Product Description

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. This title tells the story of how she survived Munchausen By Proxy (MBP), a form of child abuse forced on her by her mother's madness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45284 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
Julie Gregory's heartbreaking memoir tells the painfully honest story of a little girl whose life was torn apart by the condition known as Munchausen by Proxy. Sufferers invent or induce illness in their children in order to gain attention for themselves. Julie's mother feeds her child tablets which make her ill; demands the insertion of a tube into her child's urethra when she is unable to provide a urine specimen and is so insistent that Julie has a serious heart condition, that when surgery involving the insertion of wires into her heart fails to show any cause for concern, she flies at the medical staff, demanding they perform open heart surgery. The years of suffering and abuse slowly drag by, and Julie gradually turns from a bewildered little girl, unable to understand why her loving mother should treat her like this, to an angry young woman, determined to break away from the isolated farmhouse where she suffers unspeakable humiliations at the hands of both her parents. But escape is not easy in a world where a child's cry for help is construed as malicious lies, and those in authority turn a blind eye to the medical evidence. Julie- miraculously- survives the horrors of her early years, and with enormous bravery has gone on to write this searing autobiography. Difficult, challenging, uncomfortable - Sickened is all of those and more. Julie has opened the eyes of the world to a condition which corrupts the love between parent and child, betraying the most fundamental human emotion of all. (Kirkus UK)

Andrea Ashworth, bestselling author of Once in a House on Fire
My heart beat too fast from start to finish ... totally unforgettable

Washington Post
One wishes this book could get into the hands of all the suffering children who need it