Exceprt #11: Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome

     There was talk among neighbors, along the way, that my mother might have been afflicted with a rather rare disorder known as Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (MBPS). This bizarre affliction manifests itself as a kind of self-pitying charade where the afflicted parent preys upon medical staff, or anyone else who might be handy for that matter, by drawing attention to her perpetually sick kid in order to gain sympathy. The game, of course, is initiated when the parent finds a way to induce some form of illness in her child. Parents with MBPS rarely intend to cause death; the goal is to induce just enough disruption in the poor kid's system to draw attention.

My mother did certainly display some of the symptoms, but she was not merely fooling around, making her daughter sick for sympathy. Let me explain something to you right here and now: yes, she craved the attention she received with her daughter's illness, but she didn't stop there. It was the condolences she was after, and she received them...more than once. If you piece all of that together what you might come up with is that she simply enjoyed the misery of it all.

In general, to induce illness over the long term, my mother's choice of tools was straightforward: no fancy poisons or drugs, just plain old mental cruelty with a bit of battering on the side...on the side of the head that is. The afflicted child would display a general sort of malaise and a certain too-familiar look of bewilderment. Once the illness set in, the rest would kind of take care of itself, and...believe me...there was no "turning back," not with a head that had been turned 180 degrees. If she hadn't tampered with my poor sister Anabelle's head, she would probably still be alive today...maybe not quite well, but...still breathing.

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Now you will learn what happened to that poor girl.