What the House Holds
A raw, unflinching memoir about the limits of love — and the impossible weight of watching a child you love spiral beyond your reach. A story of advocacy, grief, and the will to keep showing up.
Encrypted by Stripe
or any card
Ships from the USA
Unread, in original condition
About the book
What the House Holds is a memoir about parenting on the edge of violence, navigating severe mental illness inside a home, and the impossible tension between protecting your family and loving a child you cannot save. Written by an adoptive parent with clinical insight and years of contemporaneous documentation, this book follows one family through the daily reality of raising a daughter with Reactive Attachment Disorder, dissociative features, schizoaffective disorder, and a history of severe early childhood trauma - through false allegations, psychiatric hospitalizations, insurance denials, failed supports, and the kind of exhaustion that does not feel like tiredness. What the House Holds is also a document of institutional failure - of a child welfare system that placed a child without full disclosure, of psychiatric hospitals that stabilized and discharged on a revolving door, of insurance companies that denied hospitalizations as not medically necessary, of schools and law enforcement and courts that could do very little against a child who had already mapped the limits of every available consequence. The book's closing section is a series of open letters - to her doctors, her therapists, her evaluators, the psychiatric hospitals, the insurance companies, the Department of Human Services, Congress, the police, and the schools - written in the plain language of someone who has spent years communicating through official channels and been failed by all of them.
What readers are saying
Excellent account of the real life of trauma and its consequences. But even more so of the resilience of those surrounding by it and those that never stop fighting for their kids!!
Totally relatable!!! If only people really “got it”! It’s a different kind of life. Everyone in the home is affected! Getting past the trauma of raising a child with lifelong trauma takes years. Not over, moved on!
An important book for parents navigating raising a child with extreme behaviors resulting from early trauma. So much of the relief I have felt was a result of feeling like someone else understood. This book definitely describes the experience and the heartache that comes with trying to survive under a broken system. Highly recommend for those parents but also for family/friends or providers that are struggling to understand.
Such an incredible book. Excellent account of the real life of trauma and the consequences but even more so of the resilience of those surrounded by it. Keep fighting one day at a time. Couldn’t put the book down!
I have never read anything that more accurately describes what these families are living, and what we, as a system, have failed to give them. This book should be required reading in every social work program in the country.
I kept stopping to read passages aloud to my husband because I needed someone else to hear that someone had finally said it. This is the book I would have given every teacher, every therapist, every caseworker who ever looked at me like I was the problem.
Brett Holloway has written the book I have been waiting to hand to every family I work with who feels unseen. This is the most accurate account of parenting a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder I have ever read clinical enough to be credible, human enough to be completely devastating.
The Open Letters alone are worth the price of this book. Every professional who has ever written a discharge summary, denied a claim, or closed a CPS case should be required to read them.
I read this in two sittings because I could not put it down, and then I sat with it for about week because I could not shake it. What the House Holds is not a comfortable book. It is an honest one. That is rarer and more valuable.
Emotional and Intriguing. This book is really good, i read it in one night!
Like Shane and Brett, my husband and I have adopted several special needs children with early childhood trauma histories. Their account of the 24/7/365/forever nightmare of in-home violence and insanity that the system keeps families trapped in without meaningful help is spot on. 100%. Their experience is the experience of too many families who committed to adopting and loving broken children. They managed to put it all into words. Words that every person in this beyond-failed system should be required to read. One small note I would like to make to the heroic authors: it would be helpful to your readers to not have to figure out which one of you is speaking. But more importantly, THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS DESPERATELY NEEDED INFORMATION that too many of us simply don't have the reserves or the words for. Sincerely, THANK YOU
I couldn’t put the book down once i started. There were many failures on many systems for this family and i can’t imagine how defeating it must feel. What’s sad is there are thousands more families out there just like theirs dealing with a child that institutions with safety, shifts, constant supervision etc who are trained to handle, cannot handle, yet they continue to send them home to parents and expect them to.
Read the book!!! What the House Holds is the kind of book that lingers with you long after you’ve finished it. It is raw, haunting, and deeply emotional an intimate look at the kind of love that exists even when it feels powerless. What stood out most to me was how honest the narrative is. It doesn’t try to romanticize pain or tie things up neatly. Instead, it shows the complicated, messy reality of loving someone through circumstances you can’t control. That honesty is what makes it so powerful.
This book was a page turner. It was not my normal type of book I read, but it was amazing. It was sad and very emotional. Especially since I know the people in the book. I recommend everyone should read it.
Anyone who has experienced life with a child who has RAD …a child with a new diagnosis…or individuals in the position of treating or helping children with RAD…this book is a must read! It gives detailed daily life experiences living with a child who has RAD…the feelings of despair and hopelessness while trying to protect your family from within.
With a particular focus on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). The author does an excellent job of explaining how early childhood trauma, neglect, or inconsistent caregiving can deeply impact a person’s ability to form healthy emotional bonds.
Share your thoughts
Details
eBook · Audiobook
Brett Holloway is a pen name. The author writes under a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the family members described in this work. He is based in Oklahoma.
Physical orders ship from the USA with tracking, packed by hand.
Not what you hoped for? Return unread copies within 14 days. We actually answer.
More of your purchase supports the author and the press behind the book.