Pages

Friday, February 29, 2008

Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood


-- by Miranda

I just want to start by saying that my mom is awesome.

That being said, this book is the memoir of Julie Gregory who grew up being taken to innumerable doctors by her mother in the never ending search to find what was wrong with her. In actuality, nothing is fundamentally wrong with Julie, but her mother is making her sick. It's a bizzare form of child abuse. I'm about halfway through the book now, and Julie is just starting to realize that maybe there isn't anything wrong with her. This comes at about the same time Julie's mother is trying to convince the cardiologist to do open-heart surgery on her daughter. Julie is 13 years old.

As a side note, I first heard of munchausen by proxy on an episode of Law & Order where a mother was killing her infants and making it look like crib death to garner the sympathy from friends and neighbors. People are crazy.

2 comments:

Abby-Wan Kenobi said...

There's a fantastic episode of House where a woman has Munchausen's. It's Cynthia Nixon. She plays a great crazy person.

Also, I've seen that L&O. It is sick. It horrifies me that these people exist. That said, I hope you are sending me the book when you finish.

miranda. said...

Sorry, can't send it, got it from the library. But you should check it out. It's great- really well written.