Book Review

Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder by Rachel Reiland

I know, and have known, quite a few people with Borderline Personality Disorder. If you don’t know what it is, you probably think it’s one of the worst kind of crazies there is, because the name sounds really bad. But, the fact is, it’s a very common disorder. Most of the people who have it are moderately functional but just very fearful about their relationships with people.

It’s taken me a long time to feel compassion for people with BPD, because they can come up with eleventy-million reasons why they’re special cases and what works for other people won’t work for them. In short – they are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and at driving the people around them to throw up their hands and walk out. It’s fear that makes them such thorny rascals.

Rachel’s book helped me feel more compassion toward those who suffer from this vexing disorder . . . but Rachel is one in a million. She found a few threads of trust that she was able to weave into a dense carpet to support her healthy life. Most BPD sufferers are so fearful they can’t transcend themselves enough to do that. Still, I highly recommend this book as an inspiring example of one who did. And she’s a pretty good writer, in the bargain.