Rating: 
Summary: Truly Touched
Review: Julie Gregory has truly touched me with her story of being abused by her Munchausen by Proxy mother. This is a serious disease and her book has given light to the truth behind the disorder. I feel for the little girl that was Julie and wish I could have been there to help her. Abuse of children is all too common in our society. I appluad Julie for facing her past and her pain so she could help other children who are suffering. She has given us all an example to deal with our own pain. Her eloquent and chilling tale has touched me and I will forever be changed by her strength. I look forward to buying her next book.
Rating:
Summary: The Sickness Inside
Review: This chilling story of a little girl who was abused by her mother brought me to frustrated tears. This book is not for the weak of heart, it is a cutting truth of child abuse and it will make you feel, strongly what this child felt. I was abused as a child and I can tell you I remember conversations from 25 years ago, verbatim. The man who left the bad review should have his account closed for abusing this service. He is obviously dealing with his own issues of being abused and knows only how to lash out when his pain is triggered. He obviously doesn't understand his own pain or has issues remembering it which has caused him to be completely ignorant to the reality of the manifestation of child abuse as an adult. I hope he finds some help for himself somewhere. I was brought back into the pain of my childhood reading this book and it took me days to sift through all the memories that overwhelmed me. I was inspired by the author's strength of character and truly heroic effort to face the pain inside of her. This book is wonderfully written and took me through every high and low, causing me to be sad, angry, frustrated and introspective but most of all she is an example to my own strength. Reading her book has led me to a new level of healing and I look forward to more books from this author in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Sickened and Painfully Recovered
Review: This is the saddest book of child abuse I have read since
Christina Crawford wrote " Mommie Dearest " a quarter of a
century ago.It was written by Julie Gregory so eloquently,I
could not put it down.
Julie's mother convinces her, that she ( Julie )is an
invalid and must take medications like attenlol 25mg.,for
her heart.The medications make Julie feel sick and tired
most of the time.Sometimes the dose is doubled according to
her mother ((Sandy's) whim.This is what Munchausen by Proxy
is about.A caretaker,in this case the mother makes a helpless
child suffer, in order to garner attention for herself and
have re-affirmation from a Doctor in authority.
It is the worse scenario of child abuse,because it goes
unrecognized.
The father,who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic,does
not allow the mother to refer to their son,several years
younger than Julie as sickly,and nearly kills her the one
time she mistakenly does.This saves Danny some abusiveness.
The children witness these savage fights.
The family lives isolated in a trailer with concrete walls
and additions.The mother takes in veterans and foster
children,thereby making money for herself and wastes it on
pairs of hundreds of shoes,for herself and lifesize
ceramic animals for the trailer.
The foster chidren are mistreated, and the mother encourages Julie also to physically hurt them-but Julie has human feelings
and only pretends to.Her Mother thinks this will bind Julie toher,making them closer.
Julie has no girlfriends,and the one time she did confide
in a new friend,the results were disastrous.Her new friend
did not believe her and dropped her after telling most
of Julie's classmates, that Julie made up stories.
By this time, Julie has reached her teen years.Her mother
continues to make sure she is sickly,and has had a heart
catherization performed on her.
Sandy, then convinces a physician to do a deviated septum repair
of the nose and to shape it less Roman.In other words,
repair the septum,so she can breath, then for no reason improve her nose structure.
Deviated septum repair is more painful than most people
realize.People used to be hospitalized four days and it was a
last resort for polyps and painful sinusitis. Most people decline having it done,when the procedure is described to
them.
I almost stopped reading at this point,but continued,
after checking the picture of Julie on the back flap of her
book.
I did this several times to re-assure myself,that Julie
survived her horrendous childhood.
There is a great deal more to the story,but suffice it to say
Julie survived this horrible Munchausen by Proxy.
Through,educating herself,and staying away from the woman
who was her mother,Julie states,she rose like a Phoenix
from the ashes.After much time and therapy,she checks out
Mama again, to convince herself,to look for change, for
apology?
Sandy,her mother,has adopted two children in Montana.
Nothing has changed but location.
Julie bravely saves their lives armed with her childhood
files and evidence from Ohio's childrens services.Julie who has grown into a beautiful woman with an ethereal quality, has
given us her story so we the public,and the professionals
she teaches,are made aware of this insidious abuse of helpless
children by their caretakers.
Thank You,Julie,and may the rest of your life be better.
Rating: 
Summary: Sickened with the Style
Review: Ok, I was expecting to read an account of a woman's terrifying experience as a victim of MBP. It's in there but it's written in a flowery style which takes away from the brutal reality of the situation. One wonders, how are these long conversations between doctors, parents, and children remembered verbatim from 20 years ago?
Rating:
Summary: Miraculous Recovery
Review: The irony inherent in this story is just amazing, as is the author's ability to highlight it in a subtle, yet compelling manner. For example, the author's mother's cavalier approach to a bona fide and obvious medical emergency -- a compound fracture of the wrist -- was a mindblower, in view of her decade-long obsession with "documenting" the author's non-existent symptoms and problems. Also, the author's father's obsession with the TV program MASH was ironic and sad. It's almost as if the author's mother tried to create her own triage center to divert attention away from the televised medical drama that so captivated her husband. Writers can spend entire careers trying to capture the essence of irony, and this young woman did so in her first attempt.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminating memoir
Review: I bought this book because of my interest in memoirs and because I'm an avid reader of Augusten Burroughs, who has recommended this book. While I had heard about Munchausen by proxy (MBP), the details I had heard were sketchy, and I never understood what it really was. Julie Gregory's account of her own experience with MBP is shocking, but she does not capitalize or overdramatize the grotesque elements. Rather than resorting to hyperbolic or extreme language, she writes in a sparse, direct, almost journalistic prose. Especially illuminating, given the relative brevity of the passage, is her description of what it was like for her to develop her own sense of identity & self-esteem after a childhood marked by particularly twisted psychological & physical abuse. I can only imagine what it took to write this down and open oneself up, as it were, like a book. It will help people to better understand and empathize with those whose upbringing was radically different from their own; or, for those who have contact with MBP or are suffering from MBP, it should help alert people to the signs.
Rating:
Summary: Sickened by Julie Gregory
Review: This book was so sad, so good(in the sense of writing), so unfathomable, so shocking. I could not put it down. The abuse the author and her brother suffered made my heart ache. This book made me want to reach in and rescue this girl who was at the mercy of her very own mother, and father. Her strong will to survive makes you want to keep reading because you know in the end she has survived!
Rating:
Summary: Sickened
Review: This is definately a five star book, it is outstanding. After reading page one I could not put the book down. The author does a wonderful job of taking the reader into her life as she lived it. I highly recommend reading this book. This is one of the best non-fiction books I have read in my life.
Rating:
Summary: Sickened
Review: This is definately a five star book, it is outstanding. After reading page one, I could not put the book down. The author does a great job of taking the reader into her life as she lived it. I highly recommend reading this book. I believe this to be one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: Once I started reading this book I couldn't put it down. The story is very compelling in itself, but Julie Gregory is also an excellent and occasionally hilarious writer. It did remind me of Augusten Burrough's work in the way she described the people around her with a child's blunt, uncompromising perspective. It breaks your heart that a child this perceptive and aware would have to endure what she did. Her mother has to be one of the scariest parents alive, but Julie opens the book with some hair-raising scenes from her mother's own adolescence so you can see that her cruelly bizarre behavior didn't just spring from a vacuum. Overall this is a fascinating and beautifully poetic read about twisted family dynamics and how the author carved out her own path to sanity.
|
