Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder

Isn’t it time you stopped walking on eggshells? Learn how with this fully revised and updated third edition of a self-help classic—now with more than one million copies sold!

Do you feel manipulated, controlled, or lied to? Are you the focus of intense, violent, and irrational rages? Do you feel you are ‘walking on eggshells’ to avoid the next confrontation? If the answer is ‘yes,’ someone you care about may have borderline personality disorder (BPD)—a mood disorder that causes negative self-image, emotional instability, and difficulty with interpersonal relationships.

Stop Walking on Eggshells has already helped more than a million people with friends and family members suffering from BPD understand this difficult disorder, set boundaries, and help their loved ones stop relying on dangerous BPD behaviors. This fully revised third edition has been updated with the very latest BPD research on comorbidity, extensive new information about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), the effectiveness of schema therapy, and coping and communication skills you can use to stabilize your relationship with the BPD or NPD sufferer in your life.

This compassionate guide will enable you to:

• Make sense out of the chaos
• Stand up for yourself and assert your needs
• Defuse arguments and conflicts
• Protect yourself and others from violent behavior

If you’re ready to bring peace and stability back into your life, this time-tested guide will show you how, one confident step at a time.

“In the third edition of Stop Walking on Eggshells, Paul Mason and Randi Kreger update their classic work on borderline personality disorder (BPD). This edition adds new research and information to their seminal work and raises the standard. This book is a must-read for anyone whose family has been affected by BPD.” —Daniel S. Lobel, PhD, clinical psychologist in private practice in Katonah, NY; and author of WhenYour Daughter Has BPD and When Your Mother Has Borderline Personality Disorder

‍“This third edition is filled with the wisdom and tips that come from the authors’ continuing work with people with BPD and their loved ones. I’m so glad they have added narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in this edition, because the overlap of NPD and BPD is present in so many of the high-conflict individuals I see in relationships and conflicts that end up in court today. Family members, friends, professionals, and (frankly) everyone needs to read this book to understand and deal with much of the surprising and outrageous behavior we see in close relationships all around us now.” —Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, attorney, therapist, mediator, coauthor of Splitting, and author of 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life

‍“This third edition of Stop Walking on Eggshells makes a very important contribution to better understanding the complexities of working with individuals displaying behaviors consistent with both BPD and NPD. The authors recognize that multiple factors and other diagnoses may also be operational and need to be taken into account. The advice and recommendations are practical, well explained, and give hope to clinicians and families, as well as those struggling with these perplexing disorders.” —Debra Resnick, PsyD, clinical psychologist in private practice in the Philadelphia, PA, area who has been teaching and practicing dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for approximately twenty years

“An important resource for clients who are being emotionally abused. It identifies two types of BPD—conventional and unconventional. While conventional BPDs typically exhibit overt behavior such as self-harm and suicidal ideation, unconventional BPDs don’t believe they have any problems. They project their pain onto others and refuse to take responsibility for their harmful actions. As an expert in emotional abuse, I have identified this behavior as emotionally abusive.” —Beverly Engel, LMFT, internationally recognized expert in emotional and sexual abuse, and best-selling author of The Emotionally Abused Woman and The Emotionally Abusive Relationship

‍“Stop Walking on Eggshells is the quintessential book for families to understand BPD. The cases and examples are compassionate, accurate, enlightening, and starkly realistic—providing a true sense of how people with BPD think and feel, as well as how family members experience their behaviors. It includes comprehensive strategies, techniques, and responses for the most difficult situations, and provides the newest information about causes and help for BPD.” —Margalis Fjelstad, LMFT, author of Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist and Healing from a Narcissistic Relationship, and coauthor of Raising Resilient Children with a Borderline or Narcissistic Parent

‍“Very impressive! This third edition of Stop Walking on Eggshells is a compendium of practical advice. Written in a friendly style, it’s like reading a letter from someone who really cares about you. New chapters, such as the chapter on BPD in children and teenagers, further enhance the book, discussing a previously ignored issue. I strongly recommend this five-star book.” —Christine Adamec, coauthor of When Your Adult Child Breaks Your Heart

‍“For the last twenty years, Stop Walking on Eggshells has been my ‘gold-standard’ recommendation for learning how to live with, love, and care for people who struggle with BPD. Now, Mason and Kreger have improved and updated this masterpiece to include how to cope with narcissistic personalities as well. If you feel like you’re walking on eggshells around people in your life, then read this new edition.” —Jeffrey C. Wood, PsyD, psychologist, coauthor of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, and author of The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Workbook for Personality Disorders

‍“Stop Walking on Eggshells makes good on its promise to restore the lives of people in close relationships with someone diagnosed with BPD. It is a rich guide to understanding and coping with the reactions aroused in others by troubling BPD behaviors that negatively impact relationships. Readers will find this book very useful and beneficial.” —Nina W. Brown, EdD, professor and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA; and author of Children of the Self-Absorbed“This book is the absolute go-to guide for my clients who are dealing with a loved one with BPD. Readable and thorough, it strikes a perfect balance of practical advice and emotional sensitivity. This book has helped so many people break through their sense of confusion and isolation by helping them to name, understand, and respond to the difficulties of this complex and misunderstood disorder.” —Daniel E. Mattila, MDiv, LCSW

‍“Amazingly, Stop Walking on Eggshells not only teaches readers how to recognize the signs of BPD, it also shows how they can make life and relationship decisions based on what they want and need instead of decisions controlled by the illness.” —Julie A. Fast, coauthor of Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder