“I love you to death”
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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. Over the last several years, there has been a major uptick in media coverage about Munchausen by proxy.

Some of this was due to the sensational case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who conspired to murder her abusive mother in 2015 and spent seven years in prison.

This story has spawned an HBO documentary, a dramatized series on Hulu, two lifetime reality shows featuring Gypsy herself, and an untold amount of breathless media coverage about everything from Gypsy's turbulent love life to her cosmetic procedures. The fervor over the Gypsy story is illustrative of how we relate to this issue. It's at once a deep taboo and at the same time a lurid point of fascination.

And in between, we often lose sight of the real people at the center of it.

Munchausen by proxy is an inherently shocking phenomenon, and it's easy to sensationalize, so it's no surprise that the topic has found a home on many daytime talk shows, including Dr. Phil, who has covered numerous cases including gypsies. Media coverage often fixates on the gruesome details, the shocking number of procedures and medications that a child has been subjected to, and the why of it all.

And while it's understandable to be fascinated by someone who commits such an unthinkable act, this, unfortunately, centers the perpetrator. But what about the person who endured all of this? That was a story that needed to be told. And when Joe decided to take it on, it changed everything. ♪

People believe their eyes. That's something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something. If we didn't, you could never make it through your day. I'm Andrea Dunlop, and this is Nobody Should Believe Me.

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if there's someone you feel needs to hear this show, please do share it. Word of mouth is so important for independent podcasts. For more, you can now find us on YouTube, where we have all of our episodes as well as bonus video content. In the last episode, Joe had confronted their childhood pediatrician about their revelations of abuse, and the experience was extremely validating.

Overall, Joe's life was headed in a good direction. They'd moved out of state, away from their mother, they were in school and in treatment, and establishing some hard-won independence. But as Joe began to process that their long history of health problems was actually a history of deception and abuse, the fragile equilibrium they'd begun to find in their 20s started to fracture. So I would have been 24, and I was in my 20s.

I had been really struggling once again with an eating disorder. I had slipped into a relapse. I had been really struggling and I didn't have insurance.

And without insurance, you can't really get help from treatment centers or anything like that. And so it was just it was so severe to the point I was having to do almost daily check ins with my team to make sure I didn't need to go to the hospital. And by this point, I refused to go to any hospitals because of my trauma.

Once Jo understood that the hospitals, where they'd spent so much of their childhood, had been at least in part the scene of the crime, they became terrified of them. Even as, confusingly, they still felt some safety and comfort in medical settings. I think I've always had this very deep fear of doctors that became a lot bigger once I had realized everything that had happened.

However, it kind of went back and forth. I think a lot of my desire to go to hospitals was the more like subconscious sort of thing that I wasn't really aware of that behavior or that desire until I found out about the MVP and started to like work through that trauma. Whereas my like fear of hospitals...

had always been like a lot stronger. So I didn't go for those yearly checkups or do any of those things that usually you would start to do as an adult. In an effort to process what had happened to them, they took to social media to tell their story and to try and find community. And it wasn't long before their harrowing tale caught the attention of some producers who asked Joe to bring it to a much bigger stage. ♪

I used to be part of a Facebook group for survivors of Munchausen by proxy. And somebody had posted on there about...

Someone from the doctors is wondering if anyone wants to share their experience. And I don't know, I must have been the first person to send an email. And they emailed me back and were like, hey, do you want to come down in like five days and be on this show or something like super fast? And I remember I had never been on a plane before. I had never really, I've definitely never been to California or like really to any other states.

And so I decided to take a risk and go. I remember being so scared because they needed permission essentially from my mother for me to be on the show and to be talking about her.

The Doctors was a spinoff of The Dr. Phil Show that ran from 2008 to 2022. It was hosted by ER physician and one-time star of The Bachelor, Travis Stork, and there was a regular panel that included a pediatrician, an OB-GYN, and a plastic surgeon who discussed a wide range of medical topics. ♪

Donna somehow misinterpreted Joe's television appearance as having to do with the sexual abuse that they'd experienced as a child, rather than the various and relentless traumas Donna herself had inflicted upon both of her children. And so, Donna was eager to share the spotlight.

So she started begging me to come with and be there for me because she was a really big part of this other trauma and supposedly feels guilty about it. And so she wanted to right those wrongs. So your mom didn't realize the exact thing you were going to talk about. And so this was originally something she wanted to go along with you. And so what did you tell her? What did you say to her? Hi.

I told her, I was so scared. I ended up telling her, actually, I'm going to talk about 1000 by proxy. And she

I had confronted her back in 2018 about it, once I found out about it, especially once I read the records and it was so evident and I knew that like I, that I had been abused and that this is exactly what happened. I had confronted her and she's always claimed that none of it was true and that she would never do that and how much she loves me and how sick I was.

And so when I brought it up in 2019 in regards to going on this show, she didn't really have much to say. She actually said like she understood and that I needed to do what I needed to do in order to get help. So in her mind,

I was going to be going on the show and saying these lies in order to get treatment because I was sick. And to her, that was a valid thing to do. And so she was okay with it and supported it. Just to make sure you're following the Gaslight Express here, when Joe confronted Donna, she flatly denied the abuse but said she supported Joe getting, heavy air quotes here, help with their delusional belief that they'd been abused.

Truly wild. Nonetheless, the revelation that Jo was going on national TV to discuss Donna's abuse quashed her desire to go along for the ride. So I got on a plane and flew to California and I spoke about what happened.

Jordan says she recently realized she was a victim of Munchausen by proxy and corroborated her suspicions by obtaining her childhood medical records. And you've been talking about these records really validating some of the concerns that you had, validating concerns your doctors had.

And you actually met with one of your pediatricians? Yeah, so I actually, there had been multiple doctors that had reported it, but I ended up calling one of the ones who had, like, written a lot of different interesting reports on it all. And I thought I was going in to meet with her to kind of reprimand her and tell her, hey, like, I'm alive, but it's not thanks to you. And I thought I was going to be educating her on Munchausen's by proxy. However, when I met with her, it was a very, very different

different situation that ended up playing out. She was surprised that I was alive and more than that, that I wasn't sick and she

She knew she tried. She had done everything that she could have to get me out of the situation. — Joe's childhood pediatrician, Dr. Leah Wilson, is now retired and living not far from where Joe has settled in St. Louis. Dr. Wilson had appeared remotely during Joe's appearance on The Doctors. So when she and Joe met up to record earlier this spring, it was the first time they'd seen each other in person since Joe showed up in her office back in Hutchinson to confront her all those years ago.

Seated side by side in the studio, they reflected on their appearance on the show. I only did that because Joe asked me to. I felt that I owed that to her. Publicity is not my thing. So I did that reluctantly. That's what I would say. I did that for Joe.

So even though Dr. Wilson wasn't exactly ready for her close-up, she showed up for Joe, the child she'd spent all those years worrying might never see their adulthood. Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for being with us. First of all, just tell us a little bit about what it was like meeting Jordan as an adult after having taken care of her for so long and having the concerns that you had when she was a child. It was really emotional.

I didn't know what she was coming for. And then she came in and I was just very impressed by the sheer guts that she had to come back more than 15 years later and challenge me on the care that she got when she was a little girl. And she told me all that she had been through because she

Dr. Wilson explained why medical child abuse, even when it's very evident to the doctors, is so hard to prove in court and to protect kids from, especially in the smaller hospital.

It's extremely difficult. It almost requires, you know, legal action. I know that, you know, when we're trying to prove medical child abuse, what we really need for the court almost is a covert video surveillance in a hospital room. And I think there's only like two of those in the whole state of Minnesota. And to admit somebody there requires a court order.

So to be able to prove some of these things just becomes, you know, extremely difficult. Yeah, and even in my case, I know it said in my records there was video surveillance because there had been the MBP report made and there was video surveillance of over-reporting and of possibly inducing vomiting by various means. And obviously still that didn't do anything to...

help in the situation. This is frustrating and also familiar. Even in cases where there is extremely strong evidence, often nothing happens. Even when you have multiple reports from multiple sources, nothing happens. It's never one report. It's never one person who suspects. It's never just once.

And something I learned while we've been doing this podcast is there were many reports made. There were different reports made from my first grade teacher. There were reports made, you know, by various people, which makes it all the more interesting.

upsetting, I guess, that nothing ever happened when it wasn't like it was just you that knew. Like, there were so many people that were aware. I mean, in that confidential file was that anonymous note that somebody sent you. People knew. Even though Dr. Wilson knew the likelihood of intervention was slim, she did her best to mitigate the harm. When we're not sure about everything yet,

A lot of times we're trying to corral the parent. Say she's just a super highly anxious and somewhat mentally ill parent. I'm trying to corral that person so that she's using the same providers that are aware of the situation so that she can't get out of control with what she's doing to her child. And I'm trying to make sure that things are documented. And I'm trying myself to

You know, ethically, I'm not supposed to harm my patients. It's that first do no harm. I do not want to harm my patients, even if it's just by affirming an untruth. Now, it used to be that we could keep confidential files with our medical records people if we suspected abuse. You know, back then it was like HIV or mental health issues.

There were things we could take out of the paper charts so that they weren't available to everyone. They were only available to certain providers. And now with the electronic things, it makes it a lot harder because everything is out in the cloud somewhere and there's records and there's lab reports. So it's a lot harder because these were literal paper files. They came from the basement. I just remembered they were there.

Just in case, someday, we could use them. Yeah, I couldn't read part of them. I feel like because a lot of it was all in cursive and I'm not very good at reading cursive. Oh, this young generation.

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Joe arrived in California and prepared to tell their story on national television. They knew Dr. Wilson had also agreed to appear, and they were touched that she'd be there to back them up. Just as Joe was preparing to share their story with millions, there was a last-minute twist from Donna. ♪

The morning of, I got a call from the producer and she had called them and told them that I had said all these lies about her and she wanted her voice to be heard. And so she decided to be on the show and they couldn't say no since it was about her. So she Skyped in and I got to confront my mom on national television, which was

I was really scared to do. I didn't want her to be on the show. I knew she would look really bad. Her voice, she has a lot of issues with talking because she supposedly had tongue cancer and had part of her tongue removed. And so I knew that she would just make a fool of herself, essentially. And I don't want that for her. I never took my daughter to any doctor for a reason other than she was sick.

And, you know, I did not lie about anything that she had. And I did not break any of her bones. Those broke by accidents that she had. I never laid a hand on my child. She never even got a spanking.

Donna's abuse and neglect was not only well documented by the adults who reported her to the authorities, but corroborated by Joe's sister Crystal, their friend Bree, and others who witnessed it firsthand. Given the medical kidnapping narratives currently playing out in the media, I feel the need to point out that parents who abuse their children almost always deny it.

And they are often not held accountable or permanently separated, even when the abuse is severe and well-documented. This denial does not amount to, quote, proof that the abuse didn't happen. And this was just the case with Donna. You first declined to be on our show, but then this morning you changed your mind. Can I ask you why? Yes, because I told her yesterday through text, good luck tomorrow,

And just remember that I will always love you with all my heart. And she made a post on social media that said she was going to tear me apart today. And she wasn't going to sugarcoat anything. And so I decided, you know,

- Donna, I wanna cut you off for a brief moment 'cause I wanted to give Jordan a chance to respond, but I wanna make something very clear. I have medical records

from back when your daughter was very young. In the medical records, there are concerns of Munchausen by proxy. So you don't brainwash medical records. That's just the reality. This is in print. I have it right here. Now, I'm not going to be the judge and jury, but no one was brainwashing the doctors. That was really scary, but it also was really cool to be able to

not only confront her in that way, but to have all these people behind me in the audience that were validating me and clapping and the sounds and the things that they would do whenever my mom spoke was just...

I've never felt that validation before. When I was little, my mom was so well-respected by everyone in town. And so I was so used to being seen as the bad kid, this like kid that was just so disrespectful and evil. And so to have people believe me and hear me and see the truth for really the first time in my life in such a big way was just so healing. Yeah.

Listening to Joe say these things about their mother, you might be thinking, huh? Are we talking about the same Donna? The one who is constantly drunk as a skunk at cheer practice? So this part of our interview with Joe was recorded before we took the trip to Hutchinson, and they started talking to people about their actual impressions of Donna and Joe. The quote, well-respected in the community version of Donna, was just another fiction that she created, just like the bad kid version of Joe.

This was another piece of Donna's abuse, a way to remind Joe that no one was going to believe them if they spoke up. Were you aware that at least one of these doctors actually called out the suspicion that you had Munchausen by proxy? Nobody ever said that to me.

Right. Well, usually they wouldn't say it to you in that particular way. But were you aware that any of the doctors had this concern that perhaps there was something going on where you potentially may have been either making up the symptoms that you saw in your daughter or that perhaps you were even inducing them? Did anybody ever show you those records or told you they were concerned about something like that?

Jordan, taking a deep breath here, everything we've uncovered. How are you feeling right now? Anxious. A little overwhelmed, but also really validated. I think every time that I hear my mom speak, it's

It's just more evidence that I wasn't brainwashed and that this was actually my life. Right. My whole life, like, I've had hundreds of people that have told me I'm faking things or that I just want attention or I'm trying to be sick. And so then I think having my mom, like, say things like that or, like, try to, like, deny all of this, it brings back those, like, little bit of, like, oh, wait, like, am I? This is made up? Like, it kind of just brings everything, because I never...

I never got to know who I was my whole life growing up. I thought I had all these issues. Like, I've never known who I am. This last comment really gets to the heart of why this form of abuse is so fundamentally damaging. The parents completely dominate their child's formative years with a false narrative, and they steal their chance for self-discovery. After the show aired, so on the show, they...

They always like offer people that come on the show different things. And I had straight out told them like, hey, I really need treatment for an eating disorder and can't afford it because I don't have insurance. And they couldn't like promise me anything. But on the show, they...

they did offer for me to go to eating disorder treatment somewhere there in California. And so I took that and I went to treatment in California for about seven months, I believe. And I mean, that was the first time that I really found, I would say, true recovery from my eating disorder. It was a really, it was just a really great experience. And I think that was kind of

really the beginning of me becoming healthy and just the beginning of my life. Can I ask you right now, is there something you would like to say to her?

Mom, I just want you to know that I do love you and I try to make that a point for you to know how much I love you. And like I said in my post, I can't defend you. I can't hide anymore. The rules, what happens in the house stays in the house, can't apply anymore because this is bigger than me. Other people are being affected in their own lives. And if I'm able to have a voice and help something change, I'm going to speak out about it.

In case the idea of telling your most personal moments on national television wasn't daunting enough, Jo also composed an original song, which they shared on the show and later posted on their social media. ♪ Her story starts at one week old ♪ ♪ Mom brought her in for what seemed like more than a call ♪ ♪ The doctor admitted her right away ♪

Little did he know it was all a game. Tests came back normal but they still gave her more pills. She learned to be safe, she just had to sleep. She didn't know why mom saw pain as good. She wouldn't find out until adulthood.

After their confrontation on the doctors, it became clear that Donna was never going to take accountability for her actions. But even with the distance, Joe still worried about their mom. It's impossible to be sure without access to her medical records, but it seems evident that Donna engaged in extensive Munchausen behaviors on herself, which is common for offenders. Also common is that these behaviors ramp up once their children have left the house and they can no longer use them to get their emotional needs met.

My entire life, my mom's been sick. She had surgery after surgery. I mean, she's probably had hundreds of different surgeries. She has like weird devices in her body, like just these wild situations and has had cancer supposedly and whatever, just always was sick. And since she was young, I believe, I think she's always, I mean, she would get injured at work.

and get workman's comp and then would go to the next job and do the same thing. Like a lot of very, she was always doing the same sort of stuff. And yeah, she was just always in the hospital. I didn't really understand she was faking anything, but I knew like I was so used to it, you know, desensitized.

In 2011, though, when she ended up in this coma, that was different than anything we had any of us had experienced. She hadn't talked about being sick or anything like that. Usually when there was actually something serious, she never talked about it.

She would talk about everything else, but never would talk about things when it was actually serious, which is pretty just interesting. And that, I mean, is still how she is to this day. But during that time that she was there, it kind of...

I thought it was my fault. I thought it was because I had gotten myself taken out of the home and that I was the reason now that my mom was going to die. And so I spent as much time as I could there. And I had a therapist I was being forced to see through the court that I hated. I hated therapy. I told everyone I thought it was stupid and dumb and I didn't want to do it. There was no point. And this therapist like told me like, your mom's going to die, like you have to deal with it.

And that wasn't helpful, but I would find ways to like go there and stuff. And then she ended up coming out of it. She lived. She went to rehab. And that changed everything in my mind. I wanted now to live with her. Can I ask, like when your mom – so you saw your mom at the hospital when she was in a coma. Do you remember how you felt about the possibility of her dying? No.

I was terrified. At that point, like I said, I thought it was my fault. Her skin was yellow. There was this distinct smell, and I would just hold her hand and would not let go. And I couldn't drive at that time, and so I would always find rides to get there and things like that. But I...

stayed by her side and I bought her a Bible that I, I like went through the entire Bible and I don't even know what verses it was, but I highlighted all these verses and I just kept telling her, like, if you come out of it, like I'll move back home. Like we can, we can win this together. Like we can get through this together, like me and you against the world, you know, just like it always has been. Um,

And so when she did come out of it, I would go and I'd brush her hair and I'd put headbands in her hair. And it was a really pleasant time. It was one of the nicest times I would say that I'd ever really had with her. And then she went to rehab. And during that time, I still was like, I want to go home and stuff like that. And

I had more visitations with her. I wasn't supposed to see her outside of visitation times, but it looks like, I don't remember this, but it looks like those CPS records that I was seeing her outside of scheduled times. But I just wanted to like be back with her. And then there was some times that I think reality would hit of like...

Joe, your mom's going to drink again. And so then when that would like hit, I would be back to being like, oh, I want to stay with my dad. And I was kind of like yo-yoing between this. But a lot of the records, it's so interesting to see like the therapist I was seeing and the social worker and my stepmom, like all just like saying how I was really enmeshed with my mom.

This pattern was a tactic of Donna's. She would reliably have a health crisis whenever she wanted to pull people back in. So this was not a coincidence that all of this happened the moment Joe was taken out of the home and was beginning to get some distance. Nobody ever told me, like, hey, we think, like, you're codependent or, like, we think this thing's going on. It was just in the notes that I, like, could see what people really thought. But eventually, um...

My mom started telling people that I was having back problems. And so then she, like, kept saying, like, she needed to take me to all my doctor's appointments, which in the records, in the CPS records, they told her, like, no, you don't have to take her to the doctor's appointments. You can, but you don't have to. But so she started taking me to these appointments for...

this back pain that I was having. And eventually, I mean, she convinced me I could barely walk. And so I was having all of this back pain and they couldn't find anything wrong. And so they had me do PT. They gave me injections. Like they tried all these different things, but I was convinced by this point that like I was really in pain. And my mom was obviously saying I was really in pain. And so eventually she like kept convincing like

that I needed to have back surgery and also that I needed to be back home with her so she could take care of me. And she had followed through on her side of going to rehab and not drinking. She was sober. She followed the rules to do the breathalyzer test for visitation. So she got through all of that. So I was eventually brought back to my mom's. I believe I was around...

I don't know, I was probably around 15. And then I kind of quickly realized like, oh, my mom's still drinking and I don't want to be here.

Joe's enmeshment with Donna throughout their teens and early 20s was intense. And as Joe began to recover from their eating disorder and get into the serious work of healing from their trauma, they knew they had to set some boundaries with their mom, even if they weren't ready to cut her off completely. Yeah. Yeah. They have every year.

As I'm sure is clear from having listened to them this season, Joe is extremely smart. And they have a remarkable intellectual handle on what happened to them.

Many survivors, understandably, don't have the capacity to articulate their experiences the way that Joe can. But that doesn't mean the emotions aren't complicated. Donna is still mom.

You know, I had like a huge revelation in July, like a week before my birthday, where I like was doing play therapy, like sand tray stuff. And I had this revelation that like I'm, I was never bad. I've just been holding this for my mom. And that was like, that was life changing. That's when I started to be able to suddenly travel. I went to like 10 places after that. And I'd like never really traveled before July.

So that was like really, really huge. I could suddenly walk down the street without being so afraid. Like so many things in my life changed then. And then just like a month ago, I had like another, I guess, revelation sort of that, no, I'm no longer afraid of like being bad because I see like the shared humanity in everyone. And

even in my mom, right? Like I think my mom needs accountability and boundaries and I can't have a relationship with her for my own safety and things like that. And I still think my mom like deserves respect and care from people that are able to provide that safely without being taken advantage of or harmed. But I think that for me has really changed

how I view myself within all of it because it's I don't have to be afraid of being bad because I don't really see anyone as being bad or evil I see us all as just messy messy humans and Some people need more boundaries and things like that and accountability is still important. But so yeah, so that's been a huge piece for me but then I think

You know, I talked to someone else from my childhood via text and they had like said I was just a good kid in a bad situation. It's one thing for me to start seeing it in myself, but to know that like other people saw it in me as well really just feels

wild, like I don't understand it, but has also started to shift, I think, the way that I see that little kid or that teenager or that young adult that was really just trying to survive. So are your other parts, do they absorb these revelations or is that just really the adult Joe that's processing it? That's a beautiful question. I think that

There's a mix for sure. Definitely some parts, I mean, I have like no what I call co-consciousness with. So some parts I don't think have any awareness of the here and now life and are very much still very like stuck in the past.

So those parts definitely are not, I don't think, absorbing things. I think I try to, as best I can, do a lot of work on constantly reminding myself of these things or when there are triggers and I want to hide in a closet or I want to hurt myself or whatever it is like that comes up in response to a different trigger.

trying to constantly, when I'm able to and have the co-consciousness, remind myself or having written reminders of things that are like, things are different now, we're safe now, we aren't bad, we know these things. Like I have stuff posted in my room or on my phone or my computer or things like that that I think kind of

definitely help, but I think obviously it definitely, there's a lot of healing still to do for all parts. Joe and all of their parts have come a long way in the past several years. And while Joe's story involves a lot of trauma, as they've healed, they've gotten to embrace the person they are beyond all of that. They've finally gotten to come of age in a way that they were never allowed to before. Next time, we look at who Joe is today.

It seems like they put a lot of intentional effort to have resources available to them now.

Nobody Should Believe Me is written, hosted, and produced by me, Andrea Dunlop. Our senior producer and editor is Mariah Gossett. Greta Stromquist is our associate producer. Engineering by Robin Edgar. And administrative support from Nola Karmush. Music provided by Johnny Nicholson and Joel Shupak. With additional music and sounds from SoundSnap. And thank you to Cadence 3 for additional recording support.

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