Reviews

Great insight into the mind and feelings of an individual with BPD and the turmoil that they face everyday. As a future counselor this has become and invaluable resource that I will be able to utilize for future clients, their families and just for myself to remind me to never give up hope and always have faith in my clients. Recommended for anyone in the mental health field or even just interested in psychology or simply a good read!

amhayden21's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

This is NOT a self help book. This book changed my life. Saved my life. I found it at the time of my own diagnosis and needed it. It took me a month to read, not because it was a hard read or to long, but because it was hard mentally to process everything she wrote about and I was living/had lived my entire life. I finished this book at the time & moment that I felt I was finally able to begin my life. I will forever be thankful for this book!

andintothetrees's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Mental health memoirs have been one of my favourite (sub?) genres for at least a decade now, but this is only the second I have read that specifically addresses Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I’ve always been more than a little cynical about whether mental health diag-nonsenses (to paraphrase Girl, Interrupted, which is of course the other book I have read on BPD) are nothing but a label for a set of symptoms – after all, unless you can pinpoint a condition as having one underlying cause, how do you know which aspects are due to that “malady” and which are separate? BPD seems particularly problematic in this regard, as even a large UK mental health charity describe it on their page as “one of many personality disorders listed in the manuals used by doctors when they are giving someone a psychiatric diagnosis”, which seems like a polite way of saying “it’s the title of a checklist someone wrote”. I don’t doubt for a moment that the symptoms that come under the heading of BPD are very real and distressing for those who experience them, and that some find comfort in putting a name to their patterns of thinking and emoting (which could in turn lead to people feeling less isolated in those feelings, and/or to accessing treatment), but I do wonder if such labels are both too broad and too narrow to helpfully represent the spectrum of human behaviour and emotions. One of the reasons I find mental health so interesting is that it is such a difficult concept to define (Thomas Szasz explains this better than me); and if defining it itself is difficult, then what about treatment, how does one even begin to tackle that (nevermind the question of whether “treatment” or “cure” are even appropriate terms to use in this scenario)? Talking therapies and drugs are what (most Western) people put their faith in when seeking a “cure”, and are what Rachel Reiland focuses on in Get Me Out Of Here.

Read my full review on my book blog, here.

marthabohlale's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

katalexandra's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

shinydiscoballx's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

4.0

More...