True Story Media

Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show, we discuss child abuse, and this content may be difficult for some listeners.

If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help.

When you love someone like Joe's mom, Donna, or my sister Megan, it means that illness and death,

either theirs or that of their children, are just sort of constantly hanging around like this unwelcome house guest.

There is this fear that I hear from listeners sometimes, that their own anxious behaviors

around illness or around their children will make them seem like they're engaging in munchausen

behaviors. But what is hard to explain to people who haven't experienced this is just how all

consuming these behaviors actually are. It's an obsession that gets more intense over time,

and much like an addiction, the person has to keep upping the ante so that everything, the lying,

the illnesses, and the brushes with death get more extreme and more frequent.

And with Megan, this escalation meant going through a different kind of death. There's this

person that I remember from childhood. And yeah, looking back, especially talking to my parents

about their memories, the illness stuff, hers, her pets, that was always there too.

But when I look back at us as kids, there was a whole person there with hobbies and interests

and just other things about them other than this obsession with illness.

But that person disappeared over time. It was like her obsession was devouring her from the inside.

And by the end, the sister I said goodbye to 14 years ago, she was a shell of the person I'd once known.

And now, I have no idea.

And the person I've read about in the police reports about her daughter, the accounts I've

listened to from people who were there, I still have trouble reconciling that person

with the person I grew up with. One thing I know, the Meg and I loved, she's gone. Today, we're

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