12 December 2003 SICKENED: THE MEMOIR OF A MUNCHAUSEN BY PROXY CHILDHOOD by Julie Gregory, Random House/Bantam, September 2003, ISBN 0-553-80307-7

"The part I hated most was the shaving. I mean, if you're a twelve year old girl, how much hair can you have on your chest? But they'd lather me up anyway and run a new plastic Bic between my barely there breasts. They needed me smooth and hairless so the little white pads would stick to those points constellated around my heart and record my beats. And while they were preparing, I'd hover above myself, intent on studying the nubby white ceiling tiles, imagining a room where I lived, inverted, upon the ceiling, away from the clutter of our trailer, away from the hospital--just floating in pure, white peace."

"Oh mother dear please listen

And don't devour me.

Oh mother dear please listen

Don't devour me."

--The Police, "Mother"

"A snake's jaws work much like the loose hinge on a pair of pliers, allowing the snake to spread its jaws over its meal. Then, the snake's jaws "walk" the meal deeper until it's devoured." --National Geographic, "Snake Wranglers"

That's the image that I get from Julie Gregory's memoir of the long nightmare otherwise known as her childhood: her mother methodically swallowing Julie until it is almost too late.

"Even though it's a new medical center, Mom knows what to do. She sits me in the waiting room and makes her way to the desk. She whispers through the reception window that I'm shy about my symptoms. She better speak to the doctor in private."

"You look like a perfect fit

For a girl in need of a tourniquet

But can you save me

Come on and save me"

--Aimee Mann, "Save Me"

Julie spends her childhood and adolescence suffering from an extensive series of ailments--all of which are created in her either physically or psychologically by her mother. As Julie, now an adult, finally discovered just a few years ago, her mother had a psychological disorder called Munchausen By Proxy. That disorder, typically seen in caregivers who, themselves, suffered severe abuse as children, results in that caregiver creating symptoms in others so that the caregiver can gain attention and sympathy.

"In the examining room, Mom says, 'Now we're going to tell Dr. Phillips about the dull pains in your head, right about,' she presses her fingers into my skull, trying to find them, 'here.' She squeezes hard to remind me what they feel like.

"Now I don't want any kind of fiasco like we had last time, okay?' " 'Okay.'

" 'I'm the mom: I know what's going on here. So if he asks you questions, you just let me answer.' "

Having heard a little about this book before reading it, I went in somewhat skeptical--both that such things could really happen for years without anyone finding out and that I'd have any interest in reading about it. But in the same way that THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER answers the questions of "Who was he?", "Why did he try to do that?" and "How did he succeed so tragically well?", Julie does an equally exceptional job of showing us how her parents were so totally whacked out--before, during, and after her childhood--and how they set it all up so terribly well that her mom could manage to torture her for so many years without being caught.

"You didn't tell me and i didn't ask so there's

Nobody left to blame

But still i know no place i can go

That helps to relieve the pain"

--Todd Rundgren, "You Left Me Sore"

" 'What're you doing? What're you going to do to me today?' They always tell me what they're about to do. Without a word, the nurse at my side ties my arm with a clear rubber hose. She smoothes an alcohol pad over the thin skin of the crook of my arm and taps for a vein.

"The nurse at my feet says, 'Now this might be a little stick, Julie. We've got to get this plastic tube into the urethra 'cause Mom says you can't go.'

"My heart is pounding; what's urethra? What is she doing down there? I open my mouth to ask but only a scream rips out."

If you had someone simply enumerating the facts of Julie's childhood, it would be a grim list indeed. But the adult Julie Gregory has found a wonderful voice to guide us through this real-life horror story of the isolated trailer, the guns, the racism, neglect, obsessive shopping sprees, intentional traffic accidents, compulsive television rituals, lies, fires, and more lies.

"I'll send an SOS to the world

I'll send an SOS to the world

I hope that someone gets my

Message in a bottle"

--Sting. "Message in a Bottle"

The most heartbreaking episodes are those scarce few instances when the young Julie is momentarily shocked into speaking, but is immediately steamrolled back into submission by the weight of the unending guilt and lies that her mother has force-fed her day after day, year after year.

" 'We're going to have to shave you now honey.'

" 'Shave me?' my chest could not possibly have any more hair on it.

" 'Down here.' She pats my pubic bone under the thin hospital blanket.

" 'What? I'm done, I'm going home! I don't have anything down there!' I jerk my knees up. 'I'm here for my heart.'

" 'Well, honey, we can't have any hair down there because even just a little bit would be in the doctor's way. That's where he cuts with his scalpel.'

" 'What scalpel?'

" 'That's the knife he uses for the test.'

"My eyes widen.

" 'For your heart catherization.' I'm trying her patience. Why do I have to make her job harder? My mother is here all day, every day, surely I know...

"This has got to be a mistake. Maybe this nurse got a slip of paper from my mom for somebody else. It's a mix-up. My eyes are searching my bedspread, as fast as my brain is scanning. How did this happen? They're going to cut me. My breath quickens, my eyes fixate in horror.

" 'You, you can't do this to me,' my voice speaks by itself. 'You can't do it,' it says louder, 'my mother is making it up!'

"I can't believe I blurted that out. I cannot believe I just said that! I jump to the back corner of the bed, clutching the covers up to my neck with one hand, slipping my other behind me, to pin that curtain to the headboard.

"The nurse watches me hard. Her expression says she doesn't believe me. Maybe I don't believe me, either. I can't believe I just said that. That would be ridiculous. My mother loves me. There's something wrong with me. I do feel sick..."

There is a large contingent of adolescents who are fascinated by Dave Pelzer's books. I'm confident that SICKENED will find a similarly enthusiastic (and horrified) teen audience. And, as with fictional stories such as SPEAK and YOU DON'T KNOW ME, we can hope that readers of SICKENED will internalize the importance of being concerned and, indeed, being nosy and vocal, when things seem to be going badly for one of their peers and no one seems to be doing the right thing about it.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com