This book differs from your typical "Painful Lives" autobiography in the unusual form of abuse it chronicles. Munchausen by proxy is a largely unknown phenomenon, and difficult to understand for those unfamiliar to the idea; after all, how could a person deceive a whole string of doctors - as well as the child herself - that a perfectly healthy child had a mysterious disease so serious it might require open heart surgery to diagnose?
The positives of this book: you can really start to see the psychology behind the abusers. The anecdotes about Gregory's grandmother basically highlight blaringly the similarities between her grandmother's behaviour and her mother's behaviour - showing how these patterns can be learned and passed down, adopted as normal.
The negatives: this is a person's life; it is not a story. It's also not a life that was adapted to sound like a story. It's just the life of a person who happens to be remarkably good at writing down her thoughts and memories. Although there is a conflict, protagonist, antagonist, and a resolution, it still reads like a life, not like a story. If you don't mind that, then this isn't a problem. Gregory's writing is simply enthralling.

"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

SICKENED is an eye-opening look at how sick some people can be.

If you haven't heard of it yet, this book is a first person account of growing up with a seriously mentally ill mother.

At the time Julie had no idea that being dragged to hospital after hospital was not how every child was treated. Her mother coached her on exactly what she was to say to the doctors.

The doctors were unaware that the symptoms were being faked and Julie was subjected to a litany of tests that an adult would find invasive and even painful. She even had unnecessary surgery. If Julie was not convincing enough, she was punished harshly by her mother.

When her mother was not dragging her to medical appointments and hospitals, Julie still had no escape from the abuse. At home (where she should have been able to feel safe and secure) her mother subjected her to more child abuse, including beatings and starvation.

As far as I am concerned, Julie Gregory deserves a medal for somehow finding the fortitude and inner strength to survive her horrific childhood and to grow up and become a "normal" member of society.

This is a book that needed to be written. Julie's mother was suffering from a mental disorder known as Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. This is characterized by the person wanting the attention heaped on the mother of a sick child.

Julie Gregory has written a memoir that will stay with you probably for the rest of the reader's life. It is only through books such as this one that we, as a society, are educated about this form of child abuse, and with education comes vigilance. Now that people, especially those in the medical profession, know about this syndrome, they can watch for it and hopefully save many other children from suffering in the same way that Julie did.

I rate this book as 4 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Really gripping, really horrible. One thing that came into the introduction is that there isn't really a lot of work out there on this subject. (This book came out in 2003.) So even though I have seen it treated in side plots in movies or the main plot of a single hour of television drama, those have been limited exposures. Here, watching it progress, hearing how the child feels about it, is pretty hard. I wanted to take breaks, but also wanted to keep reading.

Also interesting to see things carried across generations. The grandmother had differences and similarities with the mother, and to a lesser extent you also see some things carried down through the father from his father. They are terrible people, but you can also see that terrible things happened to them. They still could have chosen not to do terrible things.

Weirdly, ones first reaction is to want more from this book. She didn't suffer enough, she should have been sicker, her mother should have been worse (and I'm not alone in this, there's other people who echo my thoughts but just aren't aware that they're hungry for the gore). The thing is, Gregory's abuse was severe and it doesn't matter how mild a case of Munchausen's it was- if you put yourself in her place, in the body and mind o a fragile, dependent child - the experience must have been horrific. Her mother was twisted, her father turned a blind eye and she was completely alone with her trauma. Her brother, so damaged by his childhood, that he's repressed all memories of it.

Not many of us have probably experienced a perfect childhood. Even if you had fabulous parents, I'm sure there were moments that have left you a little scarred. Perhaps a heated argument between your parents? Can you remember the fear from that moment? And I bet you still carry it around with you. Imagine living with Gregory's experiences. I experienced a fair amount of damaging shit in my childhood and it's amazing how the smallest things are what I recall, my stomach churning in knots - days where dad had had enough of being as patient as a saint with mum's bullshit and finally snapped, thumping his hand on a wall making a clock fall down and smash. The terror I remember from that moment is immense! Let alone someone like Gregory whose father smacked her head into the coffee table, or whose mother ignored broken wrists for her own amusement. Or stood by nonchalantly while her daughter screamed whilst getting catheters put in. Pain and trauma isn't comparable, everyone handles and processes it differently but you can't help but feel your heart go out to Julie.

The book itself was fairly well written. Gregory's prose was a little overblown and dramatic at times, she shifted tenses frequently and the last 30 pages or so dragged on without much structure but all in all, it was an interesting account of a childhood living with a MbP mother. It must have been extremely cathartic to write and I hope that she's in a much better place these days. I also hope that her mother has been brought to justice and has had the right to have access to children stripped from her. It's so sad that this shit happens in the world.

3.25

I had no idea this memoir was so controversial when I ordered it from the county library. But it is. If you do read it and want to go online to find out more of what happened to Julie and her crazy family, don't. You won't find anything except a lot of accusations and bitching.

Did this nightmarish life with abuses for children, seniors, dogs and horses really happen or not? This is one of those stories where the truth will never be found out.

The important thing is that Munchausen by proxy is a real and incurable mental illness -- and also one of (if not the) most difficult to diagnose. The thing about metal illnesses and being abused is that no one believes you -- least of all, YOU. I'm a victim of domestic abuse (left him in 2004 and never went back) and he had me doubting my memory every day. No one believed me (until one day I was found half-dead by a fellow homeless person and he called the ambulance.) My Mom wants me to write a memoir of my abuse but FORGET IT -- I know I was abused but details are fuzzy. Anyway, I really do not want to have to remember it all over again -- no matter how real the memories are.

The second most important thing is how good of a reading experience this is -- and it's absolutely riveting. It's one of the most horrifying books I've ever read. I cannot guarantee that you will find it as genuinely disturbing and nightmare-inducing -- especially if you're the kind of reader that considers books about Auschwitz to be "light reading."

So, why do I recommend this memoir since very little in it can be verified? As a domestic abuse survivor and struggling with major depression I find it comforting (in an odd way) about reading how people manage to survive very bad shit. Gregory does write about how she managed to survive. That's the most valuable bit for me and why I'm giving this four stars.

Read this sad one for a book club. I was sure I would feel extremely depressed while reading it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. Still absolutely horrible what this girl went through, but her writing somehow made it tolerable. I got completely sucked in and finished in a day and a half.

I read this as assigned reading for my Victimology class. The writing style is beautiful, but it was hard to read because of the content so check trigger warnings.

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.

Sickened is an account of Julie Gregory's childhood life in and out of doctors’ offices and the journey to find "what was wrong with her." Julie had to endure painful procedures like being cut into her leg in order to see if her heart was working properly after other, safer, tests came back negative for a heart condition. Julie never knew what was wrong with her, but followed her mothers lead into telling the doctors her many symptoms that were either exaggerated or not even true at all. Julie was around the age of four when her mother started taking her to doctors saying that there was some thing wrong and that she was sick. It is not until Julie reaches her teens that her mother is diagnosed with MBP, Munchausen by proxy. MBP is a mental illness disease of child abuse where the caretaker fabricates illnesses to a child. This was happening to Julie for all her childhood. After Julie discovers her mother’s illness she runs away from her family but eventually returns missing her family, including her mother, and gets her mom committed to a hospital for her mental disorder.
tI gave this book a rating of three. I did really enjoy the book but the story line always seemed to veer off into random life memory’s that did somewhat commit to the topic at hand but had a few holes that left me somewhat confused at times.
tThis book talks about child abuse and mental disorders, so I would recommend Sickened to those of who that find that interesting and enjoying reading about those topics. Also if read A Child Called It and enjoyed it this book would be good to read because it deals with the same concept of child abuse and overcoming the challenges in adult life.
t “Two of the toughest kids in Ohio singing lyrics of a lost childhood out their bitter throats without a smile or iron.” Julie and her brother have reunited with each other after three years; they are now adults but still struggle from the abuse they went through as children.

Wow this book was disturbing, yet I was unable to put it down. It drew me in fast and kept me riveted. It a memoir of a childhood lived with a muchausen by Proxy mom. Julie was carted to doctor after doctor, made sick with pills, all sorts of terrible things. There was also physical abuse. It was hard to read it spots. A very good book, one that I think more people should read, specially hospital/doctor staff. It really gives a deep look into what a person with muchausen by proxy is like, and what it is like to be the child the mother is making sick. I was left wondering if Julie was able to get tina out of the house. Great and disturbing read.