A tragic story that is only more tragic because it is true. A woman with a horrific childhood, grows up, marries, has a family and creates more horror for the next generation. Her daughter grows up, escapes and aids her foster siblings to escape as well. Then as she began to heal and grow she learned of her mom second marriage and family. Then she had to help her mom's children from this marriage escape as well. The lack of support from teachers, doctors, social workers was just heartbreaking to read and yet I am sure her complaints were so unbelievable that the professionals were compelled to accept the mom's side of the stories rather than the daughters. This story doesn't end with all the loose ends tied up and with every one living happily ever after. It's a messy book, chronicling messy lives, with an open ended conclusion. But it is full of hope and shows the resilience of the human spirit. She often refers to God and senses God even during the dark times. A sad book but one that leaves the reader with hope and resources to help themselves or others if needed.

Rewritten to protect the guilty and me from embarrassment. I wouldn't want anyone to think it was about them, especially if it was.

I think a friend of a friend I know quite well has this. She prides herself on being able to talk to doctors in medical terms.

She herself has had all sorts of things removed and is on various handfuls of pills and gets disability payments. She is small and pretty and probably anorexic. She can't work because of her back or do much housework. However a full day's shopping at the mall, visiting Zara, John Lewis and other upmarket places is not beyond her. She had been divorced for years but didn't want to remarry for fear of losing various benefits. Eventually she did remarry to someone who was close to me and although his mother disapproved saying, "She's tried all the men in the community but no-one wants to take her on with all her sick children, so why you?"

Her eldest son has several neurological disorders, Crone's disease, ADHD and Tourettes. He is chronically lazy, apparently a symptom of his various diseases. I think it's more a symptom of getting benefits if you don't work. He's very nice, good company, very bright and spends all day playing games online and fantasising about his future. If he got his act together he could go to university, but that would mean work. He has a very strange relationship with his mother. Almost like he is in love with her and demands all her attention. She pretends to hate this and closes doors in his face to emphasise it but all the time enables this behaviour by treating him like a recalcitrant child rather than the adult he is.

Her second son had treatment for Crones and other illnesses and disorders as a kid. However, possibly because the emphasis was on his genuinely-sick older brother (there is only a year between them) he escaped the full brunt of his mother's malign attention and he is a high-achieving young man. His mother says he has to watch his diet and worries about the ill-effects of certain foods and various minor ailments she sees in him. There's nothing wrong with him at all and he doesn't watch his diet or anything else.

Her daughter was a big fat lazy cow. Pretty and pretty dislikeable. She, like her mother feels entitled to the best, just because she exists. At 17 she sat most of the time on the sofa consuming family size bars of Cadbury's Fruit and Nut. Taking the dog for a walk meant opening the door to the garden, when she could be bothered. Once, three of us went to visit and expected a meal. She was on the sofa of course so we poked around. There were three breaded chicken breasts in the oven along with oven chips, more than enough for four and a whole baguette of cheesy garlic bread. Great! But no she said that was for her, that was her dinner and she hadn't made us anything, we should get a pizza!

Her mother insisted she was fat because she had polycystic disease (along with Crones, a joint disorder, a back problem and I forget what else). I thought she was fat because she was unbelievably greedy and lazy. She wouldn't even go out to help with the shopping unless bribed with a Big Mac or several family-size bars of chocolate. She only went to college on days she got a ride, walking to the bus stop was just too much for her.

This lot enabled the mother to spend a lot of time taking the kids to the doctors and hospital and needing a whole kitchen cabinet full of pills. When the family doctor changed to a very handsome and charming man, home visits were needed too. Her new husband is on all sorts of pills now for all the things that are (not) wrong with him. This lady likes people to recognise the illnesses she diagnoses herself and have them confirmed by doctors (really) and medicated. Her husband even had to have a minor operation for something or other.

When her daughter turned 18 she got her a gastric bypass, persuaded the doctor it was the only possible thing that would help the girl. Diets had failed (she hadn't actually tried any in reality, in fact it was the mother that stuffed her to get her fat enough to qualify for the operation). A gastric band was too temporary, nope it had to be the whole nine yards. The poor girl was seriously ill with various illnesses related to the gastric bypass operation, in and out of hospital for months. I was sorry but did wonder if the mother was gleeful at yet another illness and a real one at that to be able to involve herself constantly with technical medical talk with doctors. Now if I challenged this lady about all these illnesses and chronic disabilities her family suffer from, she would turn on me, she is only doing her best... That's another thing she's good at. Turning on people. It keeps everyone, including her husband from actually saying anything. Good defence!

If you are wondering if I like her, well she is more a friend of a friend that I have known forever, I don't particularly but she can be good company. She talks about health problems of all her family (parents included) a lot. She is looking for admiration for her knowledge and sympathy for her plight as she has to care for them despite her own physical limitations.

I am just astounded that someone could manipulate the system and their children as she has and that no one, doctors and hospitals included, although I used to tell my mother and she didn't believe it but she was a hard old biddy at times, even seemed to suspect it. Until I read this book. Then I saw what she'd been up to.

Read the book, it's the literary version x 100 of this lady.

If she ever reads this she will never speak to me again. Oh wait, she's not speaking to me now...

I want to give Julie Gregory the biggest hug, knowing full well I can’t comfort all the hurt now but I can’t help it after reading this amazing book. The stories are so crazy you’d believe they were fiction, and the fact that they’re not is utterly heartbreaking. And I now have a fear that I’ll have a patient that is a victim of Munchausen by Proxy and not notice it or know how to approach it…

I'm not sure what to even say about this book. Most of the time I was reading it I felt just as the title says, sickened. I've read a lot of true crime and child abuse books and it never fails to resonate with me when someone can treat a child like this. This girl went through such terrible, terrible situations as a child, her mother actually succeeding in making her, along with many, many doctors and hospitals, believe she was truly sick and is still dealing with the after effects to this day. Trying time and time again to have a reltionship with either parent when both refuse to own up to what they did, the mother trying to do it all over again to another pair of children making the authors life hell still today. The things done to this child ranged from saying that she "wasn't as pretty as the other girls and never would be" to forcing her to eat an elderly mans "snot rag" (their words, not mine). I was literally sickened the whole time reading this and I'm not sure she could have ever came up with a better title for this book. I'd love the chance to speak with her mother.

I studied the fascinating psychiatric disorder Münchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy for over thirty years, a condition where parents (most often mothers) sicken their children in order to receive attention and sympathy for themselves. I had seen Julie Gregory interviewed on 20/20 or Dateline when SICKENED was initially published.

As sorry as I was for the medical abuse she endured, I didn’t feel as if SICKENED added anything to the literature available on Münchausen’s or that her perspective added to my understanding of the impact of the disorder. What Gregory endured was horrendous, as is all child abuse. Because offenders doctor shop, Münchausen’s is difficult to prove and indict. Gregory’s writing was bogged down with voluminous adjectives and adverb making reading arduous rather than pleasurable.

I was interested in how Gregory recovered from her childhood, but she spent more time detailing the abuse which had less interest to me. I hope she avails herself of whatever psychiatric help she needs to be free from the impact of her childhood.

This is an interesting personal account of a Munchausen by Proxy survivor.

As a "survivor" book, it's okay, though the topic itself (Munchausen) is somewhat more interesting than the writer and I don't mean that in a belittling or disrespectful way.

Much of the narrative was repetitive and felt bulky thanks to the author's penchant for metaphors, some that worked better than others.

Personally, I wish Ms. Gregory had delved further into her mother and father's histories (she gives some background, but I wanted more). I would have also appreciated more discussion of the disorder (stats, case histories, causes, treatments...etc). And I did not see the point of the excerpts from her medical records as I don't feel they added anything to her story other than proof this really happened, though the charts themselves weren't so damning.

That said, this is really a bizarre diagnosis with devastating implications and the book is competently written, if not the best of its kind.

Chyba pierwsza lektura, w trakcie której co kilkanaście stron fundowałam sobie odruch wymiotny. Opisy poszczególnych zabiegów, którym poddawana była autorka, to pikuś przy charakterystyce ludzkiej natury.
Jednocześnie jestem pełna podziwu, że tak makabryczną historię, można było zawrzeć w tak pięknych (czasem najprostszych, ale czy to źle?) słowach.

Ostatnio, jak widać, trochę bardziej ciągnie mnie w stronę reportaży. Przynajmniej częściej niż zwykle.
Muszę przyznać, że ta książka była całkowicie powalająca. Czytało się ją ekspresowo, przez to, że nie sposób było oderwać się od tej przerażającej historii. To co zostało tu opisane, jest wprost niewyobrażalne. Trudno mi pojąć jak rodzice mogą wyrządzić tak olbrzymią krzywdę swoim dzieciom - katując je psychicznie i fizycznie. I choć nie powinno się życzyć komuś źle, mam nadzieję, że życie rodziców bohaterki zmieniło się w piekło.

"Przeżyłam piekło, choć nikt tego nie zauważył. Wyrwałam się z niego, choć nikt tego nie potwierdzi".
Wow wow wow. Tylko to miałam w głowie po zamknięciu tej książki. Skończyłam ją rano i im więcej czasu mija od jej przeczytania, tym ja coraz bardziej o niej myślę. Zaskoczyła mnie zupełnie, liczyłam na historię opowiedzianą mało poruszająco, ukazującą raczej suche fakty i opisy sytuacji. Nic bardziej mylnego. Sposób, w jaki autorka opisuje swoją przeszłość i świadomość, że to wszystko miało miejsce (a u niektórych WCIĄŻ MA), jest przerażająca. Po lekturze od razu zagłębiłam się w temat zespołu Münchhausena i to, co pokazują statystyki, jest straszne. Tym bardziej biorąc pod uwagę to, ile istnieje przypadków, które nie są odnotowane.
To jest książka, której ja w sposób właściwy nie opiszę. Przeszłość człowieka nie jest czymś, co się kategoryzuje, ale czymś, co należy docenić i zrozumieć na własny sposób. Ja na pewno uświadomiłam sobie jakie piekło przeżyła ta dziewczyna i przez te wszystkie strony jedyne czego chciałam, to żeby w końcu POWIEDZIAŁA MATCE, ŻE NIC JEJ NIE DOLEGA. Podporządkowana dziewczynka zbiera w sobie na to siły dopiero kilka lat później. Jednak... Komu uwierzą lekarze? Młodej dziewczynie, oskarżającej swą matkę o chorobę psychiczną, czy jej rodzinie, która wciąż pragnie jak najwięcej badań dla swego dziecka, byle tylko mu "pomóc"? No właśnie.
Całość wykonania książki - świetna. Rzetelnie podane informacje, poprzedzone kartotekami czy EKG pacjentki. Historia opowiedziana oczami dziewczyny, która to wszystko przeżyła, sprawia, że wydźwięk tej historii jest jeszcze mocniejszy i trafia do czytelnika dogłębnie. Momentami wręcz przypominała mi Szklany klosz czy Moją mroczną Vanessę ze względu na rozbudowane opisy przeżyć, ale to tylko subiektywna opinia.
Zdecydowanie warta przeczytania - nie tylko przez zainteresowanych tą tematyką. Uważam, że takie dające do myślenia książki naprawdę warto poznawać, tym bardziej, że ta historia na pewno nie da łatwo o sobie zapomnieć

Nie oceniam tej książki, ze względu na to, iż wspomnienia w niej opisane są autobiografią. Nie uważam, żeby w porządku było ocenianie czyichś przeżyć i emocji. Nawet gdybym próbowała, za nic nie wiedziałabym jaką ocenę wystawić. Ta historia jest przejmująca do szpiku kości, przez co przeszła autorka - nie mieści się to w głowie. Jest to swego rodzaju memuar tragicznych wydarzeń, ja osobiście co kilkanaście stron krzywiłam się i czułam mocne chwytanie za serce.
Nie odbieram autorce odwagi w opisaniu swoich wspomnień w książce, jednak spodziewałam się więcej wydarzeń, opisów nawiązujące do samego zespołu Munchhausena. Tutaj 3/4 książki to opisy znęcania się nad dziećmi zarówno przez ojca jak i matkę, które same w sobie do Munchhausena się nie zaliczają (chociaż wymyślanie dziecku chorób to i tak narzędzie tortur). Dość mało informacji o tej chorobie zostało zawartych w książce. Oprócz kilku stron na początku potem wspomina się już o tym na samym końcu, kiedy autorka dorosła i odkryła, że jej matka na to cierpi.
Dodatkowy plus za skany prawdziwej dokumentacji medycznej w środku książki. Wyrywała trochę ze stagnacji czytelniczej i dodała wiarygodności.

“Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever” ~ Baron Münchausen.


Hoooooolllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy crapsickle. Julie Gregory memoirs her childhood as a munchausen by proxy victim and it’s a hell of a gawker story. Not as jarring as The Glass Castle in my opinion but still… Christ… what the hell? People really do suck.


“You looking for the suckers, honey? Here, let me get ‘em for you.”
Mom pulls out a new book of matches and carefully bends back the cover to expose two fresh red rows of the minipops she’s been giving me for as long as aI can remember. My mouth waters when I see their shimmery crimson tips. The first one is always the best, and I pluck it out and get it fast on my tongue, waiting for the metallic zolt to rush my taste buds. Once the hardest layer dissolves, I flop the match against the side of my teeth and crunch the softer bits off the stick, spitting the white flimsy paper to the floor, swallowing the rest.”

Munchausen by proxy… we’ve all seen The Sixth Sense… we remember that little girl in the tent with Haley Joel Osment. She scared the bejeezus out of me. We remember the video of her mother pouring Pine Sol into her soup, right? Yessireee…. My faith in humanity waned big time then.

Definition: “In the Münchausen by Proxy syndrome, an adult care-giver makes a child sick by either fabricating symptoms or actually causing harm to the child, whereby convincing not only the child but others, including medical providers, that their child is sick.” Named after Baron Munchausen, a german nobleman who enjoyed exaggerating and was documented in literature as a sort of ‘cry wolf’ sort.

MBP could be presented in many ways… such as the Pine Sol scene from above or say, poisoning your child with excessive amounts of salt or um….tainting your child’s urine with your own blood… In Julie Gregory’s case it included not feeding your child and then bringing them to the doctor saying that they are listless and weak (duh) or convincing the child that something is wrong with their heart and introducing doctor upon doctor until the mother (it’s usually a female caretaker) finds a doctor willing to run a battery of invasive tests to determine the problem and then screaming at the doctor when he refuses to do open heart surgery on the kid. Hmmm…

There are many incidents in this book that just scream ‘holy jumpin'josaphat!’--- her mother was a pathological liar who had grown up in an abusive situation and demanded attention at all costs. Nature versus Nurture at its best. Half the time I wasn’t sure if I felt bad for the crazy bitch or if I wanted to kick her ass. Of course the kids have little idea of what is happening, they just want to please their parents… so Julie misses school, nods and yeps when her mother explains all the symptoms that Julie has been experiencing. She lets people prod her in those very special places and she gets her chest shaved like half a dozen times so they can test her heart. If only this was all she had to endure…. her mother would often make up lies about the kids to get her husband’s attention, which could result in beatings for the kids. She would often run around their doublewide screaming how horrible her life was and the kids would have to pry the shotgun from her hand when she threatened suicide. Where was this Brady Bunch episode?

The story was a clusterfuck of events and the fact that Gregory could document this AND include photos (adds to the rubbernecking, trust me) shows a committed resolve to get people to pay attention. I was not so fond of the language… it was too flowery or too embellished making her seem more dramatic than she needed to be. Her story stands without the whole broken mirror/shattered image cliché.

Det är svårt att skapa sig en åsikt om denna bok. En väldigt tung berättelse, på samma gång som den är intressant och tankeväckande.

Något som slog mig var att vi i mitt jobb ofta påpekar att det är föräldrarna som bäst känner sitt barn (för så är det, till 99%), de vet hur de mår, när de är sig själva och vilka symptom de har.
I och med denna bok ifrågasätts det påståendet. Nu är ju förstås förekomsten av MBP väldigt låg i Finland, och man kan ju tänka sig att vi kan hålla oss till det tidigare faktum att det är föräldrarna som känner sina barn bäst.

Däremot är jag väldigt "glad" över att ha fått ta del av berättelsen eftersom den är ögonöppnande och man vet aldrig när det kan vara bra att känna igen varningssignalerna när man jobbar med barn på sjukhus.