You don’t wake up one day and realize you’re being abused. Especially not when the person doing it calls herself your protector. When I was little, I thought my mom was the only thing standing between me and death. She would stand at the pharmacy counter, hurling questions at pharmacists about my “condition,” rattling off a list of foods I couldn’t eat, symptoms I supposedly had, illnesses I might be coming down with. She seemed so convincing, so urgent. I never questioned it. I thought that’s what moms did.
I lived on raw vegetables, unsalted almonds, and sunflower seeds. My stomach bulged with bloat. I was always exhausted. At times, I was so hungry I’d fantasize about food the way other kids dreamed about Disneyland. My meals were pills—handfuls of herbs forced down with water before school, while my mother watched. If I gagged or resisted, she got angry, told me I was sabotaging my own health.
There were doctor visits, but not the kind other kids had. Naturopaths, quacks, people with crystals and oils and explanations that never made sense. When my ear oozed pus for months, she said it was allergies. When I broke my shoulder and screamed in pain, she hauled me to a chiropractor and insisted it was “just a sprain.” Real doctors were a last resort, only called in when something was so obvious she couldn’t cover it up. It was always a battle—her narrative versus the world.
She was a hero to outsiders. “She’s so devoted,” they’d say. “What a strong mother.” At school, I faded into the background—skinny, tired, always sick. Only a teacher noticed the truth and intervened. When the authorities finally stepped in, it felt unreal, like being yanked out of a bad dream.
What took me years to understand—what I’m still trying to understand, honestly—is why a mother would do this to her own child.
As a kid, I couldn’t make sense of it. Sometimes I wondered if she was just scared. Sometimes I thought maybe I really was sick, and it was all my fault. Therapy helped, a little. I learned words: Munchausen by proxy. Factitious disorder imposed on another. But labels don’t fill in the blanks. Why would a parent, the person who’s supposed to protect you, make you sick on purpose?
Now, as an adult, I can look back and see the patterns. I think my mom wanted—needed—to be needed. She wanted to be the center of attention, the one who was always right, the one who could say, “Look at everything I do for my poor, sick child.” She got sympathy, concern, admiration, even status from other parents and doctors. My illness made her interesting, important, powerful. When things calmed down, when the drama faded, she looked empty—almost desperate for the next “crisis” to keep people circling around her.
Part of me still feels sorry for her, even after all the harm she did. I think she was deeply lonely, maybe even afraid of being irrelevant, or left behind. Maybe my sickness was her way of mattering in the world.
But understanding why doesn’t erase the damage. I carry the scars in my body and my mind: complex PTSD, chronic pain, the endless questioning of my own reality. I still flinch when people ask about my childhood. I still have nightmares about choking on pills, about being told I was weak and ungrateful.
The hardest part is that other people still see her as a loving mom. When I try to explain what happened, they look at me like I’m the cruel one. The sympathy and attention she worked so hard to get is still flowing her way. I’m left with the fallout.
So, why would a mother do this? Maybe for attention. Maybe for control. Maybe because her own pain was so big, she needed the whole world to see it, even if she had to put it inside her child. Whatever the reason, I know now: her need was never my responsibility. Her emptiness was never mine to fill.
And I am more than what she made me.