- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Books; First Printing edition (Sep 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553803077
- ISBN-13: 978-0553803075
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.7 x 2.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 925,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
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 naïveté 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.
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 naïveté 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.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
69 reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
WOW
14 Oct 2003
Format:Hardcover
Once I started reading this book I couldn't put it down. The story is very compelling in itself, but Julie Gregory is also an excellent and occasionally hilarious writer. It did remind me of Augusten Burrough's work in the way she described the people around her with a child's blunt, uncompromising perspective. It breaks your heart that a child this perceptive and aware would have to endure what she did. Her mother has to be one of the scariest parents alive, but Julie opens the book with some hair-raising scenes from her mother's own adolescence so you can see that her cruelly bizarre behavior didn't just spring from a vacuum. Overall this is a fascinating and beautifully poetic read about twisted family dynamics and how the author carved out her own path to sanity.
46 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Sickened and Painfully Recovered
1 Nov 2003
Format:Hardcover
This is the saddest book of child abuse I have read since
Christina Crawford wrote " Mommie Dearest " a quarter of a
century ago.It was written by Julie Gregory so eloquently,I
could not put it down.
Julie's mother convinces her, that she ( Julie )is an
invalid and must take medications like attenlol 25mg.,for
her heart.The medications make Julie feel sick and tired
most of the time.Sometimes the dose is doubled according to
her mother ((Sandy's) whim.This is what Munchausen by Proxy
is about.A caretaker,in this case the mother makes a helpless
child suffer, in order to garner attention for herself and
have re-affirmation from a Doctor in authority.
It is the worse scenario of child abuse,because it goes
unrecognized.
The father,who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic,does
not allow the mother to refer to their son,several years
younger than Julie as sickly,and nearly kills her the one
time she mistakenly does.This saves Danny some abusiveness.
The children witness these savage fights.
The family lives isolated in a trailer with concrete walls
and additions.The mother takes in veterans and foster
children,thereby making money for herself and wastes it on
pairs of hundreds of shoes,for herself and lifesize
ceramic animals for the trailer.
The foster chidren are mistreated, and the mother encourages Julie also to physically hurt them-but Julie has human feelings
and only pretends to.Her Mother thinks this will bind Julie to
Christina Crawford wrote " Mommie Dearest " a quarter of a
century ago.It was written by Julie Gregory so eloquently,I
could not put it down.
Julie's mother convinces her, that she ( Julie )is an
invalid and must take medications like attenlol 25mg.,for
her heart.The medications make Julie feel sick and tired
most of the time.Sometimes the dose is doubled according to
her mother ((Sandy's) whim.This is what Munchausen by Proxy
is about.A caretaker,in this case the mother makes a helpless
child suffer, in order to garner attention for herself and
have re-affirmation from a Doctor in authority.
It is the worse scenario of child abuse,because it goes
unrecognized.
The father,who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic,does
not allow the mother to refer to their son,several years
younger than Julie as sickly,and nearly kills her the one
time she mistakenly does.This saves Danny some abusiveness.
The children witness these savage fights.
The family lives isolated in a trailer with concrete walls
and additions.The mother takes in veterans and foster
children,thereby making money for herself and wastes it on
pairs of hundreds of shoes,for herself and lifesize
ceramic animals for the trailer.
The foster chidren are mistreated, and the mother encourages Julie also to physically hurt them-but Julie has human feelings
and only pretends to.Her Mother thinks this will bind Julie to
her,making them closer.
Julie has no girlfriends,and the one time she did confide
in a new friend,the results were disastrous.Her new friend
did not believe her and dropped her after telling most
of Julie's classmates, that Julie made up stories.
By this time, Julie has reached her teen years.Her mother
continues to make sure she is sickly,and has had a heart
catherization performed on her.
Sandy, then convinces a physician to do a deviated septum repair
of the nose and to shape it less Roman.In other words,
repair the septum,so she can breath, then for no reason improve her nose structure.
Deviated septum repair is more painful than most people
realize.People used to be hospitalized four days and it was a
last resort for polyps and painful sinusitis. Most people decline having it done,when the procedure is described to
them.
I almost stopped reading at this point,but continued,
after checking the picture of Julie on the back flap of her
book.
I did this several times to re-assure myself,that Julie
survived her horrendous childhood.
There is a great deal more to the story,but suffice it to say
Julie survived this horrible Munchausen by Proxy.
Through,educating herself,and staying away from the woman
who was her mother,Julie states,she rose like a Phoenix
from the ashes.After much time and therapy,she checks out
Mama again, to convince herself,to look for change, for
apology?
Sandy,her mother,has adopted two children in Montana.
Nothing has changed but location.
Julie bravely saves their lives armed with her childhood
files and evidence from Ohio's childrens services.Julie who has grown into a beautiful woman with an ethereal quality, has
given us her story so we the public,and the professionals
she teaches,are made aware of this insidious abuse of helpless
children by their caretakers.
Thank You,Julie,and may the rest of your life be better.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Sickening but Fascinating
23 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I could not put "Sickened" down once I started reading it. As someone who is fascinated by psychology and the recovery of the abused, I found Gregory's memoir compelling and satisfying. It is all the more horrifying for having been a true story: yes, Gregory was abused by her attention-seeking mother, and not just in the Munchausen by Proxy context. Yes, her father was abusive as well. But what kept me reading until the end was to see how Gregory would work her way through this as an adult. At the satisfying end of the book, Gregory describes how she came to take responsibility for her own life. Although this book is certainly not for the faint of heart, it provides a heroine and a villain that are all as compelling as any in fiction.
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