Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood | 
|  | | | Title: | Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood | | Author: | Julie Gregory | | Publisher: | Bantam | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 28 September, 2004 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0553381970 / 9780553381979 | | List Price: | $13.00 | | You Save: | $2.60 | | Amazon Price: | $10.40 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
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.
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Customer Reviews:
• Loved This Book! 17 April, 2008
I loved this book! I couldn't put it down! It really showed how this disease affected one family. The pictures in the book made it all very real!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2KYIIWH86T5PX
• Beautifully Written 17 September, 2008
Sickened is a story displaying the depth of a child's love for her mother and the strength it took to ultimately break away and save herself. I will not give away the story. It is enough to say this is a very interesting, well written book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1ONRNH8MJ6XZ7
• Sad 04 June, 2008
It amazes me that this was allowed to go on as long as it did. Doctors, Nurses etc.. Just sad, and this is far from an isolated case, my heart goes out to this girl who is now a woman and I hope she has been able to truly put this behind her, but I'm not sure that is possible. Children are innocents and need protection, just sad.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1N6DPJ1NL9L80
• Interesting 18 August, 2008
The book was a very easy/quick read. The stories are heart breaking and tragic but good information for others to know. It is hard to imagine a mother like the one in the book but there are a lot of very sick people in the world that pass for 'normal.' Good to know that the author made it out and is recovering from the trauma.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AKRL27G503Y9R
• Such Strength 23 October, 2008
I can't say why I chose this book to read but am very glad that I did. Such a sad story. I commend Julie Gregory on her strength to survive such an awful childhood and thank her for educating others to this awful problem.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A23JSZ5AYPICZJ
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