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Product Description
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.
--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.
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.
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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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Honest and compelling,
By Amy Fudge (Toronto, Ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)
It's very rare to find an autobiography about a traumatic childhood that's not contrived, boring, or self-indulgent, but this story by Julie Gregory is not your typical "re-hash" of the early years gone bad. It reminded me of Alice Sebold's "Lucky" - the author manages to take you through her journey of a life with a munchausen by proxy mother without desperately trying to gain sympathy, and yet I felt compelled from the beginning to root for her success. For anyone who enjoys a true personal story, I highly recommend this book.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blown Away,
By Sam & Jane (Inverness) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)
It's hard to know where to start with this book--describing it. On one hand, it's totally unbelievable, yet on the other, I know these things happen. The story is, sadly, nothing that new; we've seen it before in some form or another in the likes of Dave Pelzer with his "A Child Called It," which just destroyed me, or the novel "Bark of the Dogwood" which is, believe it or not, at times funny. But "Sickened," while it is often spoken in the same breath as those books, is different. It deals with MBP syndrome and the mother is really the sick one in this horrifying tale of control and other issues. For those not familiar with MBP, it involves a parent usually making the child sick, or at least claiming that the child is so, in order to get attention for themselves. In this case the mother was willing to have open heart surgery on her daughter just to "get to the bottom of what the problem was." Somebody should have done the surgery on her (the mother) in the head.If you're easily put off by both physical medical issues and serious psychological ones, you might want to pass on this book. If, however, you want to read a riveting memoir of just how twisted parents can be, then you've come to the right place. Would also recommend the books "A Child Called it," by Dave Pelzer, "Bark of the Dogwood" and "A Man Named Dave," for equally involved reads.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Won't Let You Go,
By A Customer
This review is from: Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood (Paperback)
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.
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