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I Hate You—Don't Leave Me first jumped out at me in the bookstore. I have said that exact phrase to my wife more times than I'd like to admit. Whilst I bought it that day, it was over 10 years later before I actually read it.

I felt the book was written at a very understandable level, unlike many works related to medical issues, without making me feel like the author was speaking down to me, unlike many other medical works. The first half resonated with me very much, whilst they kind of lost me a bit in the second half. Granted its audience appears to primarily be the friends and family of a BPD rather than for the BPD himself. When communicating they recommend using SET (Support, Empathy, Truth) communication. From a high level it makes sense, but my brain couldn't really wrap around most of the examples they used.

It is eerie how much Dr. Kreisman describes me in his writing of Border Line Personality (BPD) disorder. Much of what has been diagnosed by my doctors as Bipolar and Depresion, may actually have been deeper BPD. But I'm pretty sure my ADHD i still ADHD. What really got me was their listing of the medical definition indicating a patient needed to have 5 of 8 given criteria, and I'm pretty sure I got all 8.

This book was written in 1989 so I'm not sure how much of its contents is now out-of-date. One example was linking BPD to homosexuality and sexual deviations. No modern doctor would speak like that, while I wasn't offended, some others may be.

I want to get a copy of the 3rd edition released in 2021 to see what has been updated, though from the reviews I've seen on LibraryThing there still may be gaps for the 21st century.

I'm not sure how much I will be able to adjust my life having this more information; my wife read it too, I don't ever recall reading a book with two bookmarks in it before. 🙂 At the very least if I ever seek professional mental health again I'll bring this copy with me.

If I wasn't already a loyal Discount Tire customer I would be pretty upset that I just spent a week reading a 200 page ad for Discount Tire™. It was still mostly an ad, but I'm not very upset about it.

Bruce Halle probably isn't the absolute saint that his biographer claims, having not raised his voice since his 20s, and always putting his employees first.

I have first hand seen many of the company practices that are mentioned in the book, including free flat repair for everyone and free tires given to folks down on their luck.

At times I found the Stories of his practices of sending money to store employees who had sick family members and of the organizing team member hardship funds incredibly enduring, but then I'd think about it again and thought that if they had a union they wouldn't need hand-outs and could just get paid enough to cover stuff.

15-20 years ago when I thought "true capitalism" was the savior of us all, before capitalism ate me alive, I probably would have absolutely loved this book. Now its all-in-all something I didn't NOT enjoy, but I did see more of the "skill" of the author who frequently would say the same thing he did a chapter or two earlier "Mr. Halle continues to give $1,000 to every employee who gets married" for example.

From the chapter Seeking Therapy.

Oh this certainly doesn't make me want to seek out therapy. While I suspect it is far more common with female patients with male therapists, the idea that such a thing ever occurs is messed up.

I've only got like 2 CDs left and it really feels like it is not going anywhere. The ending is going to make or break it.

I really really liked Syrup. I finished in only 3 days, but it wasn't as long as the 294 pages would lead you to believe what with huge margins and so many stylized paragraph headers. Maxx Barry's style of corporate humor started here, and backstabbing, and is it romance is it not, kept it moving. I never thought advertising could be anything but soul crushing. He even did a great job at portraying the nerds in editing, and the artists in film.

After reading Syrup I tried watching the movie but I turned it off not even half-way as it was so bad. Maybe having it not be Coke in the film made that much different? It just seemed weak sauce. So read this one and keep the DVD on the shelf.