Author shares daughter’s journal entries during Borderline Personality Disorder treatments
Pat Engebrecht shares her family’s heartbreaking struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder in “When Love is Not Enough The Chronicles of LauraJo”.
Author shares daughter’s journal entries during Borderline Personality Disorder treatments
By Mel Fabrikant Thursday, August 16, 2012, 03:45 PM EDT
Pat Engebrecht shares her family’s heartbreaking struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder in “When Love is Not Enough The Chronicles of LauraJo”. For more than a decade, Pat Engebrecht and her family struggled to understand daughter LauraJo’s diagnosis, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In “When Love is Not Enough The Chronicles of LauraJo” (ISBN 1461185785), she explains what it was like to be the mother of a young woman with an illness that many in the medical community did not recognize as a legitimate diagnosis.
Engebrecht covers the journey her family took in chronological order through LauraJo’s journal entries and her personal points of view. When LauraJo was diagnosed with BPD in the mid-1970s, the medical community was highly suspicious of the disorder and slow to diagnose individuals, says Engebrecht. The family went from doctor to doctor at various hospitals, searching for the best medical treatments for their daughter.
LauraJo’s journal entries share her relationships with family members and friends as well as describing the various treatments from many different doctors: Freudian, chemical, bio feedback and her commitment to some of the best hospitals in the East. While watching their daughter deal with BPD and its effects, the family also had issues to face. Many medical experts pointed to poor parenting: abandonment, physical and sexual abuse as to the cause of BPD. Engebrecht and her family faced this implied accusation.
“Most books on BPD focus on diagnosis, treatment and medical information,” Engebrecht says. “This story offers an inside look at the disease. Readers get to learn about the disease through the eyes of my daughter.”
LauraJo dealt with this disease for a decade before taking her own life in 1987 to end a very long, torturous journey. Engebrecht believes her daughter wrote journal entries to help others suffering from illnesses that are often ignored in the medical community. While BPD is officially recognized by the medical community today, the author hopes that “When Love is Not Enough” provides the support and comfort that so many patients, family members and friends need to cope with this illness.
“When Love is Not Enough The Chronicles of LauraJo” is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.
About the Author: In addition to being a mother, Pat Engebrecht is an author, who has written poetry, articles and two young adult books. The New York Times reviewed her work “Under the Haystack,” which was also nominated for the Newbery Award. In addition to the literary world, she has made her mark in the world of construction with her company, L&L Developers.
Bon: Interestingly, the title “When Love is Not Enough” was the original title of my book “When Hope is Not Enough”.
2 Comments
Pingback:
Pingback: