Personal Narrative

To well-meaning therapists, I was a victim of severe medical child abuse, but it has taken me over 20 years to even start to feel anger at my abuser (my mother). Obviously there are a lot of complexities to this kind of abuse and her being my mum, and also her being...

I was raised by a mother with Munchausen’s, MBP, and narcissistic personality disorder. As an infant, she claimed I needed penicillin for “months” until I got anaphylaxis. Throughout my childhood, she had me at the pediatrician nonstop for pneumonia, and would force...

My name is Robyn and I am currently 53 years old. I was 9 1/2 when my little sister was born. That day, my life changed forever. Not just because I was no longer the baby, but because my sister was born two months early and was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. She...

My mother has been sick since before I was born, not, however, in the way she has always desired to be sick. Before her children came along, her cat had seizures. Then my older sister had seizures and my mother convinced the pediatrician to write an anti-seizure...

Play to Listen

Though I always knew that I had a factitious disorder--at least on some level--it was difficult to admit to it on a practical level. I can go about discussing my childhood, which was not a happy one, but I don’t care to relive it. One of the reasons I found it...

This case is mostly culled from newspaper accounts and is not truly a “personal” narrative. In 2008, Cassey Jo Weierbach was found guilty of welfare fraud, forgery, and records tampering. Pennsylvania state prosecutors accused Cassey of pretending to have AIDS in...

I am convinced that my sister Bernadette is pretending to have terminal cancer. I am angry, upset, and terrified right now. This all started in January, when Bernadette called to tell me that a small tumor had been found on her ovary during a routine scan. She...

In all civilized societies, it's a given that mothers protect their children. Protecting children is such normal everyday expected behavior that when a mother not only fails to protect, but actually tries to harm her child, it's something to consider and question. Why...

This is a case in which I was an expert for the defense. Rebecca, a 32-year-old part-time athletic coach, was a passenger in a van operated by the Police Athletic League of a major city. During an outing, the van and a car sideswiped each other. No injuries were...