Sunday Book Review

Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder
by Rachel Reiland
Publisher: Hazelden (September 1, 2004)

Part of me was very happy when I read this book. It is an excellent, firsthand account of Borderline Personality Disorder, written by Reiland, (a pseudonym) a 29-year old accountant, wife, and mother of three. Another part of me was dismayed to discover that someone else had already written the book I was working on! But all competition aside, the book paints a brilliant picture of a woman who lived with and overcame this illness that many view as incurable.

Reiland’s story bore a striking resemblance to mine. Both of us survived the illness (with little therapy) well into our twenties, managing to gather college degrees and a spouse along the way. Once the illness emerged however, she and I both fought for health with the help of frequent visits to a wonderful psychiatrist. After many years of hard work and the support of her husband and doctor, Reiland emerges from the illness, whole and essentially healed. Her success confirms that if a patient can earnestly confront the stark depths of the illness, they can gain insight and even hope. It is a book that would inspire sufferers and caregivers alike.

There’s a million other things that I identified with in this book – too many to go into. Here’s a few:

- The bizarre fraternity of her first hospitalization where she regressed to become a ringleader of sorts.
- Her fear of discharge and desire to remain a dependent inpatient.
- The sadness and pain of her third hospitalization.
- Her ability to point out and expound on psych terms, becoming a prized pupil aiming to please.
- Her intense anger, outbursts and swelling, sweeping emotions.
- The impulsiveness, suicide attempts, manipulative behaviors, self-destructive episodes and often violent, and unpredictable behavior.
- Her ability to keep her relationships with her husband and kids if only out of fear and guilt. At one point she says: “I wish I never met you because now I can’t bring myself to die.”
- How she takes her violent feelings and twists them toward herself.
- Her role as the gatekeeper her father’s feelings.
- The message she gets from her parents that love is something to be earned.
- As a child, she was good at home and bad everywhere else. She was sarcastic, assuming others were laughing at her.
- Her pride at having a tough façade, assuming nobody would understand her.

A common feature of Borderline Personality Disorder is the multitude of secrets a high-functioning patient maintains. There are so many shameful urges and thoughts the patient keeps hidden – even from themselves. What most impressed me about this book was Reiland’s bravery to expose these feelings and show with astonishing honesty what this illness looks and feels like.

She writes openly about her promiscuity and masturbation; the pleasure, relief and excitement she took in feeling ashamed. She acknowledges this thrill-seeking behavior as a crude form of self-preservation. Reiland even talks about her infatuation with her psychiatrist, a common BPD issue that greatly complicates therapy. She admits to him

“I can’t need you because it hurts too much. I’ll turn into a crazed madwoman, a child.”

Her therapist deftly manages his own transference, boundaries, and self-disclosure. He points out:

“You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find and milking it for all it was worth. These were tender moments and they sustained you.”

I never knew anyone else did this until I read it here.


In the interest of my own insight, I’d like to point something out to myself. I tend to try to do too many things at once and then wonder why I feel distracted. Then I get frustrated because I wind up doing a bad job. At the moment, I’m trying to:
- Write a book review
- Cook (an easy) dinner
- Clean up the house so we don’t spend the week in a pigsty
- Worry about work-related emails I’m avoiding
- Remember to read the first 35 pages of Last of the Mohicans tonight so I can keep up with one of my students
- Watch “Ebert & Roper”
- Worry because I tried on jeans at Target this afternoon and based on what I saw, I now know that I should be spending this minute and every following minute exercising.