dealing with a loved one with BPD, read Stop Walking on Eggshells. View larger From the Book Mindfulness and DBT in general help people with BPD stay off the emotional roller coaster associated with black-and-white thinking. Over time, people who regularly practice mindfulness tend to be better at enduring pain, solving problems, and not creating turmoil and stress in their lives and relationships. Notice, though, that the goal of mindfulness isn’t to experience profound happiness or a life without stress or trouble. We all have the capacity to be mindful. It’s a skill anyone can learn. There’s nothing mysterious about it. We simply pay attention to the present moment. When mental clutter appears, we let it appear and let it fade away again. Over and over, we return to the here and now. This isn’t usually as easy as it sounds, especially as we’re first learning it. But everyone gets better at it with practice. In the process, we also learn a lot about ourselves, others, and our relationships. Practicing mindfulness can help you achieve a better balance between your rational mind and your emotional mind. This puts you in a better position to respond wisely to distressing situations, in a balanced, healthy manner. You’ll also make better decisions, improve your relationships, and optimize your potential for physical and mental relaxation. View larger The purposes of this exercise is to focus your mind on a single object and to be aware of the mental energy needed to stay in the moment. Focus on an object 1. Find a place where you can be alone and away from TVs, radios, and other distractions and interruptions. Get into a comfortable position either sitting or standing that you can maintain for three minutes. Keep your eyes open and breathe normally. 2. Pick a nearby object that you can see clearly. This should be something you don’t have a strong feeling about a plant, a chair, a book, a cup. 3. For the next three minutes, focus your attention just on that object. If you like, look at it from multiple angles. Pick it up or run your hands over it. Smell it, if you’re so inclined. Take in all the different sensory information about it. 4. When your mind wanders off and it will simply catch yourself and return your attention to the object. This may happen several or more than several times. There’s no need to get frustrated or critical with yourself. Just keep coming back to the object. View larger The purpose of this exercise is to increase your awareness of your own mind and its thoughts. Over time, with practice, it will help you to not get stuck on, distressed about, or overwhelmed by a particular thought. Watching your thoughts 1. Find a spot where you can be free of distraction or interruption. Get in a comfortable sitting position, with your feet on the floor and your back straight. (This might mean sitting forward on the front part of your chair.) Breathe normally and keep your eyes open. 2. For five minutes, don’t think or not think about anything in particular. Just watch your thoughts surface, swirl about, and float away. Don’t try to hang onto them, push them away, or judge them. Let them come and let them go. 3. If your mind wanders or gets stuck on a particular thought, just notice that and return to quietly watching your mind. If you notice yourself getting judgmental ('I’m not very good at this'. 'Why am I having such awful thoughts?' etc.), just notice your judgment and return once more to watching your mind. 4. With practice, this skill will help you avoid getting stuck in obsessive thinking or worry. Paradoxically, it will also help you better focus on important tasks, concerns, or activities doing your taxes, for example when you need to.When your mind wanders off and it will simply catch yourself and return your attention to the object. This may happen several or more than several times. There’s no need to get frustrated or critical with yourself. Just keep coming back to the object. Editorial Reviews Review "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 This book helps the friends and family members of people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) understand the condition, help their loved ones find effective treatment, and stop feeling as though they are walking on eggshells to avoid confrontations with BPD sufferers.