writer Jenn Dean
: memoir
Borderline Personality Disorder is more prevalent than bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, affecting around 18 million Americans. Yet not many people have heard of it, and effective treatment wasn't developed until the 1990s. Even today, many therapists don't believe in it, or refuse to treat borderline individuals. The House of My Sleepless Nights examines in telling detail what it was like to grow up with a parent with undiagnosed and untreated Borderline Personality Disorder.
Upon finding a canister full of her infant brother’s bones in a crematorium in upstate New York, Jenn sets out on a quest to uncover what happened to her family and why, along the way examining the complicated effect this had on her life. The House of My Sleepless Nights reflects upon what it was like to emerge from the terrors of a childhood spent in the shadow of someone with this confusing and misunderstood disorder.
After not seeing her mother for over 25 years, she visits the woman who controlled her childhood. What she discovers ultimately changes the shape of her own life: after a cross-country move, Jenn overcomes a long bout with chronic pain and anxiety and leaves a 13 year marriage, along the way rediscovering her childhood passion for birdlife and conservation.