Summary Of Mommy Dead And Dearest By Julie Gregory

A memoir of a childhood lost to multiple mysteries illnesses , Julie Gregory tells us about the unseen abuse she endured as a young child and how it affected her into her adult years. Now as an adult Julie reminisces on her dysfunctional family, from her schizophrenic father to her low key mentally ill mother. From a young age Julie Gregory was continually tested for a sickness that was non existent, made up in the mind of her mother she had “suffered” from many different illnesses including a heart condition. Her childhood in Ohio consisted of doctor visits, x-rays, medication, and operations all of which were unneeded. Only when Julie was an adult did she realize that the person who was sick was not her but instead her mother. Munchausen

Dee Dee was the mother of Gypsy, a sickly child who spent most of her life in the house and online. Dee Dee would never keep gypsy under one doctor for long periods time and like julies mother would cause symptoms to match any diseases dee dee claimed gypsy had. Gypsy’s head would be shaved so that it would appear that she had went under chemotherapy and would also be confined to a wheelchair in which was unneeded. Dee Dee and Gypsy lived in Springfield, Missouri and received many donations and even acquired a house for her and her daughter to live in. In 2015 Dee Dee was found stabbed to death, which turned out to be the result of Gypsy no longer being able to continue with her mother’s deception. Gypsy was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Although Julie’s case didn’t end in murder, Mommy Dead and Dearest shows a possible outcome to MBP. I am also connecting this memoir to Everything Everything. Everything Everything is about a young girl with SCID, severe combined immune deficiency, which prevents her from being outside due to a non-existent immune system. She falls in love with her neighbor who just moved, who also heightened her desire to finally leave the house. When Maddie eventually leaves the house she gets sick but not due to SCID, but to just a low immune system due to her never being outside. Maddie goes through her medical records and never finds anything that says she actually was diagnosed with

Betrayal is one of the biggest themes in the book, Julie finds out the mother that had always been so concerned about her daughter's worrying health had been making it up all along. It's a hard hit to Julie when she realizes that she was never unwell at all, and that her mother was the actual one putting her life in danger instead of a mysterious heart disease. Another theme that comes to the mind is suffering. I think that suffering works well as a theme because Julie and her little brother danny suffered several forms of abuse, while her mother and father both suffered from two different mental illnesses. The purpose of Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood I believe is to inform others of the dangers of Munchausen by Proxy. Many people are unaware that a form of abuse such as this one exists, especially because all the mistreatment is seen as a way of helping a sickly child get better. Munchausen by proxy doesn’t just affect children but can also involve any other person under somebody's care, such as an elder. The symptoms of munchausen by proxy becomes much more prevalent once the child is away from the mother or caregiver. It is a dangerous and even deadly