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 Munchausen and support 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 munch housing 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.

...