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Barbara: Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder
BARBARA, Uncharted Course Through Borderline Personality Disorder is a riches-to-rags tale about an extraordinarily talented, troubled young woman. After Barbara's death in 2010, the author Wendell Affield discovered thousands of documents locked in a rodent-infested chickenhouse. Having spent his childhood living with his mother's mental illness, Affield studies the contents in an effort to understand his mother's life and search for clues to his biological father.BARBARA, PARTS I and II, explore Barbara's two-decade downward spiral as she struggles with borderline personality disorder (BPD). 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.BARBARA, Part III, chronicles the author's search for his biological father as Barbara’s story begins to reveal clues to the man’s identity. With the help of a genealogy wizard and an Ancestry.com DNA test, the author is guided through another years-long research journey filled with emotional upheaval that ultimately leads to acceptance and welcome by a newfound family.The Chickenhouse Chronicles is a series of cross-genre, standalone books that do not need to be read in any order.
398 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 18, 2021
3 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Wendell Affield
4 books45 followersIt’s one thing to write a book; it’s another to live it.
Wendell Affield never knew his father. His childhood was punctuated by a volatile mother and an unpredictable stepfather. At twelve he and his siblings were placed in foster homes, his mother committed to a mental hospital. At sixteen he rode the rails out west and lived in hobo camps. At seventeen he enlisted in the navy. At twenty, he was wounded in an ambush while driving a river patrol boat in Vietnam and medevaced home.
Affield retired from the food industry in 2001. He attended Bemidji State University (BSU) to learn the writing craft. His Vietnam “memory stories” evolved into a memoir, Muddy Jungle Rivers, which won the Minnesota Veterans Voices award in 2017. The memoir has opened surprising new paths. Today he speaks to groups about PTSD and leads an Expressive Writing Therapy group for veterans.
In 2010 Affield discovered a treasure trove of family history, dating back to 1822, in the chickenhouse on the family homestead in northern Minnesota. Each day as he works on the stories, he discovers new family ties, heartaches, loss, and victories.
He has led workshops and spoken at colleges throughout Minnesota and the Midwest.
Affield lives with his wife, Patti, in northern Minnesota. They have three children and several grandchildren. Sadly, their son, Jeff, died in 2015. Affield continues to study writing and psychology. His greatest fear: that he dies before all the stories are told.
Wendell Affield never knew his father. His childhood was punctuated by a volatile mother and an unpredictable stepfather. At twelve he and his siblings were placed in foster homes, his mother committed to a mental hospital. At sixteen he rode the rails out west and lived in hobo camps. At seventeen he enlisted in the navy. At twenty, he was wounded in an ambush while driving a river patrol boat in Vietnam and medevaced home.
Affield retired from the food industry in 2001. He attended Bemidji State University (BSU) to learn the writing craft. His Vietnam “memory stories” evolved into a memoir, Muddy Jungle Rivers, which won the Minnesota Veterans Voices award in 2017. The memoir has opened surprising new paths. Today he speaks to groups about PTSD and leads an Expressive Writing Therapy group for veterans.
In 2010 Affield discovered a treasure trove of family history, dating back to 1822, in the chickenhouse on the family homestead in northern Minnesota. Each day as he works on the stories, he discovers new family ties, heartaches, loss, and victories.
He has led workshops and spoken at colleges throughout Minnesota and the Midwest.
Affield lives with his wife, Patti, in northern Minnesota. They have three children and several grandchildren. Sadly, their son, Jeff, died in 2015. Affield continues to study writing and psychology. His greatest fear: that he dies before all the stories are told.
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February 25, 2022
This book is amazing. The author is so honest yet forgiving and understanding of others. The book moves quickly and is hard to put down. He has done a masterful job of writing his family’s story from letters, journals and other primary sources. His gentle and generous souls shows through. I can’t recommend this book enough!
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