I bought this book at the Christmas Bazaar last week in AP2, only because the price was reduced to 10,000 VND, and the cover looked nice. After finishing the book, I felt extremely lucky to have bought it!
This story is a memoir of Julie Gregory, of her lost childhood and menacing past. As a little girl, Julie misses countless days of school, to drive to numerous doctors. Her mother is certain that her daughter is sickly, as she is tall, skinny, and weak at 12 years old. She keeps telling Julie that she will "get to the bottom of this", after each doctor reports that Julie is not needed to be hospitalized. When the doctor ask if Julie has headaches, she doesn't know what they feel like and nods yes, if she says no, her mother will beat her at home. After her checkup, her mom chuckles to herself of the joke she had with the nurse, and slips a pill under Julie's tongue before each appointment, to trigger the migraines. Chocolate cake mix is fed to Julie when she is feeling sick, and a proper diet is frowned upon my her mother, as Julie is apparently "allergic". Julie only follows along, as she is raised to believe this is right.
At one point, her mother goes as far to recommend open heart surgery to her daughter. As the doctor reasons with her mother the reasons why this cannot happen, she screams that surgery will be the only way to cure Julie, and storms out of the office.
"Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed, medicated and operated on the vain pursuit of an illness that was created in her mother's mind..."
Muchausen by Proxy is the theme of this story, the world's most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse. The abuse that is put onto Julie, "Sickened is her story".
No comments:
Post a Comment