SICKENED(ISBN=9780553381979) 英文原版 网盘下载 pdf 免费 2025 在线 epub 电子版

　　A young girl is perched on the cold chrome of yet another

doctor’s examining table, missing yet another day of school. Just

twelve, she’s tall, skinny, and weak. It’s four o’clock, and she

hasn’t been allowed to eat anything all day. Her mother, on the

other hand, seems curiously excited. She's about to suggest

open-heart surgery on her child to "get to the bottom of this." She

checks her teeth for lipstick and, as the doctor enters, shoots the

girl a warning glance. This child will not ruin her plans.

Sickened

From early childhood, Julie Gregory was continually X-rayed,

medicated, and operated on—in the vain pursuit of an illness that

was created in her mother’s mind. Munchausen by proxy (MBP) is the

world’s most hidden and dangerous form of child abuse, in which the

caretaker—almost always the mother—invents or induces symptoms in

her child because she craves the attention of medical

professionals. Many MBP children die, but Julie Gregory not only

survived, she escaped the powerful orbit of her mother's madness

and rebuilt her identity as a vibrant, healthy young woman.

Sickened is a remarkable memoir that speaks in an original and

distinctive Midwestern voice, rising to indelible scenes in prose

of scathing beauty and fierce humor. Punctuated with Julie's actual

medical records, it re-creates the bizarre cocoon of her family's

isolated double-wide trailer, their wild shopping sprees and

gun-waving confrontations, the astonishing na?veté of medical

professionals and social workers. It also exposes the twisted bonds

of terror and love that roped Julie's family together—including the

love that made a child willing to sacrifice herself to win her

mother's happiness.

The realization that the sickness lay in her mother, not in

herself, would not come to Julie until adulthood. But when it did,

it would strike like lightning. Through her painful metamorphosis,

she discovered the courage to save her own life—and, ultimately,

the life of the girl her mother had found to replace her. Sickened

takes us to new places in the human heart and spirit. It is an

unforgettable story, unforgettably told.

From the Hardcover edition.

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　　JULIE GREGORY grew up in southern Ohio. She is now an expert

writer and spokesperson on Munchausen by proxy and an

advocate

in MBP cases. A graduate student in psychiatry at Sheffield

University, England, she currently lives in the United

States.

　　From the Hardcover edition.

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　　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.

　　The scent of the shaving cream pulls me back down from the

ceiling: It's the same kind Dad used. Every day before dawn, he'd

erupt in violent heaving and crawl off to the toilet trying to peel

the Agent Orange from his lungs. Sometimes the sounds of his

retching would come out the mouths of those elusive figures in my

dreams, the worlds between sleep and wake merging seamlessly for a

few groggy moments. He'd usually shave after he puked.

　　In an unspoken understanding, the examining room nurse folds a

giant pile of cream from the can onto her palm, so much that as she

smooths an inch-thick trail down my chest, our naked skin never

touches.

　　Eventually the tide of Agent Orange would ebb and he'd lean dizzy

in the doorway and say, "I'm selling Buicks, Sissy. Get it? Selling

Buicks? Buuicck. Buuuuiiick." Then he'd cackle and brush the back

of his meaty fist across his mouth.

　　The nurse picks up a new blue-handled blade and runs it neatly

down my sternum, slicing out another clean, pink row.

　　And what do you do at seven in the morning but laugh with your

big, lumbering father, who's pretending the doorway of the bathroom

is a lamppost and that he, leaning on it like a drunk, is hawking

Buicks in his best barker accent?

　　And then they're done. The white pads have been spread with a

clear magnetic jelly and pressed on to six different locations.

Their wires run into one larger river of wires that flows from

under my sternum down my abdomen, emerging out the zipper of my

pants like I had some elaborate cable TV pay-per-view setup in

there. The rubber-coated electrodes feed into a tape recorder that

fits snugly into a rectangular leather harness; it looks like a

purse. I wear the strap over my shoulder, and while my

seventh-grade life ticks away, so do the heartbeats that go with

it, right into the box.

　　For starters, I was a sick kid. Beanpole skinny and as fragile as

a microwave souffle, I bruised easy and wilted in a snap. Kids in

school used to walk straight up to me and ask point-blank if I was

anorexic. But I wasn't; just sick. And Mom bent over backwards

trying to find out what was wrong with me. It wasn't just that I

had a heart problem. It was everything rolled into one, bleeding

together with so many indistinguishable layers that to get to the

root of it was impossible, like peeling off every transparent layer

of an onion, and when I got old enough to peel the onion myself,

every layer made me cry.

　　I was conceived in the sickly womb of a sickly mother--who

starved herself and in turn starved me. She was highly anemic and

blind with toxemia at the time of my birth--the result, she

explained, of high blood pressure cutting off the circulation to

her eyes. I was pushed into this world premature at three pounds

seven ounces, an embryonic little bird, glowing translucently, and

when they slapped me I didn't even yowl. They thought I was dead.

The doctor, holding my bluish body upside down by the ankles, took

one look at me and said, "My, what big feet she has." And then I

was ushered into an incubator where I lay, as all embryonic

creatures do, waiting to hatch into the real world, outside the

bubble. After that, my health only balanced precariously on the

edge of a "Let's get to the bottom of what's wrong with this kid"

kind of existence.

　　There were early nose-'n'-throat flare-ups, loud belching that

defied my delicate appearance, pesky and persistent migraines,

swollen tonsils that fluttered a plea for removal whenever I said

"Ahhh," a deviated septum blamed for my mouth hanging open to

breathe, and elusive allergies that forever deprived me of

sustenance from the four basic food groups. As we got closer to

pinning down my mysterious illness in the cardiology department,

Mom moved into micromanaged health care with the logistical vigor

of a drill sergeant.

　　"Look, dammit, this kid is sick, all right? Just look at her. And

so help me God, if she dies on me because you can't find anything

wrong with her, I'll sue you for every cent you got." Mom's face

was long, her eyes diving into slits, and she had that little white

blob of thick spit that always played on her bottom lip whenever

she got upset. Her voice trailed after any doctor who said no more

tests could be done, stalked him down the corridor, sliced through

the silence of the hallway.

　　"Jeesus Christ," she hissed, returning to the examining room, "I

cannot believe that incompetent son of a bitch."

　　"Don't worry, Mom. It's okay. We'll go find another one."

　　This is how I offered reassurance, by telling her we'd just keep

going.

　　"Look, I'm trying to help you with this, sacrificing my life to

find out what the hell is wrong with you. So stop fucking it up

when we get in here by acting all normal. Show them how sick you

are and let's get to the bottom of this, okay?"

　　"Okay."

　　We lived together day in and day out--me, Mom, Dad, little Danny,

and then later, the foster kids--but Dad never knew I was getting

my chest shaved. He was summoned by Mom with a set of "decent

clothes" and the boxed white loafers only when a demonstration of

fatherly support was paramount at a hospital. Otherwise, he was

left to his back-to-back reruns of M*A*S*H, his red-stained

pistachio fingers and mounds of empty nut carcasses piled high on

his belly.

　　We lived in a double-wide trailer then, stuck on the dead end of

a dirt road in a backwoods patch of Ohio; a wild, woolly green,

lushed-out part of the country with roller coaster hills that held

their breath in a Deliverance kind of way. I swear you could almost

hear the banjos folded faintly into the breeze.

　　My parents had hauled their black velvet painting of Jesus

crucified, with the 3-D blood from the crown of thorns blobbing

down the side of his head, all the way from Arizona and then

through the six other places we'd lived until we settled in the

holler of Burns Road.

　　Our living room was outfitted with an early imitation-wagon-wheel

velour sofa set, and Jesus hung against the burnt-orange velvet

wallpaper, which had been pasted over wood paneling, so that the

grooves showed through as darkened, hollow stripes. Sticky shag (as

if someone had vacuumed up honey) swayed like undulating seaweed

across the floor. Miniature concrete farm animals dotted our yard

in pairs and groups--white baby chicks, mini cows with pink udders,

roosters a-courting hens, a donkey in a sombrero--and when we were

in town for my doctors' appointments, Mom always kept an eagle eye

out for additions to her barnyard collection.

　　I remember my dad then, manateelike; big, soft, scrubbed clean as

if he'd just been run through a car wash on a La-Z-Boy gurney.

Naked white skin stretched taut over an enormous belly, the pallor

of sick clay. No hearing. No sight. No opinion. The dark living

room of our trailer held nothing---except sporadic uproarious

laughter to the endless hijinks of Hawkeye and Hunnicut.

　　Once, when I was seven, I lay in bed drifting to sleep when Dad

roared, "Siiissy! Siiisssssy!" I leapt out of bed, thinking "FIRE,"

and tore down the hall in slippery full-footed pajamas.

　　"Fix me some toast, will ya?" Dad's fingers placidly folded over

his chest, thick calves propped up on the snapping-turtle hinges of

the recliner footrest, he never took his eyes off the set.

　　Aside from trips to the doctor, we mostly stayed home in that

trailer on the dead end of a dirt road, and there was a great gulf

between how we really were and how we looked when we got out. I

have a photo from when I was about eleven and Danny, my brother,

was just four, when we drove up to Niagara Falls for a vacation.

We're in a fake wooden barrel that looks like it was careening over

the side of the falls, and we each wear a smile that couldn't have

been more plastic than the water swirling around us. I am naturally

blond by Clairol, wearing the latest in JCPenney pastels, and

exuding happiness.

　　But happiness is relative when you're twelve, sitting in a

chrome-on-steel examination room, goose bumps giving you that

plucked-chicken look, with a nubbly paper sheet tucked into your

clammy armpits. Until now the answers had run like whispers over

the hills just ahead of us. A little intermittent tachycardia here,

some Marfanoid habitus there. Never anything code-red enough to get

me completely, legitimately diagnosed. But they kept looking.

Because Mom was positive that the answer was right there in my

heart. A mother knows these things. She's the one who'd see me go

ashy in the face, she's the one who'd take my skipping pulse, and

she's the one who watched the weight fall right off my bones, all

the while my height skyrocketed. So that's what flamed us onwards,

after the answer. It was right there, just always right there

before us, waiting to be sussed out, and then it would all make

sense. And in some ways, she was right. But time might be running

out for me, so when Mom insisted on another test and they wouldn't

do it, well, that's when we'd get the hell out of there and try to

find somebody who knew what they were doing.

　　My mother, Sandy Sue Smith, was married off by her mother at the

tender age of seventeen to a man in his fifties named Smokey, who

kept a carnival act on the edge of town. Smokey was a small, tight

man with crisp tabs of sideburns that sliced down from under his

curled black cowboy hat. He had trick riding horses, horses trained

for the carnival ring, and he taught Sandy Sue to do outrageously

dangerous stunts with names like "The Apache Flyaway" and "Lay Over

the Neck." After the stunts, Smokey would strap Sandy to a pegged

wooden wheel, set it spinning, and throw nineteen-inch-long knives

at her. And then there she'd be, having survived the ten sharp

blades that jutted haphazardly from the cracked wood around her,

smiling brightly with one leg cocked, like a model, a dainty hand

flipped above in triumph. This was before she had me but I've seen

the pictures and they are stunning: She stands tall upon the bare

back of a wild, white horse blurring across a field, with a

ruby-tangerine-streaked sky as the backdrop.

　　In another photo Smokey is snapping a twenty-five-foot braided

leather bullwhip out toward Sandy, who stands pinned to the horse

trailer with an expressionless face, the whip side-winding like a

snake about to coil around her throat. They wear matching outfits

of black-and-white yoked satin shirts with pearl snap buttons,

silver conchs sewn down their trouser seams, and belt buckles the

size of serving platters.

　　How Sandy ended up with Smokey goes something like this: She has

a mother and a father and an older brother named Lee, who is a

little off, wink, wink. The father ignores the family, keeps his

attention on a gun collection stashed throughout the house. The

mother, Madge, is from a clan of West Virginians who sleep with

their own brothers and sisters and have cross-eyed children to

prove it. Sandy is occasionally left with men that do terrible

things to her in a shadowy basement. The father with the guns is

replaced one day by another gun-toting father--only this time with

a badge. He makes Sandy ride behind him on his motorcycle with his

hand curved around and resting on her bare leg. He takes her to

remote fishing holes with tall grass and the occasional fisherman

who looks the other way. Two years later, Sandy walks in from

school to find this new dad has stuck a gun in his mouth and blown

himself apart right there on the living room sofa.

　　Madge has a tenth-grade education and has never worked a day in

her life. There is scarcely ever food in the house. Sandy's given

no lunch money and by the time she's fifteen, she's famished.

Sinking in on herself with malnutrition, she collapses on one of

the floors she scrubs with ammonia after school. In the hospital

she lies with pelvic bones poking through thin white sheets, while

they feed her three meals a day. When she's strong enough to be

discharged, Madge gives her to Smokey, a man who lives down the

road with horses and a farm, a man who can take care of her as well

as he does his own cattle. And she climbs into his truck with

going-to-girls'-town enthusiasm, lured by the promise of her very

own horse. Off she goes with a man. It is all she's known.

　　Years go by with Sandy strapped to the wheel: white leather,

showgirl's smile. Coal black hair separated down the middle into

leather tunnels that lace up the side in Indian squaw fashion,

accentuating the trace of Cherokee blood that gives her the high

cheekbones and blushed full lips. She runs alongside as her gift

horse tumbles into a full gallop, grips its long, flying mane, and

then, clutching the horn, springs into the saddle with a panther's

grace, pushing to balance her way up until she is standing tall

while the spectators cheer. Still running at a breakneck speed, she

plunges under the horse's belly and thrusts her arm out in

performance-style splendor, ta-daaaaa. This is the Russian Death

Drag. She has captured an audience and, for the first time in her

existence, something other than a life, a body full of pain.

　　From the Hardcover edition.

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媒体评论

　　“A painful but wonderfully written memoir that should create

greater awareness of a bizarre disorder… Keen self-awareness, a

sharp eye for details, and an original, poetic voice.”

　　--Kirkus Reviews

　　“This story of unfathomable child abuse is told with remarkable

wit, compassion, and courage. It’s a work of beauty from a beast of

a childhood.”

　　--Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors and

Dry

　　“Like some Diane Arbus photograph come to life, Julie Gregory's

Sickened offers us a portrait of quintessential American Disturbos

in all their tender, heinous can't-look-and-can't-look-away glory.

A miraculous book by a woman whose very survival is itself a

miracle.”

　　--Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

　　“Set in a southern-culture-on-the-skids world reminiscent of J.T.

Leroy, Sickened is written with a lyrical directness that is both

riveting and horrific. Julie Gregory reminds us that those who find

the courage to slay the dragons of their past and stop the cycle of

abuse are the true heroes of the world.”

　　--Ann Magnuson, actress, singer, writer

　　"A stunning account by a courageous woman who journeyed from the

depths of hell to reclaim her own power and worth. Julie Gregory

casts an extraordinary beacon of healing. You will be hearing a lot

about this one.”

　　--Alan Cohen, author of I Had It All the Time

　　"A born storyteller with perfect pitch, Julie Gregory guides the

reader through this surreal form of cruelty, in which the ultimate

weapon is the scalpel, with originality, gusto and heart-stopping

courage."

　　--Sylvia Fraser, author of My Father's House: A Memoir of Incest

and of Healing

　　"Gripping self-disclosure by a remarkable young woman . . .

Sickened will surely and finally impact the proper diagnosis and

treatment of children caught in the terror of MBP."

　　--Chris Monaco, Ph.D., Director, Childhelp USA National Child

Abuse Hotline

　　“This searing and beautiful memoir represents a genuine

triumph

　　of the human spirit.”

　　--Marc D. Feldman, M.D.

　　From the Hardcover edition.