Wendell Affield's Blog

15 November 2023
Governor Walz:

On October 7, 2023 we met at the Veteran Suicide Awareness event held in Bemidji. I shared with you my idea of “Once in a Lifetime” debt forgiveness to the state to those incarcerated, upon their release. You expressed great excitement at the concept. You handed my business card to your aide, Brandon Clark, and told him, “Don’t lose this, I want to get back to this man.” I send you this follow-up letter about my friend Tim’s future. Tim’s past behavior has been driven by lack of self-empathy, self-respect, hopelessness, and no sense of future. Let’s break the cycle.

In reviewing your 2023 Legislative Session DOC Impact Brief  I see several initiatives that will have a positive impact on Minnesota citizens who have paid their debt to society. However, I see an important piece missing, debt forgiveness. I believe it is a fiscally responsible idea. Tim, for example, owes the state about $95,000. As a released felon, fortunate enough to find an entry level job, how is he possibly expected to repay that?

I cannot find current data on Minnesota incarceration costs, but after studying available information, I estimate it must be at least $75,000 annually per inmate. Do the debt forgiveness math and you will see that the concept is a great investment for the state. And it adds a level of humanity and sense of future to the newly released citizen, thus lowering the risk of recidivism.

Let me share this cycle of self-destructive behavior.

Tim is released from prison to a halfway house. He is drug-free, in a good place psychologically, and is excited to be reunited with his children. Tim struggles to find a job because of his past behavior. When he does find work, he is enthusiastic, on a path to a new future. About the third paycheck, Tim’s wages are garnished for past due debt. Suddenly he is earning less than a livable wage. He spirals down into depression and hopelessness. Tim quits his job, begins selling/using drugs, theft, domestic abuse, homelessness. Eventually he is arrested and the cycle repeats. If one does the math and Tim’s debt is forgiven, perhaps we can break the cycle.

Tim is Native American, a member of White Earth Nation, and I believe, a victim of generational trauma. We read intellectual accounts of past trauma but let me share a personal experience with you. In 1960 my mother was committed to Fergus Falls State Hospital, and I was placed in a foster home with four little Native boys from Ponemah. At that time, Ojibwe was the first language in that remote community. I remember distinctly, the Beltrami County social worker directing the foster parents to not allow the children to speak Ojibwe. Many nights I snuck food up to three-year-old Ervin because he was sent to bed without supper as punishment. Those children were from the generation of Tim’s parents.

Tim is a microcosm of a great injustice. I firmly believe this “Once in a Lifetime” debt forgiveness plan can open a new path for many Minnesota citizens who, at this time, see no hope and no sense of future.

Here is a short television interview of my past community involvement:

https://lptv.org/local-veteran-honored-with-award-for-community-work/

Respectfully, Wendell Affield

I sent the above letter to the aide who took my card, with this note: Good morning, Mr. Clark, A few weeks ago, at the Veteran Suicide Awareness event held in Bemidji I visited for a few moments with Governor Walz about an idea I have to cut recidivism. He sounded quite interested. Attached is a follow-up letter I wrote to him. If you can please get it to him, I would appreciate it. Thank you, Wendell Affield

It’s been eight months since I sent the follow-up letter. It is quite apparent that Governor Walz was not truthful to me. Or else he needs a new aide.

The post DEBT FORGIVENESS: A PATHWAY TO CUT RECIDIVISM appeared first on Wendell Affield.

Historical/Generational trauma are terms we often hear linked to government boarding schools that were designed to assimilate Native American children to our European immigrant culture.  While researching a project I’m working on, the term “kerosene bath” popped up several times. An example, “[Native] Children were … cleansed with alcohol, kerosene, and synthetic pesticides.”

From https://www.midwesternstoriesbsu.com/people

The summer of 1960 my younger brother and I were placed in a foster home with four young Native American boys. Within half an hour of being dropped off by the welfare worker, we were forced to strip our clothes and get scrubbed down with kerosene. It was the “rule,” the old lady said. I’m quite certain the young Native boys were also forced through the same humiliating treatment. I share this memory story of that event; an excerpt from my memoir, PAWNS (2018), pages 276-280.

The Snake

Gray light filtered through dirty basement windows as the afternoon sun silhouetted brown lily-of-the-valley leaves stuck to the panes. No escape there. Too high. I could hold Randy up but even if he did manage to open the window and squirm out, he didn’t have anywhere to run.

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Randy, nine years old, standing; Wendell, twelve, sitting, August 1960 in our foster home. Our hair is beginning to grow back a few weeks after our buzz-cuts. We were ordered to smile for a picture to be sent to our mother who was committed to a the mental institution.

Water trickled from cracks in the concrete basement walls, saturating my ripped tennis shoes—always it seemed, I was growing out of my shoes. The smell of stale earth rose from the dampness. Cobwebs wove between dangling electrical wires and caught in my hair. In a corner, remnants of past seasons’ canned produce rested on metal shelves. A hose hung from a rusty spike that was anchored to an oak post in the center of the basement.

In the thin beam of light, a spider—the size of a .22 caliber bullet head—rappelled a silk thread from the ceiling joist. A chameleon frog the size of a penny leapt and caught the spider while it hung defenseless two inches above damp concrete. A thick garter snake shot from beneath the cement block furnace base. Jaws wide, he locked on the frog. From the snake’s mouth two legs convulsed frantically as webbed toes clawed concrete. I felt the silent scream of helplessness as the kicks weakened.

The woman stood between Randy and me and the worn wooden steps. Her thick red arms protruded from a faded tent dress. Her gray hair, wrapped in a tight bun anchored at the back of her head, stretched the skin of her wide round face and underscored the hairy mole on the side of her chin.

“Sit on that stool by the window,” she said. “I need to cut your hair.” I meekly sat down and she buzz-cut my head while Randy stood watching. “You’re next,” she pointed at him.

I silently slid off the stool and lifted Randy up. It only took her a few minutes. I lifted him down and we huddled below the window as she wrestled with the corroded faucet. As her work-calloused hands unwound the hose, water pressure straightened it, and small misty leaks sparkled tiny rainbows where the hose had kinked over the spike. Reaching quickly back to the valve, she turned it off with a mutter about not wasting water. Eyes never leaving us, she stepped over to the furnace, reached behind it, and lifted out a small kerosene can.

The garter snake, startled by the intruder, slithered from under the furnace, across the concrete, and into a wide crack at the base of the wall.

Sidling over to the potato bin, the woman picked up a dented baking pan and poured kerosene. She set the pan on the floor and moved back to the stairs where she felt for something on a step. Grasping it, she returned to the pan and set the object in the kerosene. It was an old animal scrub brush, the kind with a leather strap across the top. Towering over us, she ordered, “Take your clothes off and throw them in the stove.”

Randy began crying and shuffled behind me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Get undressed in front of this woman—this stranger? No way, not in a million years. We moved away from her toward the darkest corner of the basement.

Hose nozzle in hand, she turned the valve and stepped toward us. “Get those louse-infested clothes off. Now.” I looked past her toward the stairs. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned. “My husband is up there waiting for you.”

“I’m not getting undressed in front of you. I don’t even let my mother see me naked.”

“You’re twelve years old. I have custody of you and your brother. Now get undressed and no more back talk.”

How could we escape? I couldn’t leave Randy behind. I edged toward the furnace, shadowed by Randy. The woman shifted, staying between us and the stairs. “What’s taking so long down there? I’ve got hay to put up and I need the big boy to help me,” yelled a voice from the top.

“They don’t want me to see them naked. You boys get undressed. Now.”

“If you leave us alone we’ll clean up and come upstairs when we’re done,” I bargained.

Cold water hit me in the face. “No more playing. I said to get undressed. Do it now. If he has to come down, you’ll be sorry.”

Randy’s snuffles grew into a wail. “What are we going to do? Why does she have that pan of gas? Is she going to burn us in the stove with our clothes?”

“No one’s going to burn anyone,” the woman said. “You need to strip your filthy clothes and scrub in kerosene and soap to get rid of the lice.”

Kerosene. I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t have lice. Besides, kerosene burned. But there was no escape. Slowly I pulled my shirt off. “Let’s just do it, Randy. We’ll be all right.”

With Randy naked and my shirt and shoes off, the woman picked the dripping brush from the kerosene and told me to scrub Randy. “Keep your eyes tight shut and start with the hair. Soak it good, then scrub. Work your way down, between the legs, and down to the feet.”

We didn’t have any hair left. I held my hand on Randy’s forehead, shielding fuel from his eyes. But he screamed, rubbing them as kerosene leaked in.

“Keep scrubbing. We’ll rinse it out when we soap him down. Shut up, boy. You want my husband down here?” She grasped Randy by the neck and bent him over. “Spread your legs, scrub up between, get those critters out.”

Satisfied with the fuel scrub, she produced a Lava soap bar and a tattered washcloth from her apron pocket. “Soap him down with this, then it’s your turn,” she ordered, and drenched Randy with the hose. I lathered Randy’s hair, telling him to keep his eyes tight shut.

“They burn,” Randy complained. I scrubbed until the woman grunted in satisfaction. She hosed the fuel-Lava paste from Randy while I held him by the wrist as he tried to dodge the cold water.

“At the top of the steps you’ll find a towel and some fresh clothes. Leave the towel for your brother. It’s your turn now,” she added, eyes directed at me. “Take those pants off and start scrubbing. You know what to do.”

There was no way out. I glanced about the cold basement, knowing I was trapped. At the top of the stairs, the man’s voice soothed a sniffling Randy. Perhaps the old man would rescue me. The woman, as if reading my thoughts, warned me again not to even think about it. Tears welled as I begged her not to make me get undressed.

“Take those pants off. Now.”

I undid my belt, eyes locked on the snake’s haven. My back to the woman, I stepped out of the wet trousers ringing my ankles. She told me to start scrubbing. One hand covering my front, I picked up the brush and held it to my scalp. Kerosene poured down, across my eyelids and over my cheeks. Rivulets merged on my chin and trickled to my chest. The woman grabbed my arm and demanded the brush. I opened my eyes in panic, fuel flooding in. My shielding hand came up as I rubbed burning eyes.

“No more lice in them.”

Clutching my wrist, she dipped the brush and scrubbed. I stood sobbing, hands covering my front. That night I lay awake in a moonbeam on a sweat-stained bed beside Randy, reflecting on our situation.

Randy and I joined four Red Lake Nation Native brothers in this foster home: Peter, the oldest, Lance and Lars—twins—and Ervin, a toddler, who could only speak Ojibwe. I was the oldest at twelve. The social worker told the foster parents to allow only English to be spoken, so many evenings over the next year, Ervin went to bed without supper as a punishment.

Later, after the old people had gone to sleep, I tiptoed down to the kitchen and made Ervin a sandwich and got him a cup of water. As I look back, I think the woman knew I brought Ervin food because in the morning she’d sometimes wink and smile at me with a comment about a mouse getting in the fridge. I remember them as decent people. I think that during the 1950s and ’60s it was common for farm families to become foster parents when all of their own kids had grown up and left home. It was an additional source of income to fill those vacant bedrooms, and we were cheap labor. I spent that summer harvesting hay—just as I had done at home.

A few years ago I discovered Lars’ obituary online and realized that he was one of the homeless men I often saw wandering around Bemidji. He had died at Peoples Church, a homeless shelter in Bemidji, MN. Lars was fifty-three years old when he died. It’s a heart-wrenching story. “He was preceded in death by his parents, three sisters and four brothers, including his twin brother Lance,” reads the obituary. I’d heard that Lance died in a fight.  I wondered how the foster home experience impacted their lives, ripped from their Ojibwe culture and forced into the white man’s world.

Peter and Randy became close friends. Several years later, after we all returned to our homes, Peter and Randy played baseball on opposing teams. By then I was in the Navy, but I imagine that they got together socially. Not long ago, my sister Laurel and I were visiting and discussing that era, and she commented that the Native girls she lived with were the sisters of the boys Randy and I lived with.

64 years later, as I revisit that experience, I wonder how many other foster children from that era were subjected to a kerosene scrub down?

The post Kerosene Scrub down appeared first on Wendell Affield.

Testing

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More than five decades ago I patrolled the rivers of Vietnam. Four decades later, I told my stories. I was recently invited to participate in an interview about Vietnam War literature that influenced me. The top five books t are listed, but there were also countless other narratives that I learned from, including the World War I British poets, Graves, Sassoon, and Owen. Poetry is truly the eye to our soul.

I invite you to explore my interview at The best Vietnam war books that explore waste and loss (shepherd.com)

The best Vietnam war books that explore waste and loss

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By Wendell Affield

 

The post Interview on Vietnam War Books That Influenced Me appeared first on Wendell Affield.

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23 years ago, “Buddha” Ed Thomas died alone in an isolated cabin in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We had lost contact 31 years earlier when I was medevac’d out of an ambush during our Vietnam adventure.  Through a series of events, we had reconnected a few years before he died. I came to realize that if I didn’t tell our stories they would die with me. Thirteen years after Buddha’s death, MUDDY JUNGLE RIVERS was published. I am humbled by the positive comments from old riverboat sailors who patrolled the rivers of our youth.

 

Epilogue

As the years passed, I thought of my fellow crewmen often. In 1991, when I discovered Buddha’s telephone number through a Mobile Riverine Force Association (MRFA) reunion bulletin, I decided to contact him. I hoped to finally lay to rest my yearning to know what had happened to my old crewmates.

During the time we served together, the rest of the guys and I had thought of Buddha as a tyrannical alcoholic who made unreasonable demands upon us. We would gather on the boat’s stern as he snored in his bunk in the well-deck, and complain about his dictatorial ways, shaking our heads. My hand trembled as I dialed Buddha’s number. When I finally said his name into the phone, I wasn’t prepared for his reaction.

“Hello?” A gravelly voice answered.

“Buddha?”

“This is Ed Thomas,” he answered. Silence for a moment. Then he said softly, “Some people called me Buddha long ago.”

“Buddha. This is Afe. From Tango 11.”

“Afe?” he said very quietly. “Afe?” he said again, this time his voice gruff, the same as I remembered. “I’ve been looking for you for twenty-four years.” The phone went silent. I thought I had lost the connection. Then he coughed and continued. “They told me your medevac chopper got shot up but nobody knew what happened to you.” Another pause. I heard Buddha’s sharp intake of breath. “When we got back to the Benewah two days after the ambush, nobody knew what had happened to you.”

He pulled his breath in again and let it out in a sob. “I tried to find you. You were gone.”

I was shocked by his emotion. This was not the same person I had known on the boat. After he regained his composure, after we had caught up on our lives, he told me it was the anniversary of Tango 7—the day she had hit the mine. “It should have been us,” he whispered.

Buddha lived ten hours from me, in the Upper Peninsula. That autumn, as I drove north on Forest Highway 13 through afternoon drizzle, my mind drifted back to Vietnam. Saturated maple branches hung low in the overhead canopy like nipa palms on jungled riverbanks. Ferns and tag alders provided perfect camouflage for ambushers along the shoulders. I caught myself watching for trails in wet grass, unnatural branch configurations, braced for that first rocket. I stopped behind a jackknifed logging truck. Exhaust permeated the haze, and again I tasted our boat’s diesel fumes as we idled on fog-shrouded rivers.

Buddha’s cabin was rough, unpainted chipboard inside and out. A hand pump supplied water to the sink which drained onto the sand just beyond the wall. No hot water. An outhouse. We spoke long into the night, Buddha drinking Johnny Walker, ice, and Coke, while I nursed a warm beer. He told me what he knew of the men, the rumors he had heard over the years.

Buddha said he heard a rumor that Crow had committed suicide after he got out of the Navy and the black sergeant had recovered from his wounds—receiving the Silver Star. He didn’t say anything about Snipe, just shook his head when I asked a second time. Buddha said he saw Stonewall in Norfolk about a year after they returned from Vietnam. They had a few drinks, agreed to get together, but Buddha never saw him again. He had no idea what happened to Dennis or Professor.

Buddha seemed to go for days without eating. On the woodstove that heated the cabin, there was an open pot of bean soup simmering. I ate some the first day and found it laced with dog hair. Three days later, after the soup had gone cold at night when the stove burned out and warmed again in the morning when rekindled, the soup had fermented. Buddha swore it was okay.

During one of my visits, Buddha and I attended the MRFA reunion in Chattanooga and renewed acquaintance with crewmen from other boats. I listened as a radioman who was on a boat behind us related how he remembered August 18th.

Steve told the story to a group of guys, each holding a can of Budweiser, perched on chairs in a circle around him. Steve had watched our boat, in the heart of the kill zone, receive countless rounds of enemy machine gun fire and seven rocket hits. His arms exploded into the air with each description of another rocket blast, his beer foaming over the top and down his knuckles. He slurped the bubbling head, licked the foam from his drooping mustache and described the wildly careening boat. His voice lowered, his tone changing as he described the radio commands, the three times other boats were ordered along side, believing us dead.

That weekend, among the old crewmen, we were young again, back on the river. Laughing at good memories, going silent when bad times reared their head. Buddha seemed nervous—tremors in his hands at times. And I recalled those mornings in the well-deck of our boat when his hands shook as he poured sugar into his C-ration coffee. On our drive back to Michigan at the end of the reunion, Buddha talked animatedly about the addition he planned for his cabin. He seemed to have a new spark after visiting old friends. But it didn’t last.

I’d get over to the U.P. at least once a year, hoping for a meaningful visit. Each time I turned onto Old Plank Road near Wetmore, I knew I was entering a quagmire. Visits blurred together, always the same. Buddha would drift back to our arrival in the Mekong Delta at the height of the Tet Offensive in early February 1968, our time up north on Task Force Clearwater, keeping the Cua Viet River open. And always he would amplify memories of countless combat operations and patrols, slurring sentences, trailing into silence. About 4:00 a.m., he’d drop his tobacco wad on the counter, shuffle off to bed, and begin snoring. He would sleep until late in the morning, stretching and coughing as he crawled from beneath the single wool blanket. He’d pack yesterday’s chew under his lip, walk Izzie and Yooper—two chocolate Labradors—then return to the cabin and mix a drink.

[image error]Wendell Affield and “Buddha” Ed Thomas in Buddha’s cabin in the Upper Penninsula. Flag from our Vietnam Riverboat. Picture taken about a year before Buddha died.

It was disconcerting how our roles had reversed. As boat captain he had attempted to micro-manage every facet of our lives. Now, from his isolated cabin in the U.P., he was seeking reassurance, a validation for our time in Vietnam. During one visit I suggested he make an appointment at a VA hospital and talk to somebody about his Vietnam memories. I mentioned an article I had read, about a new diagnosis for vets experiencing flashbacks—post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “Only pussies go crying to a shrink,” had been his response. I didn’t bring it up again.

Over the years, between my visits to the U.P., he’d call me in the early morning hours, incoherent, lost in the past. A past so distorted I no longer recognized it. A past he drank himself into, alone. He wanted closure. He needed to see the old boat crew. He gave me a list—their full names and service numbers. Asked me to help find them. In his midnight ramblings he became obsessed with our time in Vietnam. Early winter 1999 I received a package. A large, hand-painted plaque with the Mobile Riverine Force symbol, my name, and T-112-11, our boat number. On the back, it said, To Afe—A River Rat. A Long Awaited Thanks. Edward W. Thomas.

During our last visit, Buddha was tormented by the smells of Vietnam. “Do you remember that stink?” he said. “Christ. I’ll never forget it.” He looked down at his whiskey, his eyes wide and staring. “Sometimes I wake up at night and smell it—the smoke, the charred flesh, the rotting vegetation. Then he started to laugh as if he were telling a good joke. “Do you remember that old papason who tried to sell us dope from his sampan? I think he shit himself when I pulled my .38 and yelled didi mau. Fuck he stunk of nuoc mam. Crow was pissed. He wanted to sell the pot in Dong Tam,” Buddha said, his eyes almost closed, his drink sloshing over the glass as he tried to steady himself against the chipboard wall. “But I fixed that chickenshit bastard good after we got back from the August 18th ambush. Stuck the .38 barrel in his mouth and made him clean the well-deck, cox’n flat, and the 50 cal where that sergeant got splattered. Made him scrub out every speck of blood and meat.” He laughed again, as if the image of Crow scrubbing blood off the deck was funny. Then he dropped into his chair. Just when I thought he might have fallen asleep, he lifted his head again, squinting, slurring his words. “Blow-flies, fat blue bastards—had to get rid of them.”

When I left the next day, Buddha walked me to my truck. He reached through the pickup window to shake my hand, hanging on a little too long. “Thanks for coming, Afe. I mean it.”

A few months later I opened the summer edition of River Currents, our MRFA newsletter. There, staring at me was a picture of Boat Captain “Buddha” Edward Thomas III clutching the M60 machine gun I had retrieved from a helicopter knocked down during a North Vietnamese artillery bombardment on Cua Viet Naval Base in March 1968. The caption below the picture read, “The association mourns the loss of one of its founding members.” Buddha had died alone in his cabin, a victim of diabetes and a brain aneurysm.

Once again, I felt like that twenty-year-old cox’n. Cut off. Not privy to details, my world limited to the view through one inch slits in the armor surrounding the cox’n flat, asking questions without answers. Why, since the dawn of civilization, are leaders so eager to send young men and women off to war? Why were some veterans able to shake the trauma off and go on with their lives? Why had Buddha wasted his last years on whiskey and memories?

I came to realize how much I cared about Buddha. He changed from that tyrannical boat captain he had once been. He was a touchstone to my past—our past. I felt guilt. If I had made an effort—found some of the old crew—maybe Buddha might have taken a different tack. Perhaps he would have chosen a better life. Perhaps he would have moved beyond the memories of Vietnam.

The seasons pass. Each time I see my children and grandchildren, guilt rises, like bile in the throat. Guilt that I’m alive, have lived a full life when so many others didn’t have a chance. Spring, my grandchildren and I search for purple May flowers and pink trilliums. Summer, the little girls have cow-calling contests and we’re quickly surrounded by the herd. Autumn, we feed the ponies acorns and cob corn and carve jack-o-lanterns. Winter we make snow angels, let the pony pull us on sled rides, and come in to steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

Over the years, in my mind, I speak to those silent ones, those ghosts, always asking why I have been allowed this time. Why I am here to hold my wife and grandchildren close, to cherish each day.

The post Cost of War MUDDY JUNGLE RIVERS–Epilogue appeared first on Wendell Affield.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) seems to have become a hot topic this year. From Amber Heard to Disney’s “Night Moon,” personality disorders have suddenly become part of public conversation. This was not the case when I first started researching and writing about BPD over a decade ago. For me, interest in this subject was not fueled by Hollywood or celebrity gossip. It was personal.

My mother, Barbara, struggled with Borderline Personality Disorder. In the 1950s, as children, her erratic behavior was our normal. Eventually she was committed to a state institution and we children were placed in foster homes. Not until 70 years later, when I inherited a treasure-trove of family documents my mother had kept hidden, did I learn the details about her life-long struggle.

When I first broached the idea of writing a book on Barb’s life, I began reading mental health literature about schizophrenia. I often came across the term Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While killing time between flights in a concourse kiosk, I discovered Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified by Robert O. Friedel. By the time my plane landed several hours later, pages of Friedel’s book were dog-eared and underlined. Notes filled margins with phrases such as, “This is Barb,” or “her rage,” or “hatred toward Herman” or “estranged from family.” During that first read of Friedel’s book, I realized that today Barb would probably be diagnosed with BPD. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) states, “BPD is a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, and marked impulsivity.”

Adolph Stern first used the term “borderline personality” in 1938 to describe patients who did not fit the standard classification system. At that time they were often diagnosed as schizophrenic. Thus my grandmother’s conclusion that Barb was schizophrenic makes sense, and I can begin to understand her frustration and lack of empathy with her daughter’s behavior.

In The Everything Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder, Constance M. Dolecki, MS PhDc, writes, “Parentification is a process in which parents turn to their children to parent them.…They also look to the child to take care of them—plan meals, clean, cook, keep them on schedule, etc.” Dolecki’s description summarizes my childhood.

Over the past decade, I continued to study BPD. Marsha M. Linehan’s Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder section on “Characteristics of Invalidating Environments” was very illuminating as I juxtaposed Linehan’s findings to primary source documents from my mother’s early life and the relationship she had with her parents—especially a child’s sense of abandonment.

Several psychiatric disorders may co-occur with BPD including many of the mood disorders and personality disorders. Barb presented with symptoms of several disorders over the course of her life, including eating disorders. I single out symptoms of two possible comorbid disorders that my primary source documents chronicle. 

First, PTSD commonly co-occurs with Borderline Personality Disorder because both disorders are most often the result of trauma. Early in Barb’s life, she was exposed to traumatic events.

Second, and I think of greater impact, dissociation is a common characteristic of BPD. But at what point does dissociation become so extreme that it progresses from a characteristic of one disorder to a comorbid—additional—disorder? 

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is controversial. A primary cause of DID is attributed to a coping mechanism to deal with severe trauma. Some in the mental health profession do not believe it exists. Over the course of six decades, I witnessed Barb display bizarre behavior—at times violent.

Early letters document Barb accusing schoolmates of stealing things only for her to find them later. People suffering dissociative identity disorder harbor alternate personalities (alters) that perform specific tasks—revealing themselves as alter fragments. In later life Barb often wrote grocery lists in French. A person with dissociative identity disorder can speak a foreign language when an alter is in control.

In 1939, Barb was involved with a Polish soldier named Zdzislaw “Kristaw” Konopka. In researching Konopka, I discovered that his brother was a priest and two of his sisters were nuns in the Catholic Church. They died during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Konopka was forty-six years old and a Major in the Polish Army (Barb was nineteen in 1939. She had a preference for older men—later, two of her husbands were fifteen years older than she was.)

Barb was fluent in Latin. I can imagine her convincing a Church official that she was of the Catholic faith. Did Barb, in the hysteria of approaching war—less than two weeks out—become a member of the Catholic Church and marry the Polish Major? I found evidence that he was captured by the Russian army and murdered in the Katyn Forest Massacre.

When Barb later told my stepfather, Herman, “Don’t be sacrilegious—he is the head of my church,” was that a Catholic alter speaking? Did Barb, in her acute stress of escaping Poland and abandoning her school friend and new husband six days before the Wehrmacht invaded, unconsciously create a new alternate personality to shelter her from the trauma she was living? An alter that despised German men? Is that why she often referred to Herman as an ignorant German immigrant and a Nazi stormtrooper?

Barb changed her name to Linda in 1948.

Was it the alter Linda who married Schoenwandt in 1948, and Herman in 1950? Was it the alter Linda who kept my brother, Tim, home for sixty-four school days in 1951? Barb signed all four quarters of his report card, Mrs. L. [Linda] Affield.

The afternoon Barb proposed to the neighbor while Herman and we children listened—was that Linda or another alter?

Was it an alter who danced naked on the table while her children watched? An alter who beat me when I was a child; who terrified me to the point that I jumped out a second story window to escape from her? Was it an alter who refused to unlock her door in the dead of night during a violent storm to give her children shelter? Was it an alter speaking, when Barb wrote to her mother in the 1960s: “I’m still your little girl”? We’ll never know the answer to those questions, but as I reflect on Barb’s journey, I’m amazed at her resilience.

In The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook, Deborah Bray Haddock, writing about bodywork therapy and memory, says, “An individual never completely forgets what has happened to her in the past. Sometimes, though, those memories have been dissociated and stored very far away, like stacks of boxes packed away in the corner of a basement.” (p. 166).

Had a community of alter fragments relegated those “boxes” of memories to the chickenhouse for me to later discover? Had Barb, as a final act a few days before she died, regained control and put me in charge so her story would be told?

In 2021, my book BARBARA, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder released. I am currently giving away 10 copies of the book. Register below by June 8 to enter.

ENTER GIVEAWAY

The post Book giveaway: “BARBARA, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder.” appeared first on Wendell Affield.

Like Amber Heard, my mother had Borderline Personality Disorder. Even as a victim of her abuse, my feelings are complicated.[image error]

My mother, Barbara, with five of her children, in 1951. I am pictured far right, in the suit jacket.

by Wendell Affield

The Heard/Depp lawsuit strikes close to home. I grew up with a mother who struggled with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the 1950s, as children, her erratic behavior was our normal. Eventually she was committed to a state institution and we children were placed in foster homes. Not until 70 years later, when I inherited a treasure-trove of family documents my mother had kept hidden, did I learn the details about her life-long struggle.

I empathize with the pirate, Johnny Depp. My mother wore many masks: Like Amber Heard, my mother was highly intelligent and could deceive the most discerning person with her charm. But I recall another, not public side of her. Sadly, fear of abandonment, rage, deception, and self-injurious behavior are memories I carry more than seven decades later.

[image error] My mother, Barbara, in 1945.

In 1949 she placed an advertisement in Cupid’s Columns, a singles newspaper. She advertised herself as a great cook, knew how to farm, and her four children would be great helpers to a perspective farmer-husband. Our move to rural Minnesota proved to be a nightmare. During the next decade, my mother ran away from an abusive relationship, only to return rather than be alone.

Her rage knew no bounds. An imagined wrong earned the transgressor a sit-on-the-head beating until nearly unconscious. When I was about eight, she chased me upstairs and I jumped out the second story window to escape. I recall countless times, she would harangue my stepfather, a mild-mannered man, until he would mutter, “enough is enough,” take off his belt and thrash her. Seldom was she without bruises. My mother insisted on safeguarding any money we children might get—a dollar from our grandmother, a few dollars from pelts I sold from the weasels and muskrats I trapped—but when I would ask for money for something, it was never there and resulted in a beating if I insisted, because I had to buy my own clothing and shoes.

Seventy years later I carry winter mittens for homeless people I see with bare hands—I remember a little boy’s freezing fingers.

But I empathize with Amber Heard, too. Borderline Personality Disorder is a disease, not a choice. As my friend Dr. Petersen says, “Even today, treatment for mental disorders is still in the Dark Ages compared to many other diseases.” Sadly, my mother lived her whole life struggling with BPD. How can one measure the affects her behavior had on her nine children?

I would suggest that if, in fact, Amber Heard does struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder, she should receive the mental help I wish my own mother could have had. This very public trial is exactly what she doesn’t need. 

Wendell Affield is the author of several nonfiction books, including BARBARA, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder. Read Barbara’s story and learn more about BPD here. To learn more about the author’s childhood, read his memoir, Pawns: The Farm, 1950, Nebish, MN.

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Barbara, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder is the culmination of a decade researching over one thousand pages of primary source documents and interviewing mental health professionals as Affield learns to understand and appreciate the woman who haunted his childhood.

After Affield’s mother, Barbara, dies in 2010, Affield unlocks the chickenhouse door on the farm he grew up on in northern Minnesota and discovers 200 years of family history, including clues to the riddle of who his father is. Over the next ten years, Affield studies thousands of primary source documents and discovers the story behind the eccentric woman he had been forced, as a child, to call Mommy Darling.

Barbara, Uncharted Course is the startling journey of one woman’s struggle to navigate a maelstrom of rage, impulsiveness, broken relationships, and a skewed sense of abandonment. Born into affluence and privilege in 1920, Barbara attends private schools in California and Connecticut, but as a teenager, borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms begin to manifest.

Taught by the famous pianist, Emile Bosquet at Institut Droissard, Brussels, Belgium, Barbara’s natural talent blossoms. Mouse-gnawed 1939 documents reveal Barbara’s impulsive engagement (and possible marriage) in Poland, and her narrow escape from the Nazi invasion. Upon her return to New York, after dropping out of Juilliard School, Barbara begins a decade of running from her problems, leaving a wake of failed marriages and rendezvous resulting in four children. Feeling abandoned by her family and searching for a new start, she posts an advertisement in Cupid’s Columns that is answered by a bachelor farmer in northern Minnesota.

The first two sections of the book explore Barbara’s childhood and young adulthood. Part three chronicles Affield’s search for his biological father and the labyrinth leading to a breakthrough. Acceptance by his new-found family is an incredible testament to the power of love.

In the foreword, William M. Petersen, MD, said “I likely have never observed a more difficult and severely perplexing patient with Borderline Personality Disorder than Wendell’s mother, Barbara….”

Barbara, Uncharted Course is an insightful resource for anyone wanting to better understand BPD. It is also a moving picture of forgiveness as the author humanizes his mother despite their complicated relationship.

Read SampleBuy the BookBe Part of the Launch Team

You can help Affield get this book out into the wild! Members of the launch team will get great prizes and be part of a literary community as they read the book with other fans from across the country.

Launch Team Details

The post NOW AVAILABLE: Barbara, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder appeared first on Wendell Affield.

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You can help get Barbara, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder out into the world by joining Wendell’s Launch Team. Anyone in the U.S. is eligible to join. The only fee or requirement is that you purchase one copy of the book!

What is a Book Launch Team?

A Book Launch Team is a group of readers and fans who spend a short period of time reading and discussing the book online, then write public reviews and share about the book on their own social platforms.

What Team Members Get

Meet new, likeminded friends in our private Facebook group.

Get to know Wendell better and interact with him behind-the-scenes.

Participate in two group video chats with Wendell and other Team Members in book-club-style conversations.

EVERY member will get an ebook of the first two Chickenhouse Chronicles books. Already own them? You can gift them to friends!

Select winners will earn discounts to BetterHelp online counseling service and Ancestry.com. You can use these coupons for yourself or gift to someone you love.

What Team Members Do

Buy a print copy of Barbara, Uncharted Course.

Participate in the discussions as much or little as their schedule allows–there are no time commitment requirements!

Write a review of the book and post on Amazon.com, WendellAffield.com or other book platforms. (Reviews can be short, even just three sentences is OK! And you can use the same review on each platform.)

Post about the book on your own social media pages.

Being part of this team is FREE. The only fee is the cost of the book.

The Launch Team for Barbara, Uncharted Course will run from Monday, November 29 through December 17. Deadline to register for the team is November 28th.

Although you need a copy of the book to participate, you do not need it to register for the Launch Team. You can register today! We will send out reminders to purchase the book once it launches on November 20th. If you order online and don’t get your book in time for the Launch Team activities to begin, we will provide a partial PDF of the first few chapters to get you by until your physical book arrives (receipt number or proof-of-purchase will be required.)

Join the Team

The post Join the Launch Team appeared first on Wendell Affield.

Chickenhouse Chronicles Book 3 Launching November 2021

Barbara, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder is the culmination of a decade of research and interviews with mental health professionals as Affield learns to understand and appreciate the woman who haunted his childhood.

After Affield’s mother, Barbara, dies in 2010, Affield unlocks the chickenhouse door on the farm he grew up on in northern Minnesota and discovers 200 years of family history, including clues to the riddle of who his father is. Over the next ten years, Affield studies thousands of old documents and discovers the story behind the eccentric woman he had been forced, as a child, to call Mommy Darling.

Barbara, Uncharted Course is the startling journey of one woman’s struggle to navigate a maelstrom of rage, impulsiveness, broken relationships, and a skewed sense of abandonment. Born into affluence and privilege in 1920, Barbara attends private schools in California and Connecticut, but as a teenager, borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms begin to manifest.

Taught by the famous pianist, Emile Bosquet at Institut Droissard, Brussels, Belgium, Barbara’s natural talent blossoms. Mouse-gnawed 1939 documents reveal Barbara’s impulsive engagement (and possible marriage) in Poland, and her narrow escape from the Nazi invasion. Upon her return to New York, after dropping out of Juilliard School, Barbara begins a decade of running from her problems, leaving a wake of failed marriages and rendezvous resulting in four children. Feeling abandoned by her family and searching for a new start, she posts an advertisement in Cupid’s Columns that is answered by a bachelor farmer in northern Minnesota.

The first two sections of the book explore Barbara’s childhood and young adulthood. Part three chronicles Affield’s search for his biological father and the labyrinth leading to a breakthrough. Acceptance by his new-found family is an incredible testament to the power of love.

In the foreword, William M. Petersen, MD, said “I likely have never observed a more difficult and severely perplexing patient with Borderline Personality Disorder than Wendell’s mother, Barbara….”

Barbara, Uncharted Course is an insightful resource for anyone wanting to better understand BPD. It is also a moving picture of forgiveness as the author humanizes his mother despite their complicated relationship.

Read Sample

The post COMING SOON: Barbara, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder appeared first on Wendell Affield.