ONLINE SELF-STUDY COURSE · MIREL GOLDSTEIN, LPC
Living with someone with a personality disorder
You can care about them without losing yourself.
When a family relationship leaves you drained, confused, or walking on eggshells, it can be hard to know what to do next. Learn practical tools for understanding the patterns, setting limits, and caring for yourself and your children.
WHEN HOME DOESN’T FEEL PEACEFUL
You’re carrying a lot.
Your needs matter, too.
Maybe things improve just enough for you to hope the hard part is over — only for the same cycle to return. Or the person everyone else sees is very different from the person you experience at home.
You don’t have to dismiss what you’re feeling. Naming what is happening can be a first step toward deciding how you want to respond.
Does any of this feel familiar?
You rehearse what to say, afraid a simple conversation will become an argument.
You question your own judgment after being dismissed, blamed, or invalidated.
You say yes to keep the peace — then feel exhausted, resentful, or invisible.
You worry about how the tension is affecting your children.
A DIFFERENT PLACE TO START
You can’t control their choices.
You can build your own tools.
This course is not about deciding for you whether to stay, leave, or cut someone off. It is about understanding what you can and cannot change — and approaching difficult interactions with more awareness and clearer limits.
Understand the pattern
Make sense of how emotions and thinking can shape difficult interactions, so you can respond with more clarity.
Communicate with more intention
Explore reflective listening and mentalization — ways to consider feelings and perspectives without abandoning your own.
Set clearer boundaries
Practice setting limits and saying no, even when guilt or pressure makes it difficult.
Support your children
Learn tools for navigating co-parenting and helping children talk about what they are experiencing.
Whether the relationship is with a partner, parent, sibling, or in-law, the focus is on the patterns you experience — not on diagnosing someone from a checklist.
INSIDE THE COURSE
Practical skills.
Your own pace.
An introduction, five weekly topics, and a review to help you make sense of difficult dynamics and explore new ways to respond.
The topics are organized by week, but this is a self-study course. Work through them in your own time, from home.
View course & enrollment- Introduction
Understanding personality disorders
An overview of healthy and unhealthy personality patterns.
- Week 1
How emotions affect thinking
Explore thinking errors and the role emotions play in personality disorders.
- Week 2
Reflective listening & de-escalation
Tools for responding to narcissistic patterns without getting pulled into the same argument.
- Week 3
Setting limits with manipulation
Work toward clearer boundaries when you feel pressured, guilted, or undermined.
- Week 4
Mentalization skills
Understand this approach to emotions and relationships in borderline personality disorder.
- Week 5
Co-parenting in a difficult relationship
Consider how to care for your children while navigating a partner’s personality disorder.
- Review
Bring the tools together
Revisit the course and consider how to apply what you have learned in your own life.
MEET YOUR COURSE CREATOR
Mirel Goldstein,
MS, MA, LPC
Mirel is an award-winning licensed therapist, published author, and expert on personality disorders with more than 20 years of clinical experience.
She created this course to help people understand what they’re dealing with and learn practical ways to care for themselves and their children in difficult family relationships.
Have a question for Mirel?Realistic tools, not magic answers
New skills take practice, and no course can guarantee that another person will change. This course is educational and is not a substitute for individual therapy, diagnosis, or a safety plan. A personality disorder does not automatically mean someone is abusive.
If you are experiencing threats, violence, or coercive control, prioritize safety and seek specialized support. In immediate danger, contact local emergency services.
You deserve more than
just getting through the day.
Start with understanding. Build practical skills. Take the next step toward caring for yourself — without having to figure everything out at once.