Forgotten By Julie Gregory Sparknotes

Sickened, Julie Gregory’s memoir asserts claims of abuse that are still contested by her mother. Gregory’s memoir includes descriptions of various forms of abuse used against Gregory, her brother Danny, and several foster children housed in their home. It is important to note that Julie’s mother was never formally diagnosed. Rather, Gregory came to the conclusion on her own that her mother may be categorized as having Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another after learning of the disorder in a psychology class. While Gregory did eventually study psychiatry at the University of Sheffield, England, she does have an inherent bias towards this diagnoses due to her years suffering her mother’s abuse. Nevertheless, it may be said that the events detailed

Gregory’s memoir supports that her mother did intentionally elicit symptoms of illness in Gregory and manipulate such symptoms to warrant attention from various medical professionals. Gregory-Parocai did continue the patterns of abuse Gregory described with her son, Danny, several of her foster children, and— supposedly— a girl she adopted after abandoning her children and remarrying. This repetitive pattern of behaviors leads to the conclusion she was falsifying illness in the children in her care. While my opinion concurs with Julie Gregory’s theory, it is important to remember that, at this point, Sandy Gregory-Parocai has not received a diagnosis from a medical

Sickened supports the unfortunate reality that FDIA often will go undiscovered for many years, often not until several victims have died. The disorder is largely covert and easily misunderstood. Reading about Gregory’s experiences also reveals how FDIA interacts with other forms of abuse, such as verbal and physical. While not all diagnosed with FDIA may engage with other forms of abusive behavior, the need to control the victim and illicit illnesses appear to coincide with the need to physical harm and verbally reprimand, at least in the case of the Gregory family. Other than the additional forms of abuse, Sandy Gregory-Parocai adhered strictly to the perception I had developed of individuals with FDIA from the videos view in class. If anything, the differences between perception and portrayal encourage me to question how often medical abuse concurs with other forms of