The first love in our lives is our mother. It is vital for us to recognize her face, her voice, the significance of her moods, and her expressions. Christine Ann Lawson empathetically and understandably describes how children of borderline mothers suffer from mood swings and psychotic episodes, desperately seeking strategies to cope with these experiences. Borderline mothers present themselves to their children in four different roles: as the neglected mother, the hermit, the queen, and the witch. Lawson demonstrates how to care for the neglected mother without feeling the need to save her, how to support the hermit without amplifying her fears, how to love the queen without being her subject, and how to coexist with the witch without becoming her victim.