Sleepwalker: The Mysterious Makings and Recovery of a Somnambulist

by Kathleen Frazier, Mark Mahowald (Foreword)

I came to in the middle of it, like waking inside a horror movie, silent scream and all. Eyes wide open. I was standing at an open window, staring at the dizzying curve of Riverside Drive, five floors below. I’d stopped, somehow, poised, about to jump.Growing up the good girl in an Irish American family full of drinkers and terrible sleepers, Kathleen Frazier was twelve when her seemingly innocent sleepwalking turned dangerous. Over the next few years, she was a popular A+ student by day, the star of her high school musical. At night, she both longed for and dreaded sleep.Frazier moved to Manhattan in the 1980s, hoping for a life in the theater but getting a run of sleepwalking performances instead. Efforts to abate her malady with drinking failed miserably. She became promiscuous, looking for nighttime companionship. Could a bed partner save her from flinging herself down a flight of stairs or out an open window? Exhaustion stalked her, and rest and love were seemingly out of reach.This is the journey Frazier illuminates in her intimate memoir. While highlighting her quest to beat her sleep terrors and insomnia, this is ultimately a story of health, hope, and redemption.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Health

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a lifelong sleepwalker and thought I would love this memoir, but I found it pretty frustrating, for a few reasons.

First, the author repeatedly (and I think unintentionally) conflates sleepwalking with mental illness, even though they are not at all the same. There is some acknowledgment of this at the end of the book, but the author continuously identifies sleepwalking as the source of many of her problems, when it is clear that nearly all of her problems (including her deep fear of being seen sleepwalking) stemmed from an abusive childhood, alcoholism, truly incredible issues with self-doubt and self-hatred, and a pathological obsession with how she is perceived by others.

Second, and this gets to personal reading preferences, the book contains many long passages wherein the author details her nights spent awake, her troubled thoughts, and her nightmares. I found these sections to be tedious and repetitive. If you like reading accounts of disordered thinking, these sections might be more interesting to you, but I found them boring and frustrating.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the author; she had a hard life. But this book is not really about sleepwalking. I have sleepwalked for my entire life, and when I do not take medication for it, I sleepwalk nearly every night. It is a frustrating and occasionally dangerous problem to have, but it became a much larger issue for the author because of her comorbid conditions, like alcoholism and mental health issues that caused her to suffer from severely low self-esteem. She blamed her problems on sleepwalking when it seemed that sleepwalking was among the least of her concerns.

A few positives: The author's descriptions of sleepwalking, night terrors, and waking up from an episode are very accurate. Additionally, she was successfully treated for sleepwalking, which is important for people to read.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sleepwalking isn't something I've ever been exposed to, but have always been curious about. I know the importance of sleep, and yet didn't realize how devastating sleepwalking could be for a person. This book captured me from the first page to the last. Kathleen shed a light on a dark, debilitating secret in hopes that others would find relief. Terrifying accidents, risky behavior, drinking to try to knock herself out so she wouldn't have to experience the pain of sleepwalking. Her journey proved that fierce determination to get well, access to quality medical care, and a little support from friends and loved ones makes all the difference. No doubt she can rest assured that this book will help so many who take sleep for granted or who are afraid to reach out for help for sleepwalking. It is possible to recover from sleepwalking. Kathleen Frazier is living proof.

[Carol R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to think sleepwalking was funny—maybe not exactly for the walker, but for the observer. I mean, how much fun would it be afterwards to make fun of the night walker? Then I read Frazier's book. I don't find sleepwalking funny anymore.

Frazier carefully describes her experiences of sleepwalking, night terrors and the memory losses associated with them. She talks of the family genetic links, the traumas that may have induced her terrors, and the fear of falling asleep that robbed her of years of quality life. She shares a harrowing experience that almost led to death, a death that would likely have been classified a suicide, as many sleepwalking deaths are.

She lets us in on what hope looks like—no magic potion, but a combination of therapy, behavioral modifications, and love. If you're a sleepwalker, her story will provide a pathway to wholeness. If you love someone who walks or you are a counselor, it will help you help sufferers. And if you simply love a well-told memoir, Sleepwalker certainly won't put you to sleep.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kathleen Frazier is a parasomniac or sleepwalker, born in 1960, the youngest of five children in an Irish Catholic family in Albany, NY. From the age of ten until her thirtieth birthday, her life was fraught with sleep terrors and episodes of sleepwalking that she could never remember afterwards. While hers was a loving family, both parents brought a lot of mental health baggage to the union - her father(a WWII decorated vet), was a supposedly recovered alcoholic who was also an insomniac and her mother also experienced episodes of sleep terror/walking. Early in the memoir, her oldest sibling, Billy, is sent home from Germany by the military after a suicide attempt. Frazier’s re-telling of her trip with her parents to a Veteran’s Psychiatric Hospital to meet with Billy’s doctors is stunning and harrowing and indelible. But this episode also foreshadows what is wrong with the book. Frazier is always in excess, in high gear, she can’t refrain from recounting every detail of her malignant dreams, her accidents, her alcohol binges. While it’s great to know how she found her way back to pleasant dreams and regular sleeping habits, it would have been better to have been more clinical and dispassionate....to provide more insight and less emotion to what works in the treatment of parasomnia. There are only so many retellings of other people’s bad dreams that one can handle before tedium sets in. There’s value in this book, but a better editor would have helped.

[Beverly Hollandbeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deep, dark memoir of a person who sleepwalked from a very young age, who knew that something was wrong, but did not seek help until in her early thirties. It was hard to empathize with, even though the night terrors she experienced were well told and very frightening. You just want to yell at her, WE CAN FIX THIS!!

[Carissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it but it didn't grab me and I ultimately abandoned it. It felt very long-winded and pointless. Probably better for people who can relate to sleep disorders.

[Michael O'hara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outcome

This was an exhausting story. No wonder the author was tired all the time. Kudos to her for emerging victorious from her long journey!

[Sara Goldenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

didn;t stick to the subject. disappointing

[Literary Mama]

From "Now Reading" by Literary Mama staff:

Creative Nonfiction Editor Rae Pagliarulo shares, "I can't imagine what it must be like to black out―to carry out actions and conversations with absolutely no conscious recollection. Luckily, I don't have to imagine because this month I read two books that cover very different aspects of the idea: Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola, and Sleepwalker: The Mysterious Makings and Recovery of a Somnambulist by Kathleen Frazier. Hepola gives a gripping account of her years of severe substance abuse, taking the reader through the shame and embarrassment that comes with not being able to answer the simple question, 'Do you remember what you did last night?' Hepola's account is scandalous and rimmed with debauchery―there were many moments when I wanted to yell, 'Put the drink down! You know what's going to happen!' But the young narrator doesn't listen, instead testing the limits of her own connection to reality, and her creation of a world that includes so many of her own bad decisions results in dizzying, claustrophobic prose that is enormously affecting. Conversely, Frazier's memoir reads more like an epic family history, tracing the lines of sleepwalking and addiction through the branches of her family tree. While Frazier overcomes her own substance abuse as well, it's not the abuse that kicks off her condition. The stories of the young narrator waking up in the middle of mortifying, strange, and sometimes seriously harmful behavior, broke my heart. Frazier maintains a steady, poetic, almost ethereal voice in her prose, giving the sleepwalking stories a dreamlike quality and muted edges. While these two books could not be more different, in the end, I was left feeling similarly haunted by the trouble a body without a conscious mind can find."

Literary Mama's full Now Reading post can be found here: http://www.literarymama.com/blog/arch...

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too Much Crying

This would have been a great medical article in The Washington Post, but as a book it was so full of angst and crying that I skimmed my way though it. Over and over she reaches a crisis and refuses to face her medical, emotional and family issues. I don't doubt that this is in fact how therapy and achieving good health can be, but as entertainment, it left a lot to be desired.
On a happier note, I did listen to several pieces of music unfamiliar to me before reading about in this book.

[Kira C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Candid and haunting, in Sleepwalker Ms. Frazier takes her experience out of the shadows in a captivating and unique memoir. Ms. Frazier's uncompromising storytelling puts her struggles with unclear diagnoses, tough family dynamics and her own journey onto the page. Sleepwalker is a testament to the fact that a woman with a mysterious health condition who lived with deep secrets can find and create a life of joy and brilliance.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book in a giveaway. I always thought sleepwalking was funny and as a kid we would tell stories. Boy was I wrong. This is scary and so not funny. Kathleen shed light on a very real problem that I didn't understand really existed. This book is a page turner. I recommend this book.

[Elaine Plourde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extraordinary book. I never realized that sleepwalking could be so traumatic . I'm amazed at the strength and courage this girl had after living with the problem for over twenty years.

[Elf Ahearn · Rating 5 out of 5]

So deeply heartfelt. I adored this book, and feel it ought to be required reading for every mental health professional.

[Chandru CS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanksgiving

Thanks you too and your family are doing well in school and and your mom and dad are going out