Remnants of a Life on Paper: A Mother and Daughter's Struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder

Remnants is three voices weaved into one family memoir chronicling the experience of Pamela Tusiani's struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a mental illness characterized by mood swings, unstable relationships, difficulty managing emotions, and self-destructive behaviors.

Pamela's diaries form the first voice, which begin with a major nervous breakdown in college. She wrote, “There I stood, in a hold, deep in the ground. Did I dig it or just get in? Did I fall into it? Did someone else dig it and throw me in?” Her diary entries spin through episodes of cutting, depression, drug abuse and recovery until her untimely death at the age of 23.

Bea Tusiani, Pamela's mother, provides the second voice in a side-by-side account of how the family coped with Pamela's impulsive behaviors, and the struggle to find her treatment. “My heart pounds and my throat turns dry as I watch my depressed 20-year-old daughter from the tiny window of a steel door in the psychiatric ward. She stares back at me longingly…. Her big, brown sad eyes lock into mine…as if she is a little child again, saying, “Mommy, rescue me!”

Finally, excerpts from the legal depositions that ensued in the lawsuits after Pamela's accidental death serve as a third voice to relay the family's experience of the gaps in health system, the stigma around mental illness, and their efforts for change.

By telling Pamela's story, the Tusiani family hopes to help others climb out of the holes created by Borderline Personality Disorder. While they could not rescue Pamela, Remnants has become a lifeline for others families struggling with this mental illness.