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Mar 22, 2009

Annie rated it:

This disturbing memoir is the account of a mother who intentionally invented symptoms and illness for her daughter to gain attention from medical professionals. This is known as Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. The best pop culture example is the little girl in the Sixth Sense (Mischa Barton pre-O.C. days). I learned a lot about this syndrome from a short medical introduction; the rest of the book is Julie Gregory’s story. It is heavy, lots of adult content and language. Some of the events tha More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2011

Sammy rated it:

An excellent book to read for those with a need to know and understand this complex illness. For others use your own judgement. This is a very disturbing illness that really created a lot of attention about 10 years ago in the mental health and medical field. 'Sickened' is a very well written page turner, but it is a true story...no fiction here.

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2010

Jasmine added it

Its about this girl who's parents asumes shes sick and always has her missing school to take her to the doctors. The mom takes her to the doctor and tells the doctor all these simptoms she says her daughter has. The weird thing is that her daughter is not sick her mom is just making it up. Her mom takes her to a hospital where the doctor runs all these heart test because she says her daughter has a heart condition. They run several test but all of them came out negative indicating that nothing w More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 14, 2010

Caroline Alicia rated it:

The entire time I read this book, I was screaming in my head. Giving the riot act to the doctors to the father to the social workers that turned a blind eye. I was just as bewildered and pleading as Julie as, watching the doctors slice her open when nothing was wrong.

Mad at the school counselors. Unbidden, a memory flooded back of myself, no more that 4 or 5, when my Dad had welted backside up with his leather belt and shoved me away- incidentally into the door frame-- knocking the More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2008

Eva rated it:

I'm not sure what to even say about this book. Most of the time I was reading it I felt just as the title says, sickened. I've read a lot of true crime and child abuse books and it never fails to resonate with me when someone can treat a child like this. This girl went through such terrible, terrible situations as a child, her mother actually succeeding in making her, along with many, many doctors and hospitals, believe she was truly sick and is still dealing with the after effects to this day. More...

7 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

Interesting novel written by a victim of Munchausen by Proxy. I've seen Munchausen in my practice and it is an ugly disease, and very diffcult at times to detect. I'm not surprised the abuse Ms. Gregory suffered went on as long as it did, because of how sneaky and insidious the disease is. She does an admirable job writing about the abuse without becoming maudlin or playing for sympathy. She seems to be a woman in charge of her own health now, and the story rings of her strength and ability to f More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Abby rated it:

Julie Gregory grew up in an abusive household. Her mother had Munchausen by Proxy, a mental disorder that causes someone to seek attention by inflicting medical symptoms on a dependent. Throughout her childhood, Julie was told that she was sick. She was starved, beaten, and taken out of school for doctor's visits and hospital stays. Her mother insisted that every possible test be done (including invasive ones), in order to "get to the bottom of this". Julie was punished if she didn't g More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2008

Deborah rated it:

Though Munchausen's by Proxy is a terrible disorder that causes parents to inflict grievous pain and suffering upon their trusting and powerless children, I simply was not impressed with this book. Just another "look how ****ed up my upbringing was, but by god I'm a SURVIVOR!"

There are so many survivors of so many diverse kinds of abuse, and it seems like everyone wants to write a tell-all now. Some are excellent -- e.g. "The Glass Castle" -- and some are so delic More...

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Aug 13, 2008

Sierra rated it:

Wow this book was disturbing, yet I was unable to put it down. It drew me in fast and kept me riveted. It a memoir of a childhood lived with a muchausen by Proxy mom. Julie was carted to doctor after doctor, made sick with pills, all sorts of terrible things. There was also physical abuse. It was hard to read it spots. A very good book, one that I think more people should read, specially hospital/doctor staff. It really gives a deep look into what a person with muchausen by proxy is like, and More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Sara rated it:

This book was a little disappointing. More than following the issues of Munchausen by Proxy, the author reveals more about the emotional and physical abuse her mother and father. I was expecting more detail (and I guess more Munchausen issues) then was given.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2009

Eileen rated it:

When I read stuff like this, I am truly horrified at how parents can be so brutal and cruel to their own children or to any other human being. Sometimes, I wonder at the irony of people requiring permits to keep specific breeds of dogs, yet people who are obviously unsuitable to be parents don't need a licence to reproduce when the responsibility is so much greater. Not that I'm saying this is something that should be regulated but it is painfully heart-breaking to read about child abuse, especi More...

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Dec 21, 2011

Ayu rated it:

Buku pinjam di perpustakaan pusat UI disaat sedang berusaha lari dari stres tugas kuliah yang menumpuk. Kisah di buku ini menceritakan tentang Julie, sang pengarang, yang hidup di bawah pengasuhan seorang ibu yang mengidap sindrom Munchausen by Proxy, sebuah jenis penyiksaan dari seorang ibu terhadap anak dimana sang ibu terus mengira anaknya mengidap penyakit berbahaya dan terus-terusan membawanya ke berbagai jenis dokter untuk berusaha mengetahui penyakit sang anak yang sebenarnya sehat-sehat More...

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Oct 22, 2010

Jay rated it:

So, I generally scoff at these books. Not because of the situations depicted in them, but because they all look the same. A white background, a handwritten font title, sad picture of a child on the front. The names are usually one word: NAKED, UGLY, SICKENED. And so on.

Buuut, I liked this book. I liked how Gregory was able to depict MBP, and how she believed herself to be sick up until her mid-twenties. If you're told something for so long, eventually you will believe it right down t More...

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May 04, 2010

Terry rated it:

Hoo boy, this is a tough read. I actually turned to the end of the book to see if there was a reason to slog through the rest of it. I know, I know, that's cheating.

I am probably the only human being on the planet that hated Pelzer's The Lost Boy, for various reasons including what I thought of as terrible writing; and unfortunately, this book reminded me a little too much of that one, and that ruined some of the experience for me.

On the other hand, I think Gregory expos More...

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Dec 26, 2009

Barky rated it:

Julie Gregory’s mom is obsessed with her daughter’s health. She spends years convincing everyone that Julie is a very sick little girl. Even Julie starts believing that there’s something wrong with her. Her illness keeps her out of school, keeps her from graduating, keeps her from making friends, keeps her from having a normal life, and keeps her right under her mother’s thumb. Mom also makes her take medicines she doesn’t need, and has her on a variety of diets to control her illness that o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2009

Talia rated it:

This book differs from your typical "Painful Lives" autobiography in the unusual form of abuse it chronicles. Munchausen by proxy is a largely unknown phenomenon, and difficult to understand for those unfamiliar to the idea; after all, how could a person deceive a whole string of doctors - as well as the child herself - that a perfectly healthy child had a mysterious disease so serious it might require open heart surgery to diagnose?
The positives of this book: you can really start More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Tee rated it:

Weirdly, ones first reaction is to want more from this book. She didn't suffer enough, she should have been sicker, her mother should have been worse (and I'm not alone in this, there's other people who echo my thoughts but just aren't aware that they're hungry for the gore). The thing is, Gregory's abuse was severe and it doesn't matter how mild a case of Munchausen's it was- if you put yourself in her place, in the body and mind o a fragile, dependent child - the experience must have been horr More...

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Jun 27, 2011

Laura rated it:

The first half of this book earned a solid 4 stars (which in my quirky scale, is a 'Wow. Quite enjoyable'. The second half, however, floundered its way down to just 2 stars (a 'meh...didn't really care for it). I'm a sap for memoirs. I am convinced that everyone has a story to tell, and while the better part of the population's story is more interesting than my own bland story, not everyone's actually is going to make a fascinating read.

Sickened did not, in fact, fall in that cat More...

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Nov 30, 2011

Lexi added it

I believe that Julie Gregory’s purpose for writing the book “Sickened” was inform us that there are many ways that parents abuse their children, but this one called Manchausen by Proxy Syndrome could possibly be the worst. In the story her mother takes her from doctors to doctors to get tested. She also explains how tough it can be to be a victim of this disease. It would be hard to live in a house hold such as this one.

The theme of the story is to stay strong during tough More...

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Nov 22, 2011

Kyle rated it:

Like a lot of other reviewers, I liked the first half of the book much better than the second half. It was really interesting to read about Julie and her mother - I actually totally forgot this book was a memoir (I had it on my Kindle under "Sickened") but I read it thinking that this reads more like a memoir than fiction. Halfway through, I realized my mistake. Whoops!

Anyway, Julie's story is definitely interesting. However, I got totally lost in the last half - all of the s More...

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May 04, 2011

Vicki rated it:

I'm not all that into memoirs. I thought that I had given them up as one of the most boring, self-absorbed genre's of literature ever. The subject matter of this book, however, caught me. It seemed different from the regular "my life was so horrible" books, and far different from the "women traveling and seeming to talk about traveling while really talking about men" books. I had heard of Munchausen by Proxy, but I didn't know much about it. This book enlightened me, and I fo More...

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Jun 03, 2009

MAP rated it:

I would say the first 1/2 of the book is actually four stars, but the second half of the book becomes disjointed, abstract, and scattered, almost as if she wrote each sentence at 2 AM after a revelation (except that the paragraphs aren't set up like that, so you're left lurching from thought to thought between sentences with no visual sense on the page of a separation of thoughts.)

The book is an interesting journey of a child growing up with MBP and abuse and not fully realizing the More...

9 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 02, 2008

Sandra D rated it:

I feel faintly guilty for having read this, like slowing down at the scene of a car wreck to catch a glimpse of mangled bodies.

The dysfunctional family memoir isn't my usual genre, but this one sucked me in and held me until the end. Or nearly the end. The "house of mirrors" part was pretty weird. Also, for an expert on MBP, the author offers very little educational info about it. But the writing was good and it was an absorbing, if horrifying, read.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

Cheri rated it:

A very appropriate title for the way I felt reading this story...sickened. We are reading "life stories" by people who had difficulties or challenges as children for a graduate class I'm taking through Keene State College. I've heard of Munchausen by Proxy, a mental illness where parents make their children sick so they need to seek medical care, but I had never read an individual's story. It was heartbreaking and makes you realize you never know what children are going through when th More...

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Jun 18, 2011

Sam rated it:

If you haven't read this book, read it. Right now. It will change you for life. Or well, at least impact you. Greatly. SO READ IT. Right now. This book is a memoir, but don't worry people that aren't memoir fans- it's written like a story. I'm not a huge fan of memoirs myself, and this got me hooked. Anyway, this is a memoir written by Julie Gregory about the abuse she endured as a child. Not just normal abuse though, she was also a victim of Munchausen by Proxy. Munchausen by Proxy is a disorde More...

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Mar 03, 2010

Ellen rated it:

Well, ceritanya memang menyedihkan. Tapi saya merasa buku ini terlalu bertele-tele menceritakan hal lain yang kelihatannya tidak begitu penting. Tokoh Julie juga terkesan sangat plin plan dan begitu dependen terhadap ibunya. Di satu sisi ingin melawan, namun di sisi lain ia tidak ingin. Yah, tidak bisa disalahkan tapi memang ini hasil didikan dari si ibu juga. Ayah dan ibu Julie sungguh dua orangtua yang aneh, kejam dan sadis, senang menyiksa anak. Buku ini sebenarnya ingin menceritakan kasus MB More...

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Jul 14, 2010

Katrine rated it:

This is a true story about the author. She is a victim of Munchausen by Proxy from the hands of her mother.

Growing up Julie was always sick with a heart condition. She was dragged from Doctor to doctor by her mother. As a reader you know the illness does not exist but you don't know if Julie realizes this until she begs for someone to believe her mother is lying before a traumatic heart procedure.

Julie's father is of no help either because he lets his wife do as she wishes More...

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Mar 29, 2010

Storm added it

So I've previously read a memoir of another author who briefly touched on the subject of Munchausen. I thought it was a strange disease so I decided to look up other books about it. I found this book and was shocked on how painfully honest the author was about her experiences. I couldn't believe people actually dealt with this. Her mother and her relationship was a tragedy. I could understand the love Julie had for her mother, but I don't understand how she could put up with her for as long as s More...

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Jan 09, 2010

Kristal rated it:

Growing up in a normal household has enough problems and pains when that household is a typical, normal family. But when you are living with not only one, but both parents that suffer with some form of mental instability, life can become a nightmare. Julie Gregory grew up in just such a household. Her mother suffered from Munchausen by Proxy, a condition of maltreatment in which there is falsification or induction of physical and /or emotional illness by a caretaker of a dependent person. Beginn More...

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Feb 08, 2012

Toni rated it:

Having a sick child was always miserable for me - checking on the kid throughout the night, giving medicine that the kid spits back in your face, going to emergency rooms at 2am..etc etc. My poor kid was pretty much rushed to the doctor any time he sneezed because I was so afraid he would have a febrile seizure (he had 4 of them due to his temperature going from normal to 102 in no time at all). With that said I just do not see the need to MAKE a child sick..this book is disgusting and depressin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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