Hidden True Crime - MUNCHAUSEN BY PROXY / FACTITIOUS DISORDER -A SURVIVOR STORY

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Kate is an amputee. She says she lost her healthy leg as a teenager due to her mother having munchausen by proxy. Kate shares her shocking story as a medical abuse survivor with Hidden True Crime. Support our work HERE: http://patreon.com/hiddentruecrime Follow Kate HERE--https://www.tiktok.com/@adaptivekate Watch Kate's episode HERE DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California. Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah. In 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award. She left the reporting world to produce the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. She is a frequent contributor for News Nation. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves. WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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psychologist and a journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes

while examining our deepest fears along the way. We are doing something different tonight.

We are with a very special guest, a guest that is very relevant to what we've been discussing, especially when it comes to Gypsy Rose. Many of you know that we are continuing to explore this case openly, seeing the gray, listening, contemplating together. And today joining us is Kate.

And Kate is going to share her story. She already does share it briefly on TikTok, but I think we're going to take her story a little bit further tonight than you ever have before. You are a survivor. Tell us a survivor of what? I am a survivor of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, also known as factitious disorder and medical abuse. Okay. Okay. And thank you for being here and being willing to share this story, which is similar to what professionals and experts have stated that Gypsy Rose is also a survivor of. So it's really important. important that we explore this element and hear your story and listen to your story. Yes.

Kate, why don't we start with, I think, right out of the gate, something that you share on TikTok. That is quite shocking. We'll just, we'll get right to it. You are an amputee. I am. Yes. And tell us what, what are you missing?

I am missing my left leg below the knee. And why did you have your leg amputated? I had it amputated due to unnecessary surgeries, and my mom kept sabotaging those surgeries and continuously lying to doctors claiming I wasn't ambulating, claiming that I had gait issues, I could have walk, I was falling. There was many lies that were said when actually I was a pretty active teenager and even child, but they did amputate a healthy leg. Actually, imaging showed that the only thing I had was a flat foot months before my amputation. A flat foot, and that's it. And there was a wound on

my heel, but it started as nothing more than a scar. It was actually a scar with some dry skin, and that was what they were doing unnecessary surgeries on. But when they, it was, I did imaging. The imaging showed that I had nothing on imaging other than a flat foot. Gosh. And you've, you've allowed us to look at some of these medical records. I want everyone to know that. You have shared a lot with us. We are looking at them. We are learning. Kate, usually I don't do this because it's, it's kind of demeaning when people say, stand up, twirl, show us around. But are you able to show us your leg right now? John's, John's not happy with

and it's not, I wouldn't ask you that, by the way. I don't, I just, I was like, it's all, I have like this,

glittery leg. So I have, okay. Thank you. And you're an EMT now. You actually work in the medical field. I, I do.

Yes, I've been in EMT for eight years, but I've been in the medical field for over 10. Okay. And thank you for showing this that. I just think that it's important to see just how real, this is and what your claim is this is this is because of your mother's mental illness is is even more shocking and you were you were 16 years old I was I was 16 when my leg was amputated

gosh you know I think before John how do you feel about this but before me delve into anything maybe we should just start from the beginning where the abuse and where this started Kate could you just simply share your story how you want to um Absolutely. So I remember my abuse starting when I was nine years old. I later uncovered, it actually was way before that. But when I was nine years old, I remember living a pretty normal childhood. I played in my neighborhood with other kids. I was in the third grade. And I was riding my bike one day and I fell off and I sprained my ankle. I was taken to the hospital. I was deemed I did not break my ankle.

It was just a sprain. After that visit, my mom took me to another doctor, and I don't know if this is true or not, but my mom said that that doctor did not like the way my foot looked. I had this dry skin on my heel, but I had had that dry skin as long as I could remember. As far as I knew, I had that dry skin on my heel pretty much my whole life because I always had it.

And she said they did not like it, and I needed to stop walking. she showed up with a wheelchair that it looked like she got off a yard sale side or a friend. It was a very old, raggedy, big wheelchair. And she said I had to be in that wheelchair and said that I couldn't walk anymore, but I could walk. And anytime I was in public, I had to be in the wheelchair. She helped me back in the third grade, put me on hospital homebound, where a teacher had to come out to the house and teach me for my second year or third grade.

And she kept me confined to that wheelchair for just a little over a year. after so while I was in the wheelchair I was taken to a hospital in Tampa Florida called Tampa Shriners and they said that there was nothing wrong with me I remember them getting into an argument they had me get up and walk they watched that I could walk fine because I didn't have any muscle issues because I actually was walking at home like my wheelchair didn't get around very well because I had this really big crappy wheelchair. So I was able to walk around at home. It's just my mom would let me go on public or when the teacher was over, I had to be in my wheelchair. So I didn't understand. I'm just a kid. I'm doing what my mom tells me to do, but I was still

walking. So they had been getting up and walk. I walked and they were confused. They were like, why is she in the wheelchair? She walks fine. And my mom kept telling them, well, her foot looks so good because she hasn't been walking. And she uses this statement a lot throughout my medical record. She claims I was not walking when there's, I was, I was always walking. So I never understood that. So then that didn't work out for her. Tampa Shiner's, I was not suitable for them.

I never saw them again. So I did end up seeing another place. I don't remember who it was. I just know they end up. of green to put me in leg braces, like a leg brace. And can I show a picture of it? I do have the pictures next to me. I've shared them with you guys.

But this is that leg brace. And essentially, they said, like, my heel floated in it. So that it could keep the pressure off the heel. So I wore this leg brace up until 2007. About 2000. So how old are you were at 2007? In 2007, I was about 12 years old. Okay, 12.

Yeah. So I wore that until I was 12 from about age 10 to 12. So, and I also got put in a back brace. They said I had scoliosis. I had to wear back brace for 23 hours a day. I had to wear all day and sleep in it, which I also wear the back brace until 2007. So during all this time, let me ask you, did you feel something was wrong with you too? You believed your mom.

You believed this. I did at the time when I was a kid. I did. I was like, okay, I'm just thinking, I don't know anything as a kid. I knew I could walk, but, I mean, I was used to wearing his leg braces. But like this, for this leg brace, I was a barefoot kid. I grew up in Florida. So there were times, like, I wouldn't have my leg brace on.

I'd be walking around barefoot. I would be going outside and my mom would be like yelling me to put my brace on. Like you yell at your kid to put your shoes on when they're playing outside. You need to get shoes on. Why aren't you wearing shoes? it was the same, but it was like the shoes and the brace. Why don't you have your brace on? Why don't you have your shoes on?

So there were, I mean, I didn't always have the brace on, but she was pretty strict about, like, if she saw me without it, she would have me go put it on. So, and I am not sure exactly what happened. My mom claims there was something that happened in Florida where we lost Medicaid, and we had to move quickly. She said that they couldn't. afford our medical bills. And when my dad supposedly made a few dollars too much and we had to quickly move, but my dad had to stay in Florida because he had to fix the house, sell the house.

So my mom took us kids and moved us to South Carolina really, really quick. When we were in South Carolina, she established new doctors. And I started seeing Greenville Shrineers Hospital when I was there in about 2007. And at Greenville Shriners, one of the first things they determined I did not have scoliosis so I did not have to wear a back brace anymore. I had a slight curvature of my spine but they said it was only 15 degrees. They did not meet the criteria for scoliosis. So they said I didn't have to wear the back brace anymore and I've been in this back brace for years but to me I'm like okay great I don't have to wear this thing anymore because it was very uncomfortable. And you heard that from the doctor there. You heard him say that to you

and you were like awesome. Okay. Yeah, they said they didn't have to wear it. And yeah, they told me I did not have to wear it anymore. They said my back was fine. So that was a relief. And they did, when I first started going there, they kept making braces for me. So I was already in a leg brace. So they did make braces for me.

And I don't have any pictures of those. But they then began surgeries. When no one else would operate or touch this dry skin on my heel, they did. I have a picture of what it looked like right before the first surgery. Okay. This is what it looked like. It was just some dry skin on my heel. So this was May 2007.

I had some dry skin on the back of my heel. Looks like a big callus or something. It is a callus, yes. They refer to it as a callous. They refer to it as a scar. And as you see at the bottom of my foot, my heel is normal shaped. It's just got some dry skin. You kind of see cracks like a little right there.

But it's nothing compared to Dr. John's foot bottom of his foot. You should see his calluses. So it's just a callus. Right. My mom said that this callus happened. This is the story. She gave doctors the story. I've heard many times that when I was two years old, I broke my foot and a doctor put a cast on my foot wrong that caused a pressure ulcer that caused necrosis that and it never healed. I would say that looks healed to me now as a health care provider. And knowing that, I would say that's healed. I would not see that as ever being prior necrosis, knowing what necrosis is. But they felt this needed to be operated on the dry skin. And they definitely made my heel worse with the operations. So one of the first

operations they did, I don't really push it though, but they did like where they stretched the skin together and they just made it like it was basically pink and so is this like a plastic surgeon or a foot surgeon or plastic plastic this was plastic surgery okay which is alternate essentially probably yeah so if most of my foot surgeries i believe were done by the plastic surgeon it by reading my correct i mean i didn't know that as a kid but reading my records now as adult i'm pretty sure majority of the foot surgeries were done by the plastic surgeon okay okay and the first one He did. He was like to stretch the skin. I mean, I just, I healed from it. I walked. And then, and they would document how my heel would look good and I'd be ambuling. I'd be off of it just for a few weeks. When they started surgeries, I never wore a leg brace again. I was only off my foot for surgery recovery. When the surgery, when I would get past the surgery, I would go back to walking again. So, like this first foot surgery, I was, I just turned to. 13 because I was 12 when I started going there and this was May 11th and my birthday's April 25th.

So I had just turned 13 when they began surgeries and I was in middle school and I was actively in school. My mom never took me out of school for these surgeries. I did get to participate in middle school. The only time I had to leave middle school was for my one of my foot surgeries and I believe it was my skin graph one. I missed the first half of my seventh grade year, but after my foot heel, I got to go back my second half of my seventh grade year.

And I... Just because your mother said you needed to stay out of school. And they had me hospital homebound again where a teacher came out to the house to teach me. I was never homeschooled. A teacher would come out and teach me. But this was the skin graft surgery. So they actually took the skin from my groin.

and they put it on my heel. Wow. Now I went from like that perfectly perfect heel to there is a bit of an indention now, as you can see in my heel act because they started the same. I don't, there was another surgery in between, I believe that I don't have a picture of. But in the seventh and eighth grade, I joined the high school March band. I was in color guard and I was in Wintergard. And I also joined a junior firefighting program.

So I was a very active teenager. You went from being in a wheelchair as a little girl in a leg brace to now being in marching band and a junior firefighter. Yep. Okay. And so like that's what I've seen when these surgeries would heal, I would walk. So this surgery supposedly failed because my mom said I had gate issue and they said that it started to come apart. there was an incident that took about that I fell. My mom said I fell all the time.

I did not. It was one incident. I was coming out of, so there was some irritation on the heel, and my mom had me on volume and opioids and stuff. My mom would jogged me. And I swear I would go to bed and my foot would be fine. I would wake up and there would be issues with it. And I could never understand.

And so there was one day it was like irritated, all of a sudden. and I was on crushes and I'd come out of the bathroom and I had tripped over I had four siblings that I tripped over something on the ground and I had hit my foot on the wall. It was like this corner edge piece and it made like this little tiny wound on it and they document that in the medical workers and they did say I felt but my mom added she falls all the time she's got gait issues that's that wasn't it at all I did not have gate issues I people who knew me in middle school is that they'll tell you I walked normal teachers would tell you everybody it wasn't it wasn't like that so they decided this surgery fell so really quickly did

with the with the volume and the the pain pills were those prescribed to you would your mother get them because you're always in pain or would she get them prescribed to her or do you know i i know that there in my medical documents because i didn't know as a kid i do know that i was prescribed pain medications after surgeries i don't know if it's just from that um my older sister was very sick or made to be very sick i should say and And my mom had a whole pharmacy of stuff in the house. The volume, I believe, was my sisters, but I don't know for sure. Okay.

And so you are actually saying that you would go to bed on these drugs, highly drugged, and wake up and your foot would be worse. Yes. Yeah. My mom would make me take these medicine. And yeah. So one question I have, I'm going to jump in here quickly. Was your mother, during this entire process, was your mother seeking out a lot of? of medical providers. Did you have a lot of involvement in the medical system during this whole

process? So actually all of my doctors stayed the same at Shriners, but I feel like I saw every doctor there almost. But mine all did stay in Shriners. At the time we moved to South Carolina, I saw many doctors in Florida before that. But she did manage to keep them all. I was just seeing so many different ones for different things. I mean, we were talking by knee. I got bit by a dog for that, my foot, like anything and everything. Were you going in all the time, like weekly? I mean, how often? I was going in multiple.

Like, there were times. There were times that you're there. I was there multiple times a week. And, but if you look at 2007, I was there pretty much every single month for 2007. I slowed down in 2008 and then picked back up in 2009, 2010. Wow. In 2007, it was primarily about your heel then? That's what I started operating on it.

Yes. Okay. And when the plastic surgeons, I know we're going to get to another surgery, but did the surgeon stay the same every time? Or would your mother, would you have a different surgeon? They changed. I will say there was one surgeon that did a majority of my foot surgeries, but there was another surgeon that did one of my foot surgeries.

I don't remember his name, but the plastics of it, It was the same, same searching for at least three or four of them. And then my last foot surgery, I believe, was done by somebody different. And these were, the diagnoses were being made by. My mom. By your mom. Okay. But did you ever go to like a podiatrist or like a specialist for a foot?

No. No. Okay. So it was. That's interesting. Right. Right. That's interesting.

It was, so right, so it was, it appears that it was your mom who was making the diagnoses and then presenting this to a plastic surgeon for surgery without, without a specialist really examining in depth the needs of, you know, your real medical needs. I would say that, yeah, that's true. And also, my mom didn't have any medical workers that she provided Shrineer. She told them, so I lived in Florida, you know, as a child in 2004. there was a lot of hurricanes that had Florida. We did have flooding of our house because we had a tree,

hit our roof, and we had a hole. She said that the records were destroyed because of those hurricanes that happened. And she couldn't remember all the places that she took me. And back then they were. That's kind of reminiscent. That's from the Gypsy Rose playbook. Oh, yes. As is the wheelchair, you know, being in a wheelchair.

Right, the wheelchair, the diagnosis made by your mother. That was bizarre to see those similarities. And then I was like, even her mom said Hurricane Katrina. I mean, mine was different hurricanes, but I was in Florida and it was Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Francis. But we did have to go to our house. And it was minor flood. I can't remember it.

They had tear up all the Florida and stuff, but I wouldn't say it was major enough to destroy all records. Wow. So. Yeah. I agree. Gypsy. By the way, Gypsy Rose's record survived her hurricane Katrina.

So that was all a fiction. So I'm sure this was largely a fiction with you. I wasn't getting a lot of my record. So I tried when I was older, but I did get several times. They didn't have to keep them after 10 years. And they were destroyed. So I was through where she took me,

but I had a couple different places. But that's when I started digging elsewhere. I ended up looking into the juvenile justice system in Orlando, Florida. and that's when I uncovered child service records that I never knew existed. What could you talk about? Yeah, or should we get back to the surgeries? Do you want to go in order?

Are you okay? Well, yeah, talk about this. Talk about, we'll just start here. Yes, we can go back and forth. This is a conversation among friends. Yeah, talk about what you, wow. Yeah, so, but I do want to talk to the last foot surgery. So basically, after the skin grass,

it's up failed, I was given, And basically a couple options. My mom was like really pushing, it seemed for like harsher surgeries. And they came to me and they were talking about removing my heel. So they said that they could cut my entire heel bone out. There'd be no place to attach to the Achilles tendon. And I would essentially have a dead foot and I would be in a leg brace forever. But they said I would not ever be able to walk without the leg brace.

I wouldn't be active. Like I'd basically have to have a desk job. And I'm like, I want to be a firefighter in an EMT. That's not an option for me. and they talked about amputation. At this point, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. I knew what was going on. At this point?

Oh, yeah, I knew. I knew when they started talking about war surgery, the amputation, I already knew. I had already suspected it because reason what got me suspecting it is, remember, I'll tell you guys, I became junior firefighter. I'm going to tell you how that happened. So I came up with the sixth or seventh grade, but I got the opportunity to do a job shadowing project. Most students in our middle school job shadowed their parents. My dad at the time with a truck driver on the road, we set a time when he finally did come up to South Carolina. He had

a resort to being a truck driver. He was always gone. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom. So I didn't have options to job-shadowed them. So I lived in a really small town and there was a rescue squad. I went up to the rescue squad and I asked them if I could job-shadow them. My mom did sign this, consent agreed. They did tell me that there are days they never get any calls and it's a possibility. I would do nothing but sit at the station all day and learn the truck. But to be, that was more exciting than going to school. So I'm for it. Well, I was there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and at 8.30 p.m. they got the call. They told me I could not go. Well, one of the paramedics, like, you can't go. It's going to be too late. You have to leave at night. The other paramedic

is like, nope, jump on the truck. We'll ask for forgiveness later. So. I get on the truck and I have no idea what's going on. We're just flying down the road, like the Cyrus. And then I go, okay, so what's the call? They're like, it's a shooting. I tell you my heart dropped in my stomach. I was now fearful. I'm like, oh, my gosh, we're going to, okay.

I'm like, where's the shooter? Like, are we sure it's safe? So they're like, yeah, we'll have you sit in the truck for a minute. So we get there and they're like, stay in the truck. All right. And then he kind of, the paramedic outside door. Okay, come out. And I'm like, are you sure?

Come on, come on. Junior firefighter. Oh, yeah. So the police is there. The firefighters are there. So we have three people shot. A guy shot in his arm, a guy shot in his chest, and a guy shot in his groin. And the guy shot his groin, they had to land the helicopter.

So now I get to see the helicopter in the police. I saw so much in one scene. My adrenaline started pumping. And then we took the patient that was shot in the chest and it came out of his back. We transported him to the hospital. And he was the calmest one out of all of them. You wouldn't even think the man was shot. And just the whole experience, I'm like, this is cool.

Like, I was like, I really want to do this. And the paramedics started telling me how he's a lieutenant at a fire department. And I can be a junior firefighter. And then I also became an EMS explorer where I got to be a third rider on the truck. Wow. I got to join these programs. I was so excited. The only thing that ended up happening is the more I saw, the more questions I asked my mom.

And eventually she did take it. away from me. Because I started seeing people with necrosis and actual rotting feet and things like that and they're not doing these major surgeries on them like they are. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions pulling details about you from public records and the internet and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA

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Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. For me, they're like trying to take feet. And I started wondering like, okay, why do they not think that's a big deal? But what's, okay, so what's wrong with me? What is going out with me? But this isn't a big deal. So I started asking way too many questions. I did get it taken away.

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dot com for 15% off today um and then your mother took it away your mother took this opportunity away he did and after that i became a very troubled teenager um very troubled i was very depressed so how old are you at this moment too um i was uh about 15 okay about 14 and a half 15 somewhere around there Yeah, I didn't get to stay in it very long and I became very troubled. I was very angry. I was very depressed. I tried out on aliving myself. I even started drinking at a very young age.

I was just not in a good place. But I knew something was very wrong. I knew it was. So I ended up confining in a neighbor and a guidance counselor. Real quick, I was removed from high school, my first month in ninth grade. So when I started ninth grade, I was only in school for a month. And because I tried to talk to a guidance counselor and I talked to a neighbor, my mom found out and she took me out of school and my social life got less and less.

So what did you tell the counselor? She took you out to for, there has to be, there would have to be some alternative means of education, right, without the system intervening. Yeah, I was homeschooled. Okay. started school, Penn Foster. And what was it that you told the counselor? Do you remember that conversation with the counselor? So I went to the counselor because at this point, they started talking about,

so I'll go back to what I'm out. They started talking about they were going to cut out my heel and they were talking about amputation. And the amputation conversation came up. And it seemed like my mom was really pushing for the amputation. And I went and I told them about the concerns about possibly having my leg amputation. And I told them that's... Did you call this Munchausen by proxy, by the way? No, you didn't know that.

Okay, sorry. Go ahead. I won't interrupt anymore. So also at this point, my sister had recently been taken away by family. And I can go back into that, why she was taken away. And a lot of stuff was unfolding. And I was getting scared. And I went to them and I told them, something's wrong.

I know something's wrong. They're talking about my invitation. My mom just knew how to talk to people, and she just made it seem like I was in denial, and I was just a teenager mentally struggling. So she took me out of school and homeschooled me. They did have child services come out to the house. I don't know if it was a school that called, a neighbor that called. I do remember at least two different times child services in South Carolina came to our house,

but they didn't do anything. My mom always knew when they were coming. I have no idea what's up with the heads up, but my mom always knew before they got there. And they would come in. They made sure we had running water, food. We looked clean. And we did. We looked clean.

My mom looked like she took care of us. And then they would leave and I'd never see him again. Did they interview you about your medical issues or your older sister? No, they didn't talk to us. Okay. They only talked to my mom. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. And so she pulled you out of school then. Yep. I was on. I did Penn Foster High School. It's an online national accredited high school. And that would have been roughly 2009, 10, something like that?

Yeah, I started in 2009, but when I lost my leg, I didn't do school for like here. I kind of just wanted to give up. I did end up graduating in 2013, though. I picked it up. So I just took a little bit longer to finish it. But I did end up. Okay. So at this point, your sister's been taken from the home, though.

So that was enough, which is interesting that you think that if they came, they would realize your sister was taken away, it'd be a little bit more concerned. In that situation, my sister was an adult. And so it wasn't South Carolina Child Services that had intervened at that. Actually, family stepped in. And family basically lied to my mom that my sister was going down there for like a spring. break to visit family and then they ended up getting a lawyer and then they had us go down for Easter dinner and my sister is supposed to come back with us and then they had my mom served by a lawyer on Easter dinner that they were taking custody of my sister wow and you are the sis you and your

sister you have how many siblings can I ask that there is five of us total but only two of you are survivors of your mom's mental illness this right your sister and you yes okay okay I will share my sister story shortly, but so after I was removed out of school, they were pushing for the amputation. I did ask for one more alternative, and I did get another surgery that's kind of listed in a documentation, how they bring up the taking the heel out. No place to actually tell you. I can't remember what that surgery called. I don't know the name of it, but it's in there and then the amputation. But then they said, okay, we'll do this third option.

and that third option, these photos are kind of hard to look at, but that third option is basically they cut out all their work off the heel and just cut a giant hole my heel and healed it with a wound back. Filled it with what? Healed it with a wound back. Those were some of the pictures you sent us, I think, yeah. That was them, they went in and they cut everything out. They just cut the graph off everything and they made a hole

and then they healed it with the wound back. That was the one, John, you're like, that looks really bad. So that was the, that was, that would have been like 2009 pre-amputation, right? And that, that actually healed, believe you're not, it did. Okay. Okay. It wasn't an open wound.

They did that. That was a part of the surgery. They went in and intentionally cut a hole in it and put a wound back on it. That's why it's all red and pink and it doesn't look affected or anything because that was, they actually cut it open. But the, the bottom line there is it was unnecessary. Oh, it was definitely unnecessary. Right.

And so that caused you a lot of undue pain, I'm sure. And then, um, my, yeah, Bid, uh, so one of the things that did not, I did not understand about this, they said this failed. I cannot find a document that explains why that failed. I mean, I will say I had a little bit less tissue, but I walked. Like when they, they told me, it was January, early February 2010, that they were cutting off my leg. They set the surgery date for June 24th. I knew almost six months in advance that my leg was being cut off.

off. And I walked the whole time. I walked perfectly fine. Like I was walking. I did not have a braith. I did not have a wheelchair. I did not have crutches. I was just walking. Who was pushing the amputation at that point? My mother. What was she saying? So in the documents, she was saying that I had problems walking, that I had chronic pain. And essentially they said the diagnosis was chronic pain. For what they did you have chronic pain? Because I am curious if your mother was... I would say I have chronic pain now. But I do not have chronic pain then.

Would your mother? I mean, because I guess there's a part of me that wonders like, would your mother create pain? Would she make things worse for you? But so on surgeries though, she would constantly like pick at scabbing. She would constantly like be rough with cleaning, like super rough, rough with bandaging. constantly changing the bandages, constantly messing with my wounds.

And then as I told you, there were times like I had gone to sleep and I would wake up after taking pills that she would make me take. And there were times I used to fight against my wanting pills. She would actually sit on me and put them down my throat. She would force me to take him when I tried. And then making the wound worse. When did that start? When did the force feeding start? Oh, the pills.

So when I got my firefighting and stuff taken away, I became like just very troubled, I guess she would say. Or that's my how was she. I was a troubled teenager. I was acting out and very badly. So there was a lot of force times she would give me the medications then because that's when I was fighting back. So I had been given med. I would just take the med. Like she told me to take them thinking, you know, I've taken them before.

bed I'd wake up and I guess that my heel would be worse back then I took them I took the meds because I thought I was prescribed and was supposed to but when I became I would say more of like a rebel teenager I fought and I fought hard and I was not nice to her and I did fight back and she would consider it where I'm basically disturbed and she had me in a bunch of psych ward psychiatric treatment claiming I was psychotic had me on high lexipro and she would keep trying to up the dose and they actually would, I remember a doctor, like a psychologist, they're like, we can't up it anymore based on her weight. She explained it as I was very, like, in denial and I was just struggling because of facing the amputation. And I knew, I knew deep down what was going on business.

Nobody believed me. And, like, she kept just getting away with it. And I just kept losing stuff. Every time I tried to tell somebody and I just kept losing my life, I thought back, I actually tried to unalive myself twice. that just gave her more ammunition against me and only proved I was not in a good mindset. And I didn't want to be alive anymore. I didn't want to be with her anymore. And there was a time that she even called the police on me because she pushed me up against a while.

I pushed her off of me. A broom fell over in the laundry room and she called the police and told them I beat her with a broom. all because it just fell over, and even touched her with it. And so the police came out, like, do you want me to press charges? No, I just want to teach her a lesson. I just,

I know she's mentally struggling right now with everything going on. Like, she actually had people convinced that I was crazy. I started to believe I was crazy. Right. There's no easier scapegoat than a mentally unstable teenager. Let me tell you. So it's,

it's easy to, it's easy for a parent like your mother to, play that card for sure. Yeah, and I will say I definitely just kept making it worse to myself, the more I did because the unaliving attempts, the things that I did

and just ended up back in, she just gave her record to prove that I wasn't stable and cannot be trusted, and she made it out to be like a pathological liar and right. It doesn't work in your favor. So keep going with, keep taking us to the amputation.

So that you have that final. That's where I was at. So I could have one thing that I will take, I know I could have told the doctor about it. I know I could. And I knew it. I even knew the day I sat, I laid on that bed going into surgery,

that that surgery was not necessary. I walked in there. I walked to the pre-up. I walked into all those appointments. Those doctors saw me, walking. So I knew that it should not happen, but I also, I felt like I was crazy and I gave up. Before I went in, I basically made peace with it and I was like, whatever happens happens. I was very sarcastic. I was very just, let's get it over with because it's going to happen regardless.

So just do it because I felt like I had no fight left in me. So almost like a broken horse, almost like they broke your spirit or something. But what you guys are more about my sister's story, too, you'll understand. There was a part of me too that felt if I told that doctor right then and there, let's say he canceled surgery. I just felt like she was going to find another doctor. And I just felt like it was going to get worse on me. I just felt like it didn't matter whether I told it then.

She was going to find a way out of it. She always was good with words to find her way out of everything. That sounds like the, I was going to ask whether you. felt like it was a losing battle that your mother would have persisted until the surgery was done. Just a quick, you know, I might be getting ahead a little bit here, but just tell me just, since we're here and talking about this, what do you think your mom was getting out of that at this point? He was getting a lot of attention.

She was getting free stuff from charities and churches like money. I just she loved that attention like it was always she got out of paying bills like after later on on you'll know like when my mom ended up leaving on her own my dad was found that he was in thousands and thousands of dollars a debt because he was never home he was on the road and he expected her to pay the bills but she was using our sob stories to not pay the bills like over and just there was so much that that he didn't even know existed until she was gone so could you could you give me some examples of the attention she was getting. So let's talk about, I know your sister's an important part of this story, but in terms of your leg and your amputation, I mean, what

what do you remember about the attention specifically during that time, or can you remember things that would be? I don't. I remember some things with her attention. It just seemed like a lot of like every change she got, she told everybody how she's this struggling mother that's taking care of two sick kids and just got all the sympathy in the world. I do remember churches like buying our Christmas gifts and churches like giving her money and donations. I remember like one of them built our wheelchair ramp. I know those things she was getting out of it. She constantly, like there's people, well, like my sister's hospital homebound teacher, I'm still in touch with her. She was in our life a long time, but my mom would have the money from these charities and places to go get her hair

and nails down all the time. But yes, she was feeding us pasta salad and stifers every night and like really crappy food and the same thing all the time. And not really taking care of us, but she made sure like to be very selfish and she was doing things with money that she shouldn't have been and then didn't have enough money to put like real food on the table. How did she explain your amputation. What was, what was her way of describing that? She kept telling people, was the pressure ulcer that the necrosis and it never healed from when I was two years old. And I could never find a medical document out there. Like I said, they did say they destroyed them after 10 years. I can never find anything to confirm or deny

her story. But I did uncover some troubling information from when I was two years old. Can you, can you share that with us at this moment? I'm going to read it to this little. You do read off the paper. So I went digging since I couldn't get medical records. I found some records at the Juvenile Justice Center in Orlando, Florida. And I learned that I was honestly surprised I got this. But I, so I was born in 1994.

And I found some documents that said the child Kate has suffered. numerous accidental injuries since December of 1995, including the following. Two broken fingers in December of 1995, a bruise to the head in February of 1996, a bruise to the head in April of 1996, a fracture of the left foot in May of 1996, a fracture to the left left in June of 1996, a fracture to the left arm in July of 1996. On August 29, 1996, the child suffered additional injuries while under the mother's supervision, the child suffered burns through her feet and legs after the mother accidentally spilled hot water on the child. It says that the department offered the parents voluntary protected services, including parenting classes and counseling. The parents denied the need for any intervention and stated the child is simply accident prone. Wow. Wow. So I can say now thinking I can't remember too. I think whatever that I dry skin on my he came from, it was self, it was inflicted by my mom in some way. Wasn't something you were born with.

Who was reporting all of those injuries? Was that like a neighbor? So according to these documents, it was reported by the hospital. It was doctors that reported it. They ended up settling in court for in-home visitations for so many months. And this is now why I think. think I never saw a doctor by my foot from age two to nine and me spraining my ankle like triggered something in her to start it all over again. I'm assuming that's why there was such a big gap

because I'm telling you I lived as far as that like I can remember a lot of my childhood. I can't remember. I can't remember that dry skin on my heel and I was fine up until I sprained my ankle. I went to public school. You know, I started in kindergarten through third grade and then she held me back that second year which decided to confine me to the wheelchair but I was a pretty normal kid. When did you find that record? I found this record in 2016, six years after my... And what were your thoughts when you found that when you read that? I was angry. I was so angry because I already knew my mom was a liar, but now I'm like, so not only did you basically lie about this dress?

and have unnecessary surgeries done and sabotage my all the surgeries you she's likely the one that caused the dress kit on my heel in the first place that she was lying about all along yeah so when you're i mean in some ways when the leg was amputated did you think you know as you pointed out it was a losing battle did you think in some ways well maybe it'll just stop after this too because if you don't have a foot you can't i did so that was another thing too is i'm like i mean after it's gone I mean, this has to be the end. There's, like, nothing else she can do. Like, she's going to cut it off.

She's been saying the heel is the problem. So now they're going to cut it off. Like, it'll be gone, done. Like, I can finally just live a life. And the doctor did tell me that I could still be a firefighter with a missing leg. So because I asked him about that. I still want to be a firefighter. And he's like, they make really good prosthetics.

You could still be a firefighter. And so I was like, okay. And he puts in a document that I was more than willing to have my leg amputated. I would not say that's how that conversation went. I was actually pretty sarcastic and kind of angry. And I did not cry. My mom was pulling her crocodile tears and losing this whole fit. But I did not cry.

I was, whatever. I didn't care anymore. You were defeated. Yeah. And he's like, and he did. He's like, okay, do you understand? I'm like, yes, I understand. Okay.

So we're like, this is what you want to do because he said he brought up the option to cut the heelbone out again. I said, well, you said, I can't be a firefighter with that. So if you say I'll be a firefighter with the bithy leg, let's do that, whatever. Yeah. And did it stop after that then? You, you're... No, but this is where I think the doctors realized they messed up. I don't know why they didn't report this. I found a document in my medic record is that I, I'm so confused why they didn't report it. I have my assumptions. And my assumption is that the doctor probably click to him possibly that oh crap like we just figured out why her foot had so many problems

but um i don't i'm just trying to look to see if i had the paper in front of me um to read that document because it's actually very important and i do have it right here yeah and take your time it's okay yeah uh so um and i i knew this was happening but i actually um kind of didn't know it for the medical standpoint. I remember them putting the cast on my amputation, but I will say after I lost my leg, I was on heavy pain medication. My mom did make sure I was on pain medication,

the volume. So, but I do remember her messing with my amputation a lot. Like, so I had this film, like this scab that formed over my stitches in my amputation. She would pick that off and say that. Like it needed to come off. And she would pick out it. I know that some of my stitches.

is busted and she would just constantly mess with it. But they did doctors that and I had no idea, but it said, Kate is a 16-year-old female well-known to the hospital. She underwent a left-belozoly the amtation on June 24th, 2010 for chronic recurrent left heel wound. This was performed by a doctor at the hospital. She initially did well. However, she began to have some problems with her wound on her left BK stump site. They were doing local wound care at home.

however, they continue to have problems with this. It is unclear as to whether or not they are doing something to prevent wound healing or just irritating the wound by constantly messing with it. It is apparent that outpatient wound care is not effective for them. They have been seen four different times in the past three weeks, and they continue to have problems with this despite repeated attempts by physical therapy to demonstrate to them the proper wound care. At her last visit, she was placed in a cast in order to prevent.

the family from getting to the wound. However, they removed the cast the day after it was placed because they thought something was wrong and they put that in quotation. They returned today to the clinic for repeat evaluation. They ended up in minting me for inpatient wound care. I actually got admitted to the hospital for a month. I did have an infection in my BK stuff at that point. They had to go in and debrief and they had to heal my amputation with a wound back.

That is torture. It was horrible. Wow. Yeah. So did the, when you were admitted for wound care, I mean, I know the infection was a big part of that, but did it improve rapidly at that point? It did. It did improve rapidly. Yeah. So, okay. Okay. And did anybody take you aside and ask you about that? Nope, they did not. And my mom was always there with me. Oh, she was always there. But they'd never talk to me. They never talked to me. They never talked to me. Nothing.

That's interesting, too, though, that your mom was always there. Like, she was. didn't need to be there. You're a teenager, but perhaps that was attention too, right? John, like, would you say that? Like, if she's always there at the hospital, she's getting something out of that, too. The only thing is- Well, she can censor what's going on. She can control what's going on. The only time I think she might have left is I was on, like, morphine pumps in pain medication. I want to say I was back on the morphine pump. I have morphic pump a lot in my admissions there. And I was on, I would take pain medicine in my mouth.

They would give me. So if I was like past hour or something, that might have been when she was going to eat because she would have like food traits and stuff. But she wasn't, I don't remember. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet. And then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

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ORA gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at ORA.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. For her really leaving and like I was like up and aware kind of thing. But after this, when I started going to like physical therapy and stuff, I started getting left alone a lot more. but at that point, I didn't say anything. What aside from the infection, were there other issues that you can point to for,

for, you know, why the wound wasn't healing post-surgery? No. There wasn't any other issues. My mom was just messing with it, like, just constantly messing with it. Like, she wouldn't, when she would change it, she'd be really rough. She's pulling the scabbing up. off like stitches. Okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay. I wasn't sure. It sounded like, because it sounded like earlier that your mom was doing something similar when you were sleeping. Yeah. So I don't, I don't

recall anything that was different from like in this case where I would go to bed, like my heel was more obvious with this. I had the open wound, but I don't recall like any changes from going to sleep and waking up with this. She would actually just do it. So she would give me some. some medicine, she said she have to clean it because she has to clean it. She'd tell me she has to do the wound care and change the bandages. And when she was doing the wound care, she'd be really rough with it and picking stuff off and saying like it had to come off. And just it was causing me a lot of pain, but she was saying it had to be done. That's, like, apparently what she was supposed to be doing for my wound care. And again, during this entire process,

I assume your mom was, she felt like she was getting a lot of attention. Oh, yeah. I'm sure she was taking care of her to. sick daughters. Yeah. Or your sister was gone at this point, so her one sick. At that point. My amputation, yes. I actually kind of feel like that's what made it a little bit worse.

And after my sister was gone, is when the amputation really started getting pushed. But I think it probably still would have ended up happening. But there was a lot. When my sister was around, she had to be there for a lot of my sister's hospital business and take care of my sister. So I was having, I felt like more minor surgeries up in. till she was gone and then I feel like they got a lot worse. In other words,

your mother may be focused on your sister more. Yeah. And then with your sister gone, it increased with you. Yeah. And I can share a little bit about my sister. So she's giving me permission to share, but my sister is not open about her story

because she has made peace with it. My sister does not have a lot of memory of her story because of the medications that she was on. And she does have permanent brain damage and some lifelong issues. issues, but she has survived. She has overcome, and she even got a degree in psychology, and she works with special needs kids and kids who have been through abuse now. But my older sister was pretty healthy and fine until we moved to South Carolina. So my mom fled Florida

with all of us. And when we got South Carolina, I remember I was in middle school. My sister with high school, we rode the same bus. Like, we were really close. She'd stick up to the bullies for me. My sister was very intelligent. she was. And then within about a year, a year and a half time frame, my sister could no longer read or write. My sister got very, very ill. She was on lots of medication. She got a feeding two put in. She had an IV port put in. And she just kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And my mom didn't get to feed. Okay, I'm sorry. Was there any identifiable cause for, you know, for your sister's? deterioration? They said she got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

I don't remember what I was called and said she was diagnosed epilepsy and stuff, but it just happened all of a sudden out of nowhere. I don't even understand it, really. Okay. So you're, what are your thoughts about it? I think my mom was poisoning her and caused her to get sick.

And then she started getting put on unnecessary medications, which just led to it. and anything she could have actually had, they just made worse than what it was. It was, she did keep her doctors separate. I didn't go to, like, my sister's appointments. I just watched it from, like, as her sister. And my mom would forget to her in the feeding tube. My mom said that she would die.

She ate real food. I knew that wasn't true because I used to seek my sister real food. Okay. Was your sister really skinny when she got the feeding tube? Or? Yeah, she was really small. Yeah. So you think she was poisoning in her is what you suspect now?

Is that what your sister suspects? I don't, she doesn't know because she does not have a lot of memory. I don't know if she just blocks it out, but she doesn't think about it. She's made peace with it. I've asked her. I mean, she knows, like from a psychological standpoint, my mom definitely has much has a syndrome by proxy. And when I first heard that term was after my sister was taken away, it was throwing

out there accusing my mom of it. I heard conversations about. it after my sister was taken away that was the first time I heard the term and this was right this was before I lost my leg when I heard the term my child's syndrome at proxy and that was coming from family because my sister was saved by shans hospital because they said my sister or states or numbers they said my sister was going to die um and I believe my sister was going to die because that's what they said my mom said to everybody she was dying and that she would be dead they were talking within months and family ended up stepping in and taking her and she was 19 at the time

and she had taken a chance hospital i heard she was amended there for months they got the feeding tube out they went off all the medications and um there was a lot of things that she was diagnosed with that she never had but she does have some brain damage from those medications and thanks and can i ask where your other parent was at this time were they divorced was he staying in florida dad was So when we first moved to South Carolina, my dad was only in Florida about a year. My dad did move to South Carolina, he was a truck driver. I'm not going to say my dad wasn't around. He was.

I do believe there was a lot of manipulation for my mom, but I'm also going to say I do have blamed towards my dad too, because I went to my dad before my leg was amputated, and I begged him to not make me go and have my leg amputated. And he told me, he thought he's like, you need to go and he convinced me, because I would consider myself a dad's girl, daddy's girl. Like I was a lot closer to my dad. I resented my mom, even as a troubled teenager. I was closer to my dad.

And he truly felt that I needed it. But now the one thing I've tried to, I've forgiven my dad more because he does have remorse. He does have regret and he has admitted that he missed all the signs. Okay. But it just shows how manipulative. Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually,

I'm actually looking at one of your notes. There's a note. that I reviewed that you sent out as a medical note from 2009, March 25th, 2009. If you don't mind me reading this. Yeah. It just says, quote, Kate presents today with both parents who are anxious to have a surgical procedure to alleviate symptoms of pain in her left heel. So the doctor here makes it pretty clear that it's both your parents. that are, the doctor feels like both parents are pushing for the procedure.

So that's interesting. You think that your mother had a lot of influence over your dad. If you look at other documents too, there were conversations like when my dad was still in Florida. Doctors would be communicating to my dad by phone when my mom was present. And she just truly had him convinced. and even when I tried to go to him about not what he might have like him said he was going with and I will say there's blame there I'm not going to say there's not there definitely is but he at least has shown regret and remorse where my mom has shown absolutely none

okay and you so it sounds like you you've confronted your mother oh yeah I have and and how as she responded to it. I didn't hurt any of you kids. I didn't hurt any of you kids. I loved you guys. You know that. And when you point out specifics about your left foot being amputated,

she thinks it's so she argues that it's legitimate and the procedure was necessary? She does. And she denies it. And she's telling me that I am manipulating it and I'm the one lying. and she's like, I need to stop being the liar and I need to tell the truth. And that she defends that she's a good mother. In other words, that's her go-to.

Would that be her go-like? I'm sure that you guys had, it sounds like it, you were rebellious teenager. You finally started to see through this. What would be her, like, go-to? Would it be putting the blame back on you? Would it? But it was all, like, especially, you know,

it would be putting the blame back on me. Yes, it very much so was. That she's a good mother. loving mother. And I was just crazy and I struggled with bipolar and OCD and I was diagnosed with all sorts of mental health issues. And honestly, the true mental health issues that I have now, which is that I've been clinically diagnosed as PTSD and chronic depression, which comes from her.

Yeah. How did it end then? You go to impatient. Yeah. She's still there. So I ended up getting my leg and stuff. I did have like one more like knee surgery for scar tissue removal. That one could have been needed.

I don't know. I read document. I had one more surgery a couple months after the I started walking. And they said it was because my prosthetic wasn't fitting correctly or something. And I was having some problems in my knee and they said they had to go and remove some scar tissue. It was a very simple procedure. I think I even read in document. maybe a neuroma in my knee.

But after that surgery, and it was about a year after my imputation all together, my mom ended up leaving on her own. She was actually cheating on my dad. There was a lot of marital issues at this point. She was on a dating nap, and she decided that she was going to be a lesbian, and then she made a woman. She didn't even know her for 24 hours. She definitely moved in with that woman.

What year was that? It was 2011, 2012, end of 2011, around there. So that's a plot twist. So. Yes.

It definitely. I get, right. The reason I asked the date is because I was, I was wondering if your mom is still attention seeking today. I have no idea. I have a little bit of a little bit of relationship with her back when I had my daughter in 2014 and I let her meet my daughter. I actually

let her be there at the hospital and there was an incident where my daughter was with my little sister and I wasn't there like I let my daughter stay but only with the agreement that my little sister was present and she was a little sister well somehow my daughter's blood sugar ended up dropping and she had like a little issues, but not like this. And my daughter ended up in something called non-diabetic ketoacidosis, and she didn't have diabetes. And she ended up admitted to the hospital for two weeks, and she was around my mom for two days.

And I, this is where I tried forgiveness, and I tried having her back in my life. And that is when I said, nope, and I never saw her again. So 2014 was your last visit with your mother. And then I did reach out in 2020 because I had family who made me try to feel bad, like you only have one mom you need to forgive her blah blah blah i try to wish her happy it's mother's day i tried the conversation again i try to confront her about the things that she did i just wanted her to admit it um she didn't and i end up putting off again i never i never i haven't seen her since um about 2015 and i haven't um had anything to because my daughter was born in december of 2014

i haven't seen her since 2015 but i haven't um spoken to her since 2020 and that there was a lot to her. Let's go back to your mother leaving that plot twist real quickly. I just, I got it. So she leave, how old are you when she leaves? About,

I was 17. And did she leave all of your siblings? Here you are the oldest one. Your sister was older, but she's gone. Yep. She did. She left all of you.

Did. But she's a good loving mother, but she left you all. She did. So that's interesting too. Like she was just done? Like she. And then my little brother and little sister did end up going to live with her part-time as she settled into her new life.

She ended up marrying that woman. My little sister ended up, what I've heard, is she endured some physical and mental abuse for my mom, non-medical abuse, physical and mental. A lot of problems. She ended up actually coming to live with me for a little while because I ended up moving away eventually. but I had to take care of them for a couple years. Like I had, so I tried to go to EMT school three different times, and I had to keep leaving EMT school when I was 17, 18 years old, because my little brother, little sister, they'd be in trouble at school,

and I was going to have to go because my dad couldn't go. He was always at work, so I had to step up and go be like their parent and go talk to the school officials and step in. I always kept missing too much of the hours, and I kept failing. And when I was 19, I ended up moving away to North Carolina. And that's when I finally got my EMT. Okay. And congratulations.

Yeah. Congratulations on that. That's amazing. Yeah. It is amazing. You did it. I did. I had to leave the thing.

I am in North Carolina. Now, I did go back for a short time after I had my daughter to help my dad out. My dad actually had a stroke. I did go back for a little over a year, but I ended up moving back to, yearline again and I've stayed here for the last six years permanently so yeah that's that's amazing after all you've been through you persisted and you know all the turbulence of your adolescence and congratulations that's great congratulations I do when you're evaluate like your opinion on these records one of the things I struggle with is when I share my story I'm always another gypsy I'm always another

gypsy I'm always stealing from gypsy story and I'm like but I'm not my story actually happened And like, but her stuff unraveled when she, you know, the unaliving of her mom in 2015. My leg was lost in 2010. Like, I had already knew what much health of the bioproxy syndrome was before her story was known by anybody. So in other words, you feel like people think you're copying her. Like, you're just making this up because. Yes. And it is, it is a hard, hard thing to always be another gypsy.

I can't tell anybody. My story is a stranger. And they're like, oh, how did you lose? you tell them, oh, you're like, that girl, she's not. It's not. I'm not. Well, now that you bring that up, I don't want to get into that too much at the moment, but when you bring that up, I think of D.D., which, you know, that's Gypsy's mother. And I'm thinking of your mother. I mean, have you reflected on what you think your mother's main motivations were to do this to you?

I think she's... I really think she just liked the attention. Like maybe she felt she lacked some attention somewhere. I don't know in her life. And she just enjoyed the attention she got from it. I mean, that's the only thing I can think of it. I can't understand it. I mean, I do remember my mom was like a follower in a lot of ways.

Like she did. I remember the time when she was Jehovah Witness. When I was a kid, she decided she was a Jehovah Witness. And then later we were like, we were Baptist church and we were like really religious going to church. And then she ended up becoming a witch. So it was just what other people were doing. I mean, more gypsy. Right.

Yeah. Do you know, yeah. Let's not get into that. Do you know any of your mom's history or her childhood history? So I, what she said that she did grow up with a mom. that was on drugs and abused alcohol and she was left alone a lot. I know that there was accusations against an uncle, which would be my great uncle because it was her mom's brother that she said assaulted her when she was a kid.

And these are just stories from my mom. And unfortunately, it's with my mom lied too much. I don't know what's true and what's not true. But if these things did happen to her, maybe that is why she developed these attention-seeking behaviors. Do you see any mental health issues that, I mean, I guess you're not exactly in the mental health field, but you know, you're, you encounter mental health issues in your job for sure. And you've been processing your life, I'm sure, your whole life. Oh, yeah. Do you, do you see any, you know, do you see any obvious mental health issues with your mom that did kind of stick out to you?

depression um bipolar bipolar yes i i believe she was actually diagnosed a bipolar at some point but she actually really bipolar and she had a lot of depression because there were um like signs i i don't feel like she cared about itself and from what i've heard since she's left um from what the little bit i've heard from my younger siblings that do talk to her one talks through a lot one keeps her at a distance one has a boss to be you only get one mom and we can't pick a with her family no matter how messed up she was she's still your mom so he talks through a lot but I hear she doesn't even get out of bed she doesn't leave her house like she she lives

pretty crappy from what I hear so and so on that issue when you say that you know when you say that it elicits a certain amount of empathy in me I guess I mean what she put you through was horrible what she put all your kids through is horrible but she's obviously struggling now. So how do you feel about your mom now? What are your...

I don't have anything to do with her because of this thing that she keeps trying, like she keeps pretending that she didn't do anything wrong. She keeps pretending she's this wonderful mother. And for that reason, I can't have anything to do with her. I don't think she lives any good life by any means. Like I heard there was a few years back

that she turned it on herself. She was causing illnesses on herself. she was lying and claiming she had cancer at one point and liver disease and no one knew if she actually had those right now with diabetes that's one I honestly actually might believe it's the diabetes but as far as the other conditions we all never know I have a question for you John oh go ahead John ask her first well I was just going to say you know I totally understand what you just said and but what what feelings you know when you when you think about this whole story and what your mom put you through. What is it you, you know, what do you feel about

that? I, I resent my mom and I am very angry. I do not miss her. I have struggled with even wanting to even, I mean, I act like my mom was dead to me now because I had to remove the toxicity out of my life. And I wanted so badly to forgive her and I tried. And I know that she's got mental issues. I do. but the intentional abuse, that's what I can't understand. Like I know with the mental illness is one thing and the attention seeking behavior, I get it, but intentionally sabotaging my wounds, intentionally causing me extreme pain on purpose,

and she knew what she was doing. It's really hard to forgive and understand how you could just do that without a conscience. Did you still have a question, Lauren? Oh, yeah. I just don't want to interrupt. Well, I just one thing

I'm seeing a pattern with your mom, Kate, is she goes from she's a Jehovah's Witness one moment to then, as you said,

a extremely religious Baptist, to be happily married to a man with five kids to within 24 hours deciding she's a lesbian and, um, I will say,

woman. You met, She just met that woman 24 hours. There was some lesbian neighbors that moved in that she was already getting close to in a building and friendship with and exploring things. That's where they're involved. And then she met that woman online and didn't know her for 24 hours and that moved in yet. Okay.

Okay. Is she still with her? No. She is not with a different woman in another state. Okay. So I guess my question is to John, would you say this is like an identity issue? like a sense of self? I mean, it seems like such a chameleon.

There's, you know, such a... Well, it... Without knowing details, just based on what Kate's saying, I think there's clearly, there's... It looks to me like there's some trauma in her past. And there's a lot of instability. So, yeah, I think there's issues around kind of a stable, authentic self that she's...

She really doesn't have that, I think. So I'm not... diagnosing here, but that would be consistent. Maybe some of the stuff she's talking about seems to potentially be consistent with like borderline personality disorder or maybe some type of personality disorder. But definitely seems like there's a lot of instability with your mother that in every way, emotions, her sense of self, right? And that's that, those tend to be kind of hallmarks of borderline personality disorder.

But I don't know her. You know, I've never met her. I'm just basing this on I'm not diagnosing. I'm just speculating about what that might look like. Well, we're asking you. So that's, yeah. One to ask you to like I know maybe you can't diagnose or anything, but looking at my records, can you,

because one thing, I know that it was said my mom had much on send her by proxy with my sister, but I can never get anybody to look at my records ever say, but could you say my records and things are consistent with that? I didn't really have time to go through them in depth. But I certainly, so I wouldn't really be able to diagnose based on what I've seen so far. But if I'm trusting your story and just taking your story at face value and you seem believable to me. But taking what you've told us and lining that up with what I've seen of your medical records,

I definitely think it's, it seems like you can make a very strong case that it's, It's now called factitious disorder imposed on another. But I always say I like Moonschall's a lot better because it's a cooler title. I feel like we finally, society has just worked so hard to finally learn how to say Moons and biproxy. Right. Then they take it away. Then they take it away.

We're all like, okay. This is, you know, and then, yeah, that they give us a name. I think it was changed, by the way, because the mental health profession, you know, we want to be seen as very medical and scientific, and Moonshausens is kind of a flowery, you know, term that describes like some baron from the 19th century. So it's not exactly the most scientific term.

I think that's why they changed it. But I love Moons. I love that term. I don't like what it represents, obviously, because it's an extreme form of child abuse. Yeah. And obviously it causes. a lot of harm and I'm really, you know, sorry that you had to experience all that trauma.

PTSD makes perfect sense in your case. Yeah. That is something I've struggled with for a long time. But being the field that I work in, I don't have trouble dealing with that trauma. I honestly feel like it makes me a better health care worker for the stuff I've been through. Yeah. more empathy and yeah

but one of the things I just can't understand right now is when I'm trying to share my story at this my first platform I've really been able to do on TikTok is people can't hear my story because my mom wasn't prosecuted and there's nothing I can do about it so I'm like how

how do I prove my story is true I mean I got the record I got stuff but where where is it that I get to prove my story is true and they allow me to share my story because right now according to places I can't go on the news I can't go on it because I want to be an advocate there's a lot of things I want to do for other survivors but I can't go outside

a TikTok or a little podcast I can't go anywhere because my mom wasn't prosecuted they have to get my mom's permission and I don't understand why and then like when it's abused like why they have to talk to the abuser for me to be able to share my story that's a good question too because moochausen by proxy or factitious disorder imposed by another would actually be the diagnosis of your mother so you could could she necessarily go in and get diagnosed herself i don't think like you could take the way to get the diagnosis or does it have to be her mother i think the way i think the so the i think the way around that is i i hear what you're saying in terms of the diagnosis applying to your mother, but I think it's potentially equally powerful to just

to present it from your perspective. And to, I mean, the truth in the story is your truth, right? And it's, your story. And no matter what anyone else says, they can't, you know, nobody can take that away from you. So I think, I don't know about the legalities of that. I mean, I think, you know, I think, you can say that I believe, you know, this is Lynch-Hawson's by proxy. My mom was never, she was never diagnosed with that. She was never prosecuted because I'm guessing some of the statutes probably expired. This is the system failing. Yeah, this is the problem.

And it is a problem. And that's why I wish I could raise more awareness. But I, so every, like the news outlets I have found my viral TikToks that have reached out to me, they asked me questions, okay, can your mom sign a release? Well, I don't talk to her, but I can tell you she's probably not going to. I mean, she got away with it. She's not going to want to be exposed for it. She, at the end of the day, I mean, she still abused me.

And I know she does, she's not going to give you permission to just go to the world and tell them. And then they're like, okay, well, we can't go any further. And I've had that happen so many times now with news outlets, like they want to, but they can't because they said, legally they cannot talk about her at all without her permission. And that would be me talking about her. The only value of my story is me sharing what she did to me. Well, and you can certainly say that you're a survivor, a victim and survivor of child maltreatment or child abuse.

And just going back to the record of what you read from when you were from 95 and 96, that in and of itself is compelling. Yeah. And that's the start. That's just, that's the, that's just the beginning of this. So I, you know, maybe one way around it is to say you believe it's this, but it wasn't prosecuted. And but you are clearly a victim of child maltreatment.

I think you're going to see that people believe you and that you can then have a platform to, to share awareness. And we hope to help you do that, to bring awareness. I also appreciate by the fact, let me just mention that one of the things I really appreciate about your story, Kate, is when you get to the point of the amputation, you said you could have told the doctor it wasn't necessary. You could have said, I can't walk,

but in many ways you felt like you just, you were against forces larger than yourself and you were against sort of your mother's history of persisting in getting what she wanted and you said you just gave up. I did. And I think that gives a lot of credibility to your story because you know what?

In Gypsy Rose's story, there's no moment where she says she gave up. Her argument is she had no choice. She was compelled to stay in the wheelchair and never stand up. And let me be clear. I believe Gypsy Rose was horribly abused.

she couldn't consent to what was going on with her as a child. That was horrendous. But when you're 23 years old and you're in a wheelchair and you can show the world that you can walk and stand and your argument is that you have no choice, I think that story loses a little credibility. But the fact that you're willing to say that you gave up and you had a choice but you gave up,

that to me is, really it's compelling. Yeah. And that's kind of where I struggle with her story too is like the more I've learned the details. I'm like, gosh, if I was in my 20s and I had that opportunity, I would been gone. I'd been gone 18. I would have been, I would have left. I would have got out that situation. Like she knew her age at this time. She knew it before pretty long before that. Like I would have got out. And I understand the trauma and the difficulty but of that but she did say she had a dad she did say she had family that loved her and

I would have I would have ended up finding a way out of it and because like I was trying to get out but I was a minor so I was a lot more controlled in my situation because I was a minor. Let me ask you how do you feel about Gypsy Rose's story? I mean I clearly see the similarities yeah and I think we all do you certainly do you say that everyone always tells you're just you're gypsy but how do you feel I'm sure you do you feel empathy do you feel anger do you feel compassionate it I used to feel a lot more empathy for her but as

things have come out some of the things you know going on a PR tour two days at a jail and just the way she kind of prioritized I guess you know she wanted to justify she's saying like I did not, it's almost like she didn't want to take any credit for her actions.

Sorry, I struggled with the words about this situation. And I look at him, like, but you were an adult and people go out to defend her. Like, well, she had the mind of a child. I've seen even interviews when she was younger, when she would have like the habitat of humanity house and stuff. The way she spoke on those news stations, I wouldn't say, I mean, she had a childlike voice, but I wouldn't, I was, I thought she was pretty small. to be honest, because I had a sister who actually mentally couldn't really reach, she could read,

you can't write, like, who was really mentally unable to really defend herself and seeing it hurt. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-D-com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle. And here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out. Every product is sourced from small American-owned family farms that care deeply about what they grow. It's cannabis you can trust, delivered discreetly,

and ready to elevate your mood. And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com to get started. I didn't get the same view. But, again, it's from a perspective. Like, I've just seen it into different perspectives. So that's just on me.

And I am not trying to say anything wrong. I definitely believe that she is a survivor. I know that because I can hear the similarities. I do know she is. I also kind of wonder at one point, like, did her mom figure out she knew? And then, like, there was an agreement there somewhere. She was walking. She admits that because from experience and seeing it, you don't sit in a wheelchair for years and have no use of your leg.

Then you just get up and walk one day without any physical therapy or any help. So, like, you would have, your muscles would be weak. like it wouldn't be just so simple. And then being an adult, and then she claimed like she didn't know. I mean, she was talking to a 20-something-year-old Nick for quite a while. So she had have known her age to be talking to somebody in their 20s.

She obviously wasn't a child. And I don't, it's hard. The more I hear from her, the more it's like I think she's hurting herself. I think she needs to just do some healing. And she had a lot of past trauma. And I almost, I think she's kind of.

of she is feeding on the attention, but that's what she's used to. And I'm not going to say that's her fault. She's used to all that attention on her. But the attention she's getting is going to bring in continuous negative attention. And the way she's going about it, I mean, I'm looking at her like, okay, you're the face of much housing by proxy. Please say something about much housing by proxy. Please say something, you know, that is of value to explain this illness.

but she's going on there talking about Taylor Swift in her personal life in bed with her husband. I'm like, why are we not talking about, like, at least something? Like, and people say, well, she just got out of jail. I'm like, she also went on a PR tour. I went on so many different shows in a short period of time that in that PR tour, she could have said something valuable about Montchausen syndrome by proxy somewhere, at least at one of the interview. She could have said something valuable about this condition,

and this is what she is famous for. And she's saying that's why she unaligned her mom and justifying it, having her mom in alive for this condition, but she can't say anything about it. Yeah, she said she wanted to, she wanted to partner with Kim Kardashian because Kim was into prison reform.

But that's... I've heard that and then I saw they're working on a show with her husband for prison brides. We're talking about prison or what, but it's like, so we're just going away from much health and send a bribe proxy now. And people are like, well, she said she's going to be an advocate. I'm like, yep. And she has advocate for us in everybody. but I have not seen any advocacy going on at all.

Because you're a victim, you're hoping, and every, all eyes are on her. You're hoping for something almost like you're like, you're like, I'm one of you. I'm with you, Jitzy. Like you're, you're cheering around probably more than anyone, right? Like, let's do this. Like, please bring awareness. I was. And then when I saw all those interviews and her priorities and she has millions,

millions of followers. And her first thing finally when she's getting called out for not being an advocate, she makes a video where she just reads the definition, my child and send him by practicing a mic. I saw that. I haven't shown John. He's hardly on TikTok. In fact, today I showed John some of our hidden true crime TikToks.

He'd never seen him and he was laughing. He's like, what? You're what? What's this music? I'm like, babe, it's TikTok. You got, you know, let me introduce you to TikTok. I was quoting out a lot of hope. If people were like, well, you have to give her time.

It's only been a month. I'm like, okay. Yes, but she's the one that chose to go on a PR tour two days after jail. So you would have thought something would have come up in that tour. Like, right. I out of all those interviews like something but no it just she's so concerned about the celebrities and all the people she follows on Instagram nothing but celebrities the news station she does not she knows that the survivors exist um she's tagging to my videos all the time I really hate it but they tag her all the time she knows we're here um so and she knew about some of some of the survivors while she was in jail because uh survivors I know had contact with her so I it's just I don't understand. I mean, I will say, and if I had the following that JCP had, and I honestly, I would not want

that many followers because it would probably terrify me in my anxiety. I don't think I could handle it. But if I did have a huge platform, I know that changing the laws is kind of hard. And the way the justice system is designed and the way healthcare is designed, I don't think the law is going to make it pass Congress. It's like, okay, yeah, all you much has them syndrome, like proxies survivors can go ahead and get your justice. I just don't see that.

There was a law by another girl called Alyssa's law that went in and she was a much other of them by proxy survivor and it got thrown out. So I don't see a passing. So what I would want to do is create a nonprofit and I would like to raise money for survivors and essentially be able to have people submit their stories and you. you know, records and proof and then have like psychologists or doctors determine yes or a survivor and be able to use a fund to at least give them something for their pain and suffering that they had gone through because we won't see justice.

That's incredible. That's, that's an incredible plan. That's beautiful. Kate, maybe this is a good time to share with our viewers, your TikTok account. We want to make sure that they know where you can go. My T-T-T-T-T-I-E-A-T-I-T-I-E-K-A-T-I-T-E-A-T-A-T-E-A-T-E-A-T-A-T-E, Adaptive Kate. And you can find me on TikTok. I get on live-l-live, talk to people, I talk to other survivors,

and I am trying to advocate and raise awareness for this. If I ever had a chance to be out there more with my story, my hopes would to be able to start a nonprofit and help other survivors. Thank you. We'll also have a link to your TikTok in the description of this video. And I do want to share with those watching, if you're watching this premiere and you're in the chat and you believe Kate's story and you believe that she's a victim of Munchausen

by proxy, factitious disorder imposed upon another, share that here in chat. And if you're watching this on replay, please share that in a comment that you believe Kate and let her know so that you can start trusting your voice a little bit more, realizing that people are believing you.

Because I did go to your TikTok and you start to tell your story and I saw some comments. Right after you wrote us, I was like, I got to go see this. What is this? She's an amputee that because of this, you know, of abuse. And there were people that were right. in comments.

There's no way. There's more to this story. I saw those comments. Yeah. Tell me more and you're like, no. Really. I actually had fans of gypsies get on there. I almost lost my TikTok last week.

They spam reported my videos. I lost like four of my videos. TikTok put me on multiple strikes. And TikTok actually sent me like the notification. Like the next strike is I'm going to lose my account. and be banned for X amount of time. Like, they send these strikes in us like a system. And if you get so many strikes, they will take your account away.

And her fans, I got spams so bad. That's why I made that video and I was like, okay, I don't really want to share my opinions on Gypsy. I have a different viewpoint because of what I've been through. But everybody's going to have their own opinion. And nobody's perspective is going to be the same because we've all lived different ways. But my perspective is different because I have been a survivor. My sister is a survivor. And I have just seen it from another side that no one can understand.

understand. So they don't have to agree with my opinion. And I definitely don't think badly of her as a person. I know she's a survivor, but I can have my opinion about some of the inconsistencies and things that I have seen in her stories. And what are those inconsistencies? You can share in here. Don't match with other interviews. Like some of her newer interviews don't match with older interviews. There's just some things that aren't they were different than what was it earlier on. So just couple things like in her docu thing. I ended up not watching the whole doc series. I couldn't get through it. I was kind of getting probably irritated and triggered. I've been, but then when she just became a police celebrity, it was very triggering. A lot of people, I feel like survivors are feeling more

voiceless now because, and just being a lot more invalidated, because anybody who tries to share, we are being attacked because we are essentially trying to take from her. And that's not what any of us they're trying to do. Wow. So by sharing your story, you're diminishing her. Yep. And well, that's how I feel. But there was a Munchausen syndrome by proxy doctor I reached out to by email. And when I contacted him, it was basically I wanted him to confirm on the survivor. Like, I wanted to be able to prove it. And I want to submit him my MADF records. He ended up emailing me back the next day. And he said basically to not live in the past. He said, focus on the future. he said that he had been getting a lot of emails from other survivors feeling the same way in the height of a

case situation. So I feel that's where I say, where I feel like some of us feel so voiceless and we're looking to try to prove our stories by reaching out to this much of them by proxy expert. He wrote a book and everything about it and he's a doctor and we're trying to get some kind of validation and I'm not the only one. That makes sense. And you're not the only one. There's a lot of you out there. Any thoughts about John, why it is so undiagnosed? I think most cases occur with, as Kate said, they occur to minors. And minors don't, for the most part, they can't consent and they don't have as much of a voice. And they don't understand what's going on as much.

So it's very difficult to point something out when you're unaware of it. of what's going. And there's intrinsically, I think, a certain amount of dependency upon our parents for everything. And so that becomes a problem because we need our parents to survive and we need them to function and we

rely on them and we don't expect them to harm us or to harm minors, right? So it's a very, very, it's a very difficult diagnosis in that sense because most children simply aren't going to understand it and have the voice.

to really stand up for themselves. They need help from the system. They need help from CPS, teachers, neighbor, anybody that can see what's going on and can give them a voice. And I think a lot of times people don't want to get involved. That is true. I think people also get scared of me wrong.

So that's another thing that I think... The Maya documentary, too. I'd say, it's clashing right now. And I... And I'm speaking from a healthcare worker, because some people do not agree with this, but this is what I'm seeing. The two phases of my child syndrome by proxy right now

is the Maya case and the gypsy case. And very different cases, because in Maya's case, her mom is that to not have my child and syndrome by proxy and accused of it, wrongly accused of it, and in a gypsy's case, her mom did. And then she had her mom unalived.

From the healthcare standpoint, I feel like this tells them, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. Correct. 40 nines. I would be really hard to see that as a survivor. And I'm just, and it's nothing, I guess, my case is so heartbreaking like hers.

I feel for her so badly. And I, because I know that condition is a real condition. Like my case, I'm diagnosed with chronic pain that I did not have, but there is a such thing as chronic pain, the chronic regional pain syndrome. That is a real thing. But it can be hard to diagnose. And so I feel for her story. I do, but I'm just also looking at it just the perspective.

People are being wrongly accused. And now I wonder, are people going to be more scared now? Do not get involved because they don't want to wrongly accuse anybody. And I think it can be complicated. Yeah. How did you feel about the, what was it called? What About Maya documentary? How did you watch it and how did you feel about it?

I watched, I started to watch it. I watched parts of it. I know I've actually listened to a lot of podcasts about her. I know I know pretty much all the details from the podcast. I was having a hard time watching and getting through it. I had the same problem with the act. I struggled. It took me a really long time to finish it.

I can't because it's just triggering to hear the details. It's a complicated case. I can see why the doctors reported it. I can. And this is where I think I don't want doctors out there to be hesitant to report child. I know. I know.

Don't feel bad about reporting it. I do think there was enough there to report it, but it's supposed to be like innocent until proving guilty. Like there should have been like more done, but that's not supposed to be on the doctor's once it's reported. It's supposed to go beyond the investigation. They determine. But it, I feel like they were just pointing out like it shouldn't have been reported.

But that's the only thing I kind of would say if you suspect it, I think you should report it. because in my case, nobody reported it and they failed me. Well, the people that did report it were like neighbors and stuff, child services came in. And I don't know if they reported it as medical abuse or if they're just like something's going on in that house. I don't know what said child services, but I know they did not take it seriously. And I know when I talked back to like my childhood friends, a lieutenant in my fire department, people who have known me, they're like, we knew something was going on, but like we didn't know what.

and I was already out of like a lot of those social relationships when I had my leg amputated so once I gained those social relationships back it's like your leg's gone now what like what happened between when I last saw you to you not having a leg anymore yeah it's a pretty big deal when you're 16 yeah so on this reporting issue let me just weigh in quickly but one of the interesting elements of the gypsy rose confessions documentary was they talked to a neurologist who pretty much diagnosed Moon Townsend's by proxy because he did some tests to show that she didn't have muscular dystrophy. And they asked him, why didn't you report it?

And he said, because I didn't have the proof. And you don't need proof. So as a mandated reporter, any mandated reporter, suspicion, a reasonable, suspicion of abuse is sufficient to report. You won't be held accountable if you're trying to help a child, right? So I want to clarify that because I think there was a little bit of it. Somebody in there actually said that, but there was a little bit of a misconception that this particular doctor believed that he had to have all the records and all the proof.

He did, by the way, have tests showing that she didn't have muscular dystrophy. so he had a lot of proof, but his take was, I needed more proof. You know, I didn't want to report something that I couldn't really prove, which means that he felt like there might have been some liability. But the reality is that most, it differs by state. Most statutes are quite, they can be different. But in general, the standard is known or suspected abuse. So if there's suspicions and they're reasonable, it should be reported.

And that's right. And that's what about, oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Kate. Oh, I was saying that that's where I have to agree. I mean, if it's suspected, they, it needs suspicion, it should be reported. John, what about, um, the, the medical records that Kate has where they essentially imply, they don't say factitious disorder, but they do imply that there's something going out of home to the point where they say to Kate, you have to be impatient for the healing of your wound. Is that, could that be something that kind of proves Kate's story?

If we're looking for proof for her to be able to say, yes, I am a victim. Well, the language is a little vague. I think they're trying to, they're trying not to take a stand because of the liability. I mean, part of the problem here is nobody wants to get sued for anything these days, right? So it was understandable. But they said we put the cast on in order to prevent the family from getting to the wound. That was strange to me. And that cast, I briefly remember it.

It was so painful. But I know, like, in my parent, like, I remember my dad did cut it off. And I know, like, something was wrong. And they put in quotation, something was wrong. Like, they didn't even believe anything was wrong. And then they just admitted me inpatient. It's pretty compelling. I wish the language was a little stronger.

You know, it appears that the family, it appears that the parents are sabotaging patients' healing process, right? Something like that. But I wonder if they didn't do that because I feel like they might have started clicking to the fact that that was the whole time.

They were saving themselves, yeah. My imaging was normal, everything was normal. So I feel like that they reported this and I actually had an investigator come talk to me, I would have, like, blown that whistle so hard and told them every single thing that was going on. If somebody actually ever investigated truly, I would have told them everything. Really? I forgot to that. Oh, absolutely.

I just felt I was so stuck. I mean, but if it was somebody taking it really seriously and I feel like I could get out of that situation, I would have told. But with my mom lying to this doctor so much. and then how she had everybody convinced even like police officers in our town convinced like friends convinced everybody that I'm just this troubled teenager and that I'm a psych pathological liar but if a hospital reported it and they were investigating on a hospital I feel like I would have had more of a voice and been able to say something so if someone took you to another room and said hey we want to ask you out what's going on you would have you would have shared everything

I think it's pretty damning. I think clearly it shows that they were concerned about what was going on at home. So, I mean, yeah. Like an investigator because I was always with my mom. Like I can never get away from my mom. And they come people that when I was away from my mom, like a guy in town, their neighbors, that didn't get me anywhere. But you have an investigator, somebody who actually wants to talk to me alone and away

from my mom and hear my story. And if they told me like it was like a safe space, um, like, they basically made it feel like I, I like they believe, you know, there's something going on. I would have felt more comfortable to speak. Absolutely. But I don't think telling the doctor was enough. I don't think just speaking up right from my mom was enough because she would have had a lie. She had something out of it. Um, she might pack me up and move me to another state really quick. I don't know what she would have. done. Well, your mom also abandoned you and the rest of your siblings, with the exception of your older sister, as you, you know, when you became, when you were nearly an adult. And then there was nothing else her to do to me either. Right. Exactly. And I think that that's one of the, one of the issues I'm raising about Gypsy Rose is just her age and how that kind of changes the equation a little bit. I don't dispute that the abuse was harassed.

as a child or it was it was bad. Yeah. But I think that your mom is an example of an adult, a parent that is starting to lose that attention as you get older and as you become more independent, right? And indeed she flees when it looks like she's going to lose that control and that attention seeking that she's getting from, you know, the two older siblings, she's gone.

Yeah. And that would be evidence too. That would be, to me, that would be fairly compelling evidence that this is. Yeah. It is strange. I mean, maybe that's just me telling myself that now, because I'm reading these records, and I'm like, gosh, if they even told me they were suspecting, like, the doctor and they pulled me aside, like, there's something going on, like, if, you know, how, like, there's people that make you feel like,

it's a safe space. Like when we're trying to get like a domestic violence victim out of the situation, but you're not going to talk about the abuser. Like, but if you pulled me out of that situation, they're like, you know, we're seeing some things.

Are you safe? Like, is it okay? And somebody ever actually took the time to tell me that? I believe I felt, I could have felt safe. But there was nobody that ever actually took the time to make me feel like I was in a safe space.

Yeah. It's. To be able to. Yeah, that's, that's unfortunate. I will say it's, it's very, sometimes it's very difficult to, to determine because, number one, it's Moons and yeah, I know it's factitious disorder, but we're going to go with Moons. Moonchausens is very rare. You know, it's not, it's not that common.

And it's so I think a lot of medical professionals don't see it enough to really know what they're dealing with. And there's, like I said earlier, there's an intrinsic trust built into the medical system that when you seek services, you need those services, right? So there's, the medical profession is based upon the Hippocratic Oath, which is to help people and to believe them. And so Moons fundamentally violates that oath. It violates that trust. And I think a lot of doctors have trouble seeing that or believing that. And so it's rare. When you combine all those elements, I think sometimes it's difficult.

It's a problem. Yeah. I agree. And I also, I will say now, I do think it's harder to get away with now than it was back when paper records were around. We have systems like, epic. We have my chart. People can be like, oh, I lost the records. It's like, okay, well, can you log into my chart?

I mean. Right. Right. Right, exactly. Things are... Not hurricane. Even with Katrina, I know medical records are in the cloud now. Yeah, no more hurricane excuses.

Yeah, I mean, I'm like, I have no access to records. They're like, well, my chart exists. But so everyone, there's electronic database of it. I mean, doctors not even the same network can see imaging and things from other doctors. They can kind of see if you're, you know, if you're on a bunch of medication. and if they're not prescribed by the same doctor, there's just a lot more, I feel like, tracking where it's caught a lot sooner now than what it used to be.

But even then, you still have the same issues I just mentioned. It's still not, usually it's not glaringly obvious. It can be, but most of the time it's not. You're right, yeah. And that's very true. And I will say something I started on my TikTok. Growing up with my mom the way I did, honestly losing my leg it wasn't the worst thing that happened to me because I feel like going

through that abuse losing my leg um after losing my leg I've been able to have a purpose I've been able to be connected with some wonderful people in this world and I feel like that did save me um probably from I feel like I feel like maybe turning out to be a worse person I feel like you know I've been able to inspire people motivate people I've been able to to get connections with some wonderful people in this world that have been such a positive light in my life. And honestly, being an ampute has, hasn't been like a tragedy, it was a tragedy, how I lost it, but being an amputee itself is not necessarily a tragedy.

I have had some wonderful opportunities. I work for the military as a role player. I get put in moulage to give them realistic training. So I get blown up essentially. I need the I'd be explosions. So I have like purposes. Like it's that's why I say like my story is a tragedy. I was always angry, you know,

I couldn't prove my story. But being an amputee itself isn't my tragedy. Yeah. Well said. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. that. John, is there anything else you'd like to say? Well, I have a question, actually. Did you ever feel like you were getting attention from this anyway? Did you ever feel like you were benefiting

or is this all your mother? If you ask my three youngest siblings, they would say that they basically felt like they were just in our shadow and all the tension with me on me and my sister all the time and that they kind of did not exist even though they were there. So I know that- Fair enough. Yeah. me and my sister. And I remember having, like, attention and whatnot. But at the same time, I was such an active normal teenager, doing normal teenager things. They even with having these surgeries and stuff, somebody might sympathize.

But then it got to be so common that people were like, yeah, okay, she's to have another surgery. Like, I mean, I didn't feel like I was getting the attention from, like, my school or friends, but it was, like, attention from, like, other adults, like my mom's friends and people. that she would have around his churches, but it's not attention I wanted. I just wanted to go be a normal kid and go do what the stuff I wanted to do.

And, I mean, to the point, I will say, just show this. So recently, what would have been my 10-year high school reunion just happened? All of the students that I would have graduated with still remember me from middle school in my first month and ninth grade in year. I still got invited to that reunion because they still consider me as part of their class because they all know why I got taken out of school

and that I should never lost my leg and they're like, I'm still like a part of them and they still invite me. They invited me to that class reunion. I unfortunately could not make it because of work, but they did include me was like, no, you're one of us still. Like just because you had to graduate at home, like you were still one of us. That's awesome. I just want to weigh in with, you know, the differences, I want to point out some of the differences with Gypsy Rose quickly, just succinctly that, that Gypsy Rose says that she's doing her publicity to her as a cautionary tale to other victims of child maltreatment and trauma or Moonshausans by proxy. But the end result of that tale is that she ended up harming someone.

And I want to point out here with Kate that you endured many of the same, you endured many of the same circumstances. You went through a lot of trauma with your mother. And the end result is that you transformed yourself into something positive. And you talk very openly and honestly about your story, much more so I think than Gypsy Rose. And so I think the cautionary tale for me is that victims of trauma can go through transformations and make real contributions to society and to the community.

And that's what you've done. And that's a massive difference. So I prefer to hear the cautionary tale that has a happy ending, even though Gypsy Rose is now telling her story in a way that it's kind of a Disney ending. That remains to be seen number one. and number two, people were harmed during her tale. And that never happened here. And I don't think you ever wanted that to happen.

And so you took this adverse experience and turned into something positive. And I commend you for that. So thank you for doing that. And thank you for joining us tonight to tell your story. We're really grateful. Thank you. We can't wait to see what you do. how you continue to spread the word about your story.

All right. Thank you so much. It was great. Thank you. Yeah, there does need to be awareness. So thank you for wanting to be a voice and to be an important voice when it comes to bringing awareness to what you've been through. Hello, Hidden Jembs. It's Lauren with Hidden, a true crime podcast.

As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews. Hit the subscribe button for surprise lives and breaking news. And for exclusive content, things Dr. John and I only dare say behind a paywall, become a Patreon member at patreon.com slash hidden true crime. You'll find bonus episodes, early releases, and insider info. Thank you for your endless support.

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