A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another doctor's
examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just twelve,
she's tall, skinny, and weak. It's four o'clock, and she hasn't
been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the other
hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest open-heart
surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She checks her
teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the girl a
warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.
Sickened
From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed,
medicated, and operated on--in the vain pursuit of an illness that
was created in her mother's mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the
world's most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the
caretaker--almost always the mother--invents or induces symptoms in
her child because she craves the attention of medical
professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only
survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness
and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.
Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and
distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose
of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual
medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's
isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and
gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing naivete of medical
professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds
of terror and love that roped Julie's family together--including
the love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her
mother's happiness.
The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in
herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did,
it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis,
she discovered the courage to save her own life--and, ultimately,
the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened
takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an
unforgettable story, unforgettably told.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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