Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified: An Essential Guide for Understanding and Living with BPD Author: Robert O. Friedel, MD Publisher: Marlowe & Company (July 14, 2004) Paperback: 320 pages ISBN-10: 1569244561 ISBN-13: 978-1569244562

Book Description
Over six million Americans suffer from borderline personality disorder (BPD), a chronic, disabling psychiatric condition that causes extreme instability in their emotional lives, behavior, and self-image and severely impacts their family and friends. But despite the devastation it can cause, borderline personality disorder remains largely overlooked by the medical community, misunderstood by the public, and many people continue to go misdiagnosed or untreated. In Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified, Dr. Robert Friedel, a leading expert on the disorder and a pioneer in its treatment, turns his vast personal experience into a useful and supportive guide for everyone living with and seeking to understand this condition. Friedel sheds light on all the intricacies of borderline personality disorder, such as the course it takes, the difficulties in diagnosing it, and the types of treatment available, and offers effective advice on the best ways to cope with it. Filled with wisdom and encouragement, Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified is essential reading for everyone diagnosed with BPD, those who think they might have the illness, and friends and family who love and support them.

About the Author
Dr. Friedel is Distinguished Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Duke University, and completed an internship in internal medicine and a residency in psychiatry at Duke. He served for two years as a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Most recently, Dr. Friedel was Heman E. Drummond Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has also served as chair of the departments of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Michigan, and Executive Director of the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan. Dr. Friedel has worked in the private sector as Senior Vice President, Physician-in-Chief, Director of Research and as a member of the Board of Directors of Charter Medical Corporation.

Someone else mentioned Dr. Friedel's info to me last night and I read through a bunch of the website... .very interesting.

When I look at his info on BPD/ADHD I find that I was completely correct in my assumption that the medication DB was given for his ADHD actually made the problem worse... .same goes for a few of my other "assumptions" based on the research I had done on my own before all of this including all the issues surrounding drug use (pot, cocaine).

Friedel does acknowledge that a huge part of this may be genetic and not necessarily childhood abuse which was the case with DB... .he grew up in a loving family, no abuse, the problem existed from the day he was born.

Nice to feel slightly validated.

I would highly recomend that people read through some of the information on his website.

He is just a nice guy. I can't tell you how many hours he spent with me on the phone explaining the hard structures of the brain and the brain's neurochemistry and how impairments are associated with BPDlike thoughts, feelings, and impulsive actions. Poor guy, I had to distill it all down to a few pages an an analogy that has to do with FedEx packages! He said he liked it, though.

The website has some great info on it for the BPD person. So how do I get this into the hands of my D when I am going to court tomorrow to make my restraining order permanent before she gets our of jail and I am struggling to do the letting go everyone around me is supporting. And I read this material about the importance of family to the BPD, and this is creating doubt about how this fits with letting go.

So how do I communicate that D taking responsibility to get treatment is how we can re-establish contact? I will ask my lawyer, and the judge, how this can be included in the protective order. How to let go without feeling like it is abandonment for both me as mom and her as daughter. She has depended so heavily on me for these 23 years. How will this work out?

angelone - it has been a long journey from this entry to today. Too much story to put much here. We did re-establish contact, she has been in and out of our home -- homeless much of the past 4 years. She still resist treatment for her substance use and mental health issues.

Learning more and more about the interpersonal neurology of DD27 has helped me understand the processes better. Still struggle in applying the many tools and skills I have learned here. I feel that much of this is my own lack of courage in tough situations with my family. I know I do the best I can, it just sometimes could be more consistent. Have to let go of DD over and over - I am such a rescuer for many people in my life.

Gaining knowledge is first step, understanding how this works relative to me and my relationships come next, and hopefully some wisdom filters in along the way -- being mindful to feel more calm so can access all the awesome tools in my bag.

qcr