2. Seek Professional Help Facilitate the process of obtaining optimal help. It may be necessary that you do the initial work necessary to set up the first appointment. It may also be helpful if you agree to go also. Some people with borderline disorder initially refuse to seek professional help. Provide them with a copy of my book and suggest they read the first two chapters. This may help them understand their potential problems well enough to agree to an initial appointment with a psychiatrist. Other people with borderline disorder are steadfast in their refusal of help. This, of course, is a major problem. Dr. Perry Hoffman, the founding president of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA-BPD) offers this advice: The best way of approaching this problem from my perspective is for one to accept that you cannot get someone into treatment. Timing is important as to when someone might be “open� to hearing the idea. But the bottom line is to free families of feeling guilty, and to understand that they are not so powerful to effect that goal. Along that line, relatives need to get help and support for themselves as they watch their loved one in the throes of the illness.
3. Support the Treatment Program Once in treatment, encourage and support your loved one with borderline disorder to regularly attend therapy sessions, to take medicine as prescribed, to eat, exercise, and rest appropriately, and to engage in wholesome recreational activities. If alcohol or other drugs are a problem, strongly support their efforts to abstain completely from these substances, and encourage regular attendance in treatment programs or self-help groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Remember, there is little hope of improvement of the symptoms of borderline disorder if alcohol and drugs are abused. It is very important that you remain persistent in your efforts to do everything possible to help reduce the risk of this behaviour, and not enable it.
4. Respond Consistently to Problematic Behaviours Develop a clear understanding (it may even be written) of the realistic consequences of recurring, problematic, destructive behaviours such as episodes of alcohol and drug abuse, physically selfdamaging acts, and excessive spending and gambling. Also, agree beforehand on how best to respond to threats and acts of selfharm. These and other problematic behaviours are often triggered by stressful events that need to be identified, and a clear plan developed for handling these events and situations more appropriately and effectively in the
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