Poisoned Love: A True Story

By Melanie Cane

In 1993, Jimmy Breslin wrote a front page story for "New York Newsday" about Melanie Cane, a troubled young psychiatrist who 'let love take her too far.' Fifteen years later, Melanie tells her side of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193509811X
• ISBN13: 9781935098119
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Bascom Hill Pub Group Ltd
• Length: 395 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Intriguing reading on the dark side of deep affection

Love is a good thing, but too much of a good thing can be toxic. "Poisoned Love" is the reflections of Melanie Caine as she comes to realization of the mistakes she made as her love made her mentally ill and made her commit a crime that she now seriously regrets years later. Poignant and frank about her shortcomings as a person, she reveals that love may not always be the best motivation to do things in one's life. "Poisoned Love" is intriguing reading on the dark side of deep affection.

Fascinating and well written

I literally could not put this book down. Melanie Cane really gave us insight into her psychiatric illness and what it was like to grow up with a parent who also suffered from a mental illness. She is so honest about her feelings and really appears to leave out no details about her relationship with her boyfriend, "Luke," or her parents and doctors. I felt almost like a voyeur looking into her life, but she let us in, so I kept reading! Very well written. A definite page turner.

Outstanding!

I received this book only a few days ago, courtesy of a very nice woman at Bascom Hill Publishing Group. I had known the gist of the story (woman goes crazy, poisons her ex, gets committed, gets better), but I was unprepared for how intimate and tragic the telling of that story was going to be. Suffering from depression myself, I am unfortunately aware of the difficulties of living with a mental illness, but the heartrending pain that Melanie suffered as her rationality crumbled around her is far beyond anything like a run-of-the-mill mental illness. She had everything stacked against her: a severely mentally ill and abusive father, a resentful and angry mother, and an emotionally immature and abusive boyfriend. The rapidity and the extent of her recovery is staggering. She came out of her experience a better and more well-adjusted person than she had been before her breakdown. To those that would judge her (and have judged her), I would ask this: how would you have coped with the immense betrayal, pain, and abuse that Melanie went through? To retreat from reality seemed to be the only thing her mind would allow her to do. At times, the writing does seem a bit amateurish, and at times the author's descriptions of her illness and conversations with her doctors struck me as something from a psychiatry textbook...but then again, how else does a medical doctor explain her illness? The flow of the story also seemed stilted to me. Details were left out and referred to later as something that the reader should have known, and memory flashbacks were sometimes inserted into the story at awkward times. But all in all, this book is an engaging read, as Melanie allows her readers a most intimate glimpse into her pain and crumbling sanity. I would recommend this to everyone, as everyone can benefit from getting to know this highly intelligent and courageous woman.

Amazing Story

Poisoned Love by Melanie Cane is an amazing book. Not just because it is a thrilling and descriptive book about obsession, but because it is the first case study of its kind to explain the healing process. I write about crimes of the heart in my book, so this subject is not new to me. But what about afterwards? How to love addicts get help? What is the healing process? Melanie takes us here. In other words, this book picks up where Fatal Attraction leaves off. Not only is this a sad tale of love addiction, it is educational for love addicts and anyone who wants to understand love addiction from a first-person perspective. In Poisoned Love the reader is not left wondering how the author could have done these things. The roots of love addiction are spelled out. The author explains why she is a love addict by expounding on her relationship with her father. She goes on to elaborate on the trap that many love addicts fall into--falling in love with a seductive withholder, who, like her father gives mixed signals. Melanie spells this out for us. From the book . . . "I still couldn't understand. If he'd said he didn't love me, perhaps I could have accepted a hopeless situation and walked away. The tremendous inconsistency between his professed feelings [I love you] and his aversion to being with me confused and infuriated me." This is what fueled Melanie's obsession and the anger behind it. This is what caused Melanie to poison her lover. I can't say ex-lover, because he never really went away. He haunted Melanie with professions of love coupled with agonizing neglect. This is what turns a normal love addict (if there is such a term) to one who goes to far. Here is what is most important about this book. As we follow Melanie into treatment, we learn what is true of most loves addicts, that they suffer from some kind of underlying mental illness. Melanie exposes this and helps the reader understand that to get well, love addicts must go to the root of their problem by treating the underlying disorder. They must also treat other dual and subsidiary addictions like, alcoholism, anorexia, bulimia, overeating, drug addiction, compulsive shopping, gambling, sex addiction, etc. etc. In Melanie's case she had to treat her anorexia and borderline personality disorder--the two most common problems faced by love addicts. Melanie points out that recovery is an inside job. You must go back to the scene of the crime (your childhood), sort it all out, and then grieve as best you can. Then you must rebuild your life with the aid of this new understanding. It is as if the love addict must become a caterpillar all over again and experience a new and glorious metamorphosis--this time with sunshine, fewer weeds, an excellent caretaker, and enough water to grow into a beautiful butterfly. In conclusion, this book is more than an expose of the dangers of loving too much. It is a road map for recovery. Anyone who is fascinated by love addiction will find this book mesmer

Poisoned Love

Melanie Cane, M.D. tells a story that will absolutely astound you! Her story is one you "sort" of hear about, but never know for sure what happened! You will not be able to let this book sit by your night stand very long. Her story starts out with cancer and spirals downward from there. You just wonder how she is still alive and well today. Also how she was able to write a book that describes all of her life in detail. It will make you sit up and go, oh my gosh! You can feel her anguish as she describes in detail her conversations and her treatment during those awful years. The strange part about this story is, that you can see what the consequences of her actions are, but you still hope and pray that it doesn't go there. You can almost understand her reasoning of what she did, even though you know that she was not operating in a healthy body. Mental Illness is around all of us and to hear her tell her own story day by day, your compassion just rises to the surface. I have to give her 5 Stars, she deserves it, as well as the book deserves that kind of accolade.