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.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56189 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-28
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553381979
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
'A disturbing yet compelling read.', Best Magazine .'...compelling and painful memoir...Her extraordinary tale manages to be both horrifying and yet ultimately uplifting.', Sainsbury's Magazine

Review
“A painful but wonderfully written memoir that should create greater awareness of a bizarre disorder… Keen self-awareness, a sharp eye for details, and an original, poetic voice.”
--Kirkus Reviews

“This story of unfathomable child abuse is told with remarkable wit, compassion, and courage. It’s a work of beauty from a beast of a childhood.”
--Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors and Dry

“Like some Diane Arbus photograph come to life, Julie Gregory's Sickened offers us a portrait of quintessential American Disturbos in all their tender, heinous can't-look-and-can't-look-away glory. A miraculous book by a woman whose very survival is itself a miracle.”
--Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

“Set in a southern-culture-on-the-skids world reminiscent of J.T. Leroy, Sickened is written with a lyrical directness that is both riveting and horrific. Julie Gregory reminds us that those who find the courage to slay the dragons of their past and stop the cycle of abuse are the true heroes of the world.”
--Ann Magnuson, actress, singer, writer

"A stunning account by a courageous woman who journeyed from the depths of hell to reclaim her own power and worth. Julie Gregory casts an extraordinary beacon of healing. You will be hearing a lot about this one.”
--Alan Cohen, author of I Had It All the Time

"A born storyteller with perfect pitch, Julie Gregory guides the reader through this surreal form of cruelty, in which the ultimate weapon is the scalpel, with originality, gusto and heart-stopping courage."
--Sylvia Fraser, author of My Father's House: A Memoir of Incest and of Healing

"Gripping self-disclosure by a remarkable young woman . . . Sickened will surely and finally impact the proper diagnosis and treatment of children caught in the terror of MBP."
--Chris Monaco, Ph.D., Director, Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline

“This searing and beautiful memoir represents a genuine triumph
of the human spirit.”
--Marc D. Feldman, M.D.


From the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover
"A painful but wonderfully written memoir that should create greater awareness of a bizarre disorder... Keen self-awareness, a sharp eye for details, and an original, poetic voice."
--Kirkus Reviews

"This story of unfathomable child abuse is told with remarkable wit, compassion, and courage. It's a work of beauty from a beast of a childhood."
--Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors and Dry

"Like some Diane Arbus photograph come to life, Julie Gregory's Sickened offers us a portrait of quintessential American Disturbos in all their tender, heinous can't-look-and-can't-look-away glory. A miraculous book by a woman whose very survival is itself a miracle."
--Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

"Set in a southern-culture-on-the-skids world reminiscent of J.T. Leroy, Sickened is written with a lyrical directness that is both riveting and horrific. Julie Gregory reminds us that those who find the courage to slay the dragons of their past and stop the cycle of abuse are the true heroes of the world."
--Ann Magnuson, actress, singer, writer

"A stunning account by a courageous woman who journeyed from the depths of hell to reclaim her own power and worth. Julie Gregory casts an extraordinary beacon of healing. You will be hearing a lot about this one."
--Alan Cohen, author of I Had It All the Time

"A born storyteller with perfect pitch, Julie Gregory guides the reader through this surreal form of cruelty, in which the ultimate weapon is the scalpel, with originality, gusto and heart-stopping courage."
--Sylvia Fraser, author of My Father's House: A Memoir of Incest and of Healing

"Gripping self-disclosure by a remarkable young woman . . . Sickened will surely and finally impact the proper diagnosis and treatment of children caught in the terror of MBP."
--Chris Monaco, Ph.D., Director, Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline

"This searing and beautiful memoir represents a genuine triumph
of the human spirit."
--Marc D. Feldman, M.D.


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Disturbing and terrifying...
The first time I had heard of Munchausen by Proxy was in my Abnormal Psychology class. I couldn't believe that something like this actually existed. How could someone do this to their child? It is when a caretaker (often a mother) will keep his/her child sick or try to prove to others that the child is sick to gain attention for themselves. Unfortunately many cases go unnoticed because of how easy it is to hide. "A recent study indicates that when a case of MBP is finally recognized, up to 25% of the sickened child's siblings have already died---most likely earlier victims of the perpetrator."

Julie has always been a sickly child, for as long as she could remember. Her mother and grandmother often ran her to the hospital for food poisoning. There were very strange things that would go on in her family. Her grandmother would take her on fishing trips at the age of 3 or 4. She would tell her to hold on to something in the car, and get in a minor car accident. She would do this often, and it would always end the same. The grandmother would "disappear" and Julie would wander off, while crowds gathered, and someone would take her home to her mother. Her grandmother would come back, looking around for her lost granddaughter.

Her father had strange habits as well. He was a war veteran, who would spend days in front of the television, watching endless hours of M.A.S.H., and would yell at anyone who walked in front of the TV. He would only talk to you during commercials.

Her mother took her to endless doctors, only rushing her away to another one when they couldn't find anything wrong with her. When that didn't work, she kept her from eating and didn't give her lunch money. Julie was weak and malnourished. She got migraines quite often. When she did, Sandy (her mother) gave her a white pill to put under her tongue. Somehow, the migraines only got worse. When Julie stayed in the hospital so the doctors could take a closer look at what was happening with her heart, the sickness disappeared like magic. Doctors were baffled and her mother surprisingly wasn't happy about the good news.

I felt tremendous sympathy and compassion for this little girl and wondered why she didn't leave earlier. When she finally did leave (they weren't keeping her under lock and key) it surprised me that she came back. She had been humiliated, put down, beaten, forced to eat tissue, and many other things. I have never been the victim of abuse, so I don't know the feelings of attachment and dependence that she connected to her abusers. There were times that I almost put the book down because I had a hard time digesting the fact that this actually happens to children.

It was difficult to read, especially at the parts where no one believed Julie, and some people turned against her because they thought that she was telling lies about her mother. Sandy was an exquisite actress. She played the role of the perfect mother to a tee, horrified that something could happen to her baby, and that maybe Julie only had a little while to live. The fact that she got out without getting killed was astonishing.

I would have liked to see an epilogue, and whether or not she confronted her mother. I would also like to know her mothers thoughts and the allegations against her. I would also like to know the details of such things like the "white pills" that were used to take away her migraines and what her mother was doing to her to make her sick.

This should be recommended reading so people will be aware of this not commonly known, life-threatening illness.

Won't Let You Go
Jim Pierce,
The darkness that permeates SICKENED: A MEMOIR is riveting. There is not the detachment of watching a car wreck. Rather, we feel the tortured confusion of the young girl convinced by her mother that she is ill despite being healthy. What is only now becoming clear in our society is that child abuse is not always a physical act. It is not even a malicious act. It can take so many forms. SICKENED is a unique book not only because of the unique type of abuse it chronicles, but because as a reader you really do feel the turmoil. It is the kind of writing that captures you, pulls you in, and doesn't let go. Rarely can writers accomplish this, particularly in the area of abuse chronicles. That is why the few exceptions (MY FRACTURED LIFE, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, NIGHTMARES ECHO, and SICKENED) are such riveting books that you really can't get enough of. As someone who reads several books a week, I consider myself lucky when I find just one that hits with the impact of SICKENED, MY FRACTURED LIFE, NIGHTMARES ECHO, or RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. To have found four is true opulence.

Terrifying Because It's Real
Julie Gregory was abused as a child. She was abused in one of the most undiscussed ways a child can be violated. Julie was the victim of her mother's mental illness. Her mother suffered from Munchausen By Proxy Syndrome. Julie's mother, Sandy, would feed 3-year-old Julie books of matches and tell her they were lollipops. She would give Julie pills that caused blinding migraines, all the while, taking Julie from doctor to doctor insisting Julie was seriously ill. At the height of her illness, Sandy was trying to have open-heart surgery performed on 12-year-old Julie. And when Julie tried to tell a nurse and her school friends what was happening, no one believed her.

Julie and her brother also endured physical abuse. They were beaten and Julie was constantly starved to make her appear ill. "Sickened" is Julie's heartbreaking, but uplifting story.

I was appauled and horrified by the treatment that Julie suffered. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live with the knowledge that there was nothing wrong with you, but you were at the whim of a deranged mother. This book was an amazing tale of courage and spirit. If you are an abuse survivor, this book will be very hard to read, but it is definitely worth it.

I highly recommend this work.