![]() ![]() She suffered from headaches, fevers and constant fatigue. She dragged the girl from doctor to doctor, instructing her to "show them how sick you are." Having been forced to perform exhausting labor, given unneeded medications, brutalized by her father and fed nothing but junk food, Gregory did indeed feel sick. ![]() Whether for attention or through sadism, Gregory's mother, Sandy, a former rodeo rider, needed her daughter to be ill. And, no matter how many words are spun on the topic, Munchausen by proxy remains baffling. Munchausen syndrome - in which a patient pretends to be and sometimes deliberately makes him or herself ill - is less so. Hypochondria is widely known as a phenomenon, and at least partly understood. As she describes them in Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood (Bantam, $24.95), Julie Gregory's family members resemble participants on "The Jerry Springer Show." ![]()
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