Nobody Should Believe Me - Revisiting Season One: Sisters Surviving

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

During this look back at the 6th episode of our first season, we hear the story of twin sisters who survived Munchausen by Proxy at the hands of their foster mother. At the end of the episode, we get a visit from very special guest, Erica Blake (then Handt), one of the sisters we interviewed almost 3 years ago. Andrea reconnects with her to chat about life since that interview. *** As Andrea contemplates what the future looks like for survivors of Munchausen by Proxy, she gets an unexpected message from two young women who’ve lived it. After appearing with Marc Feldman on a podcast, Andrea hears from twin-sisters who survived MBP. Liz and Erica Handt were taken from one terrifying situation to another when the foster mom who adopted them turns out to be abusive, telling the girls they had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and dragging them from specialist to specialist. The twins' story is harrowing but ultimately hopeful as they're now thriving. * * * Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: @andredunlop Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. To learn more about Dr. Marc Feldman, visit Munchausen.com * * * Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True Story Media. episode because we are catching up with a season one friend, Erica, who is one of the sisters featured in this episode. She has so many amazing life updates to share and some really interesting thoughts on what it was like to share her story on this show, what she thinks about some of the cases we've covered since. So I loved catching up with her. You will not want to miss that. In the meantime, if you want even more, we are constantly sharing new exclusive content on the Patreon or if you want to subscribe on Apple, same content, different modality.

So you can always catch up with us there. If you have things to tell us, things to say, thoughts to share, you can find me on Instagram. I'm just at Andrea Dunlop. We also now have an Instagram for the podcast itself. And you can also send us an email. That's hello at nobody should believe me.com. Those are the best ways to get in touch with us and we love hearing from you. So without further preamble, here is the episode, and I will see you afterwards. Well, friends, it's 2025. It's here. This year is going to be, well, one thing it won't be is boring, and that's about the only

prediction I'm going to make right now. But one piece of news that I am excited to share is that the wait for my new book, The Mother Next Door, is almost over. It is coming at you on February 4th from St. Martin's Press. So soon! I co-authored this book with friend and beloved contributor of this show, Detective Mike Weber, about three of the most impactful cases of his career. Even if you are one of the OG-est of OG listeners to this show, I promise you are going to learn so many new and shocking details about the three cases we cover. We just go into so much more depth on these stories

and you're also going to learn a ton about Mike's story. Now I know y'all love Detective Mike because he gets his very own fan mail here at Nobody Should Believe Me. And if you've ever wondered, how did Mike become the detective when it came to Munchausen by proxy cases, you are going to learn all about his origin story in this book. And I know we've got many audiobook listeners out there, so I'm very excited to share with you the audiobook is read by me, Andrea Dunlop, your humble narrator of this very show. I really loved getting to read this book and I'm so excited to share this with you. If you are able to pre-order the book, doing so will really help us out. It will signal to our publisher that there is excitement about the book and it will also give us a shot at that all-important bestseller list. And of course,

if that's simply not in the budget right now, we get it. Books are not cheap. Library sales are also extremely important for books, so putting in a request at your local library is another way that you can help. So you can pre-order the book right now in all formats at the link in our show notes, and if you are in Seattle or Fort Worth, Mike and I are doing live events the week of launch, which you can also find more information about at the link in our show notes. These events will be free to attend, but please do RSVP so that we can plan accordingly. See you out there. This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker? With audio erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions. And that's not all. New Galaxy AI

features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. Playoff football is here with BetMGM and as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best Ultra now at Samsung.com. must be 19 years of age or older, Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show, we discuss child abuse

and this content may be difficult for some listeners. If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help. If you are curious about this show and the topic of Munchausen by proxy, follow me on Instagram at Andrea Dunlop. If you would like to hear a second season of this podcast, the best thing you can do is go over to Patreon.com and support the show there. We are going to have amazing bonus content that we're going to be releasing both during the season and in between seasons over there, including extended interviews with our experts and a companion episode from me each week,

going behind the scenes of the making of that specific episode, answering any questions for you that come up, and also just talking a little bit about how this content is landing out in the world. So go to patreon.com and search for Nobody Should Believe Me. If monetary support is not an option for you right now, you can also rate and review the podcast on Apple and share on your social media. Word of mouth is so important for podcasts and we really appreciate it. People believe their eyes. That's something that actually is so central to this whole issue and to people that experience this is that we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something. I'm Andrea Dunlop, and this is Nobody Should Believe Me.

I'm Elizabeth Hand. I go by Liz. And I'm Erica Hant. We will be sharing about our own personal experiences. Our adopted mother has not been formally investigated or charged for the medical abuse to our knowledge, though we have reported our suspicions. To protect identity, we will refer to our adopted mother as Ursula, and our biological mother's name is Julianne. Liz and Erica Han are twin sisters who discovered in their 20s that they had been victims of Munchausen by proxy abuse.

They were placed with their foster mother at age five after suffering abuse and neglect at the hands of their biological mother who was suffering from substance abuse issues. Liz and Erica reached out to me on Instagram after hearing an interview that I did with Dr. Mark Feldman on a podcast. When I heard from Liz and Erica, I was really anxious to talk to them

because I just wonder what life looks like after for survivors. How do you live through something like this? How do you get your sense of self back intact? How do you build a healthy life after going through a childhood like this? Tell us a little bit about your first impressions of Ursula that you can remember. She seemed like a normal person, right? Like someone you would see on the street, you'd walk by her, seems like a pleasant person. It was that way for quite some time. She did have some really, I'll say, unique ways of disciplining us. You know, she used like a point system, you know, because she actually ran a daycare at the time.

We would earn points for like having good behavior and then get points taken away. If we acted out and then at the end of the week, we would be able to like cash in our points for like a pack of gum or, you know, we'd get to pick the movie night for the weekend or whatever. It was a busy household right off the get-go. And so I think her way of maintaining control was through different ways of discipline that didn't feel like, you know, like a family necessarily. We always kind of felt almost like an outsider. Like we were always treated like daycare children or foster care children. We didn't really start experiencing abuse or at least like in-your-face physical abuse until we were probably around the age of seven.

And then later on in our 20s, we started to review our medical records and kind of piece together that she was also being medically abusive. What was the story of your health as you understood it? We actually remember undergoing pretty extensive neuropsych testing at the University of Minnesota here. And that was when we were probably six or seven. I remember when we were leaving to go get that testing done, she was saying, you're going to go get tested for fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS for short. She said that we have FAS. So that was what we were told. And she actually ultimately used that as a weapon against us to emotionally abuse us as well. Can you explain what some of the symptoms of FAS are typically and sort of how that would present?

So FAS, the symptoms would be learning disabilities, physical deformities, I think usually in the face, but also there are physical deformities with like your heart or lungs. You might have issues throughout your life. It also includes just other general cognitive and social delays. It can also have behavioral issues. I didn't feel like we displayed any of that when we were kids. Listening to Erica and Liz list out the symptoms of this disorder that they supposedly had was incredibly jarring because I'd talked to them a couple of times now on Zoom. They are healthy looking, beautiful, smart, prototypical girls next door. We found medical records that showed that we were there for two weeks in the care of or at her house. And at that

two-week mark, she brought us in for medication for anxiety. And so that's ultimately how that started. She wanted to put us on medication for anxiety. The doctors didn't want to start us on anything because they said that we had just gone through a very traumatic event and it's completely normal to have anxiety. And they offered alternatives. It started there. We progressed to having neuropsych testing done. We progressed to seeing multiple therapists and we would bounce around therapists in our childhood to the point where anything that we said, we felt like it would go back to Ursula. She would threaten their practice. She would remove us from the care of that therapist. She would find a new therapist. What were your

conversations between the two of you like around that time? When it initially started, when we were seven, we talked about it, but we didn't really like say, oh, this is wrong or oh, this is why we were put into foster care in the first place. I remember Erica and I were hiding in one of our closets out in the guest house with one of our older sisters. I can't remember which one of us had the Windex, but, you know, we were talking about how we would use the Windex to spray her in the face if she came after us again. We had those kinds of conversations where we talked about like, how do we protect ourselves? But I don't know that we actually like had true conversations about that was physical abuse until we were like 16 or 17. And she did still attack us like even at that age. And cops would be called and we're just difficult children. She accused me of being on drugs. They would usually just chalk it up to like a family dispute.

Or she would use our mental illness as her go-to of like, these are really difficult children. They were adopted. They have fetal alcohol syndrome. And so whenever police were contacted, that was the story they were being given. They ultimately took her side because she was so involved in the community. She was a member of the church, super respected. social workers, Guardian and Light Em, so she really positioned herself to be trusted and so that any time that there was any suspicions raised or police contacted, she would be able to play it up that we had a mental illness and things like that. The tactics that Ursula used on Liz and Erica may sound really different from the tactics that Hope used, but this is really the same form of abuse.

Again, back to this being a crime of opportunity, Ursula used the tools at her disposal just as Hope used the tools at her disposal. So for Hope, it was physical things, it was feeding issues, it was her youngest being born really premature that sort of kicked off that pattern of behavior. And for Ursula, it was having the setup

of having two little girls come into her from a biological mother who she knew struggled with drugs, who could conceivably have fetal alcohol syndrome or other developmental delays. This is diabolical. She used the five-year-old twins' past, knowing that their mother was a drug addict against them. She had this set up when they joined her household.

We suspect that she went with these mental or emotional diagnosis because it's not really black and white in the sense that, like, there's not any one particular test to say, yes, you are positive for anxiety. Like it's really subjective in nature. And the other reason is she had a narrative. She was able to look at our background and where we came from. And our biological mother, Julianne, was an alcoholic, and she was also abusing heroin. You know, she had this history of substance abuse, and Ursula was able to cling on to that narrative. Because you refer to him as your dad, so that makes me think you had a closer relationship with him than with Ursula. So can you tell me a bit about him?

He felt like a normal dad growing up. You know, we would play basketball and we would go take care of the farm animals together. And so I would say we were really close. It felt like he was kind of a buffer. It felt like that was our only grasp of normalcy. When our parents did go through a divorce, it was incredibly messy. We were brought up on the stand to testify about why we wanted to live with our mother. We were 14 or 15 at the time. Ultimately, our father lost physical custody and we weren't able to have a relationship with him again until we were 18. We did try to off and on throughout ages 15 through 18 to have a relationship with him through trying to be placed in his care. We worked at the local Dairy Queen and our dad would just

come visit us at work on lunch breaks because he just wanted to see us. And as soon as Ursula caught wind of that, it led to more abuse, more restrictions. So she was fighting any chance of us to be able to have any relationship with him. And he was painted as a bad person. She would manipulate us to kind of believe that he wasn't a good father. What was going on with Jenna and with the other kids in the house? Was this behavior and this abuse sort of spread equally? Or do you feel like the two of you were a particular focus and then it shifted to Jenna? Like, what did those dynamics look like?

No, I actually think that it got worse as she had more kids. Liz and I were the first foster children to be adopted, along with our younger sister Jenna. But it's almost as if the youngest kids who were adopted later have actually had it worse. So did you see some of those behaviors with your younger adopted siblings that was manifesting in some of those more sort of classical physical ways, feeding tubes, apnea issues, failure to thrive, that kind of thing? Or was it all sort of in the psychological realm? Kind of the common thing that you see with Munchausen by proxy, you know, with the failure to thrive and that narrative that they're not eating properly or unable to eat properly,

it's almost as if she escalated as the children were added to our family. It was all in the psychological realm for every kid in the house. It was a different spread depending on the kid and kind of like the background that they came from and their narrative. I mean, these diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar, it's like, if you look at the medical history, like their parents may have been diagnosed with that. Again, she was able to cling on to a narrative that may or may not be true, but you know, she was shopping around for these diagnoses very early on when the kids were young.

I'm glad you pointed that out, that there may be some of these things that were true, because I think sometimes people look at these cases and they make the assumption that you have to disprove any diagnoses that have been made about that child in order to prove that there's evidence of medical child abuse happening. And of course, that's not the case. It's a pattern of fabricating or exaggerating or inducing conditions. And so there may be something that starts it off or there may be some underlying condition that feeds into that narrative. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. And I think that what's really interesting about your story actually is that it's not some of the things that we are more used to seeing in medical child abuse cases, physical issues,

feeding issues, surgery, unnecessary surgeries, that kind of thing. But of course, the psychiatric stuff can be just as damaging. You know, it's creating a false story of your own self and your own health and your own capabilities and really breaking that bond of possible trust between you and medical professionals and talk about some of this baggage that that's left you guys with and sort of how that part of the abuse, how that affected you guys? It led me to have a general distrust of therapists, I think, because a lot of what we would report in therapy would get reported back to Ursula and then would be weaponized against us. Just the long lasting effects of being told that you have this, you know, mental illness. Not only does it build a stigma from your perception,

you look at a mental illness as like this terrible thing that the way that it was presented to you your entire life, it's debilitating. Like I had a really hard time figuring out who I was and like trusting what I was capable of because time and time again, growing up, we kept on being told you won't be able to do X, Y, Z. You won't have a normal life because of your mental condition. That's a lasting effect all through your life. I've worked really hard with a therapist that I trust to get to the point where I'm at right now,

but it was an uphill battle, I'd say. Like, she keeps on trying to put us in this box, and we're not going to stay in that box. Being told from a young age that there's something wrong with you, you constantly are wondering what it is and it makes you feel unlovable. It affects your relationships with significant others. It affects your relationships with your friends, your family. And so, like Liz said, it takes a long time to go through therapy and find somebody that you trust to really kind of start to repair those wounds, but I don't know that you can ever fully repair them. It creates a lot of

self-doubt. So even though Liz and Erica didn't have a name for what was happening to them, by the time they were teenagers, they became aware that they were the victims of abuse and felt like they needed to get out. They even tried to formally emancipate themselves from their mother at the age of 16. At that time, we were working full-time. We were attending college full-time. We were also participating in sports. And so we felt like we were, you know, living a life that an adult could put together at the age of 16. And it's really sad to look back at those documents

that we presented to the court because we're so clearly manipulated and so clearly emotionally abused in the documents pleading with the court and pleading with the judge to get us out of the situation that we don't have fetal alcohol syndrome, but the court system is the same system

that placed us in the care of Ursula. So ultimately we were not granted emancipation. syndrome, but the court system is the same system that placed us in the care of Ursula. So ultimately, we were not granted emancipation. Eric and Liz did finally make it out of Ursula's house. Two years after their attempted emancipation, they graduated from high school and they moved out the day after. What was the light bulb moment in terms of identifying the elements of Munchausen by proxy that you suffered? The light bulb moment was when we were going through our adoption paperwork and we saw the record that said that she was seeking the anxiety medication. For two five-year-olds who had just experienced a traumatic situation, putting them on medication right away just was an immediate red flag to us.

And then from there, we just started piecing everything together. I actually recently requested the records from the University of Minnesota to see if we did get diagnosed with FAS because we never questioned it. So it'll be interesting to see like what those results come back as. Some of the reasons why we feel like we were victims of Munchausen syndrome by proxy is the socialization part of it and like her seeking the attention and the status that she would get

by taking care of these difficult children. She really seemed to thrive off of being seen as like this saint. She would get complimented when we were at restaurants by how well-behaved we were, but it's like, if you peel back the layers of that, were they well-behaved because they are well-behaved or because they were scared? This is Dr. Mary Sanders. She is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford, and she is the head of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's Munchausen by Proxy Committee. Mary works with both perpetrators and survivors. So when children grow up believing that they're ill, that's their

self-story. And that means that they may be missing school. They may be missing social opportunities, developmental opportunities. I've had kids, even after the abuses come to light, they don't know. They still believe that they're ill. They grew up with this self-story of very hard for them to move from it. And so, yes, the self-story of illness can be very difficult to debrief the kids from. That's the main issue of the whole life around being ill. And then suddenly everything's changed and they're being told they're not ill anymore or all these things maybe didn't exist. And it's very hard to sift through for them and sense of betrayal and post-traumatic stress. Sometimes if they did know, you know, some of the

kids were aware that they were being abused and felt that they couldn't fight back. So that lack of control too. Because it seems to me that this form of abuse so deeply affects your sense of self, do you think that maybe having your sister to look at and being so similar and sort of being able to say, I don't think these things are true about my sister, so maybe they're not true about me? I think that a lot of our resiliency actually comes from being able to lean on each other and having that shared experience because I knew that I could always trust at least one person. I always knew when we were young that I wanted to do more with my life. I had a couple of different examples to reference. Our biological parents, that was a no-go for me I didn't want that life for myself

our adopted parents also another hard no for me didn't want that life a commonality that I noticed between both of my experiences was that neither our biological parents nor our adopted parents pursued college at all and so for me because I love to learn and because I was good at school, I was like, logical next step, go to college. I think I've worked very hard to get where I am today, just putting my head down and getting the work done. I've talked to a number of survivors at this point, and this idea that the revelation of abuse comes a little bit later in life, in one's 20s, even in your 30s or 40s or beyond, is really a common theme. Survivors have told me that they felt like their mind and their heart had to wait until they felt stable and healthy

enough to be able to even process those memories. This was true for Liz, who waited until she was about 23 to start seeking therapy for the abuse that she'd suffered. Erica tried to cope by keeping her focus on her education and her considerable accomplishments, but she found that the blast zone of the abuse permeated all of her intimate relationships. I want to say that I more so did a lot of things with trial and error. So I would find myself in my first boyfriend, it was a very abusive relationship. You know, I would find myself in situations where I was kind of repeating the trauma and trying to relive that trauma and get a different outcome. I also found a therapist and it was really helpful

for me that my therapist specialized in trauma. She was able to kind of explain to me the effects that trauma have on the brain development. And so that was really helpful for me to kind of understand why I kind of was repeating that process over and over with different relationships. Have you confronted Ursula directly? Have you confronted her? Yeah, on several different occasions, we confronted her directly. She denies ever weaponizing FAS against us, but that was literally our entire life growing up. She doesn't ever apologize.

She doesn't ever admit wrong. You know, each time we've reached out to her, she accuses us of starting drama, all sorts of stuff. So we've confronted her and it's always the same story. Here again is Dr. Mary Sanders. You know, way back, there wasn't much out there in the public about this. There weren't names for this type of abuse. And so these victims really didn't feel like they had a place to go.

And now they do. Victims have come forward in their adulthood and been able to talk about their stories, recognize what had happened to them. And some have been able to get their medical records and be able to kind of sift through and look at the story of illness that was falsified over time. But I don't think any of them have had a parent, that I'm aware of anyway, that had a parent that was able to acknowledge. We need for the perpetrators to be able to get to a place where they can acknowledge that they've engaged in this form of child abuse and fully take responsibility, being able to recognize the need to put their child's needs first above their own. When individuals tend to

have what's called an external locus of control, they tend to blame others, not take responsibility, get their needs met indirectly using deception. It's very difficult for them to admit and acknowledge that they've engaged in these behaviors, not only to others, but to themselves. We just want to be clear. Our message is not, you know, we need to hate her or we don't forgive her or we perseverate on, you know, these negative feelings. Our message is that we want other people who experience similar abuse to be able to feel empowered

to make a different life for themselves. And we just want to be motivating and inspiring to other people who have had the same experience. We have a voice. And when we were kids, no one ever listened to us. And so now that we have found our voice, we want to continue to use it. What do you want people to know about Munchausen by proxy? I mean, what are some of the things that maybe you guys have seen in terms of how it's represented that you feel are inaccurate or some of the things that you'd just like to share from the perspective of being survivors? I think that people tend to see abusers as, you know, like the obvious villain.

And I think that it's really important to demonstrate that there is this kind of gray area, that you know that something's wrong when you're going through it, and you don't necessarily need to disprove anything like you were saying, Andrea. I think that's the common misconception is that you have to disprove a diagnosis, and it's not as black and white as people think and as the media portrays it. You know, in our story, Ursula is not a very obvious villain. I mean, to us she was, but it was very hard for us to overcome some of that and to have people listen to us because of the social status that she carried. And these people really do position themselves in a status that's going to benefit them. And their level of manipulation is almost cult-like. They

can get anyone to follow them and anyone to believe them. I think it's really helpful that your story is this even subtler version of this abuse. And I mean subtle in its presentation, not subtle in its effects of using the sort sort of psychiatric medical system because that's even more taking it to a degree of something that's not going to show up on a blood test, that's not going to show up on an x-ray, that doesn't really, to be honest, take that much work to fake. It just means someone coming up with a compelling narrative and sitting there and making that report to a doctor or a therapist. And I think it's really helpful that report to a doctor or a therapist. And I think it's really helpful for people to understand this as a pattern of behavior because, and as a pattern of abuse.

I also think it's really important to keep the focus on the victims and the focus on survivors and on identifying these behavior patterns because it doesn't matter at the end of the day so much why the person's doing it. It's about understanding that pattern of behavior and then being able to identify it and protect kids from it. What would you guys like to see happen? I just want there to be recognition that this occurred. I want there to be some level of accountability. I don't know what that looks like, but I mean, these people are never going to admit their wrongdoing, but I think what I want out of it would be just some validation from her. I don't think that I want any justice through the courts at this point, just because the worst case scenario versus the best case scenario

and having to weigh out the pros and cons. And unfortunately, I think that the children in the home now are in better positions in her care compared to potentially the unknowns of being in the care of other foster parents. So yeah, I think it puts us in a tough situation. I don't know what justice really does look like in that scenario. I'm kind of opposite of you. I'd like to see her without contact with kids. Like she clearly is a repeat offender. She's done it for 20 years, you know, 20 plus years at this point. So I have a hard time believing that she could actually change. Justice looks like her being held accountable for what she did, her being held accountable and not being able to have children in her care. You know, I do recognize that there is a wild card that comes into play when you're placing a child in the

foster care system. You know, it gives me anxiety and scares me a little bit to think about where could these kids end up, but at the same time, I want her to be held accountable. Today, Liz and Erica are 28 years old, and they're thriving. Liz recently got married, and Erica walked her down the aisle. Liz is working as a product manager for a digital experience platform, and Erica is actually working as a pediatric trauma physician assistant at a children's hospital in Minnesota. They are currently at work on a memoir about their experiences and are passionate about raising awareness about Munchausen by proxy.

To learn more about Liz and Erica and what they're up to, please go to the show notes and see our link to their blog and both of their Instagram accounts. What's up, Spotify? This is Javi. I remember this one time we were on tour. We didn't have any guitar picks and we didn't have time to go to the store. So we placed an order on Prime and it got there the next day, ready for the show. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime.

I want to tell you about a show I love, Truer Crime from Cilicia Stanton. My favorite true crime shows are the ones where I feel like the creator has a real stake in what they're talking about. And this is definitely the case with Cilicia, who got interested in covering crime because, like many of us in this genre, she experienced it. In each episode of the show, Cilicia brings a personal, deeply insightful lens to the crime that she covers, whether it's a famous case like the Manson murders or Jonestown, or a lesser known case that needs to be heard, like the story of a modern lynching. She covers these stories with a fresh and thoughtful lens, helping listeners

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Podcasting is just the Wild West, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators doing the work and making thoughtful, survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024. Zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Brittany revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Brittany is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories

of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Stories About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our show notes. Well, hello, Erica. Thank you so much for joining us for an update check-in. We just heard from

past Erica, and now we are hearing from future Erica. Thank you for being here with us. Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So we have stayed in touch on and off since we did the interview. And I heard from you recently with some thoughts about some of the cases that had been in the news. And I just thought, oh my gosh, what a perfect time to catch up with you. But I wanted to ask you first, how are you? What has been going on in your life since you did this interview with us? Yeah, just a few big things. Since interviewing with you last, I had a wedding and my think especially when you have a complicated history with your own mom, in your case, you know, with this issue in particular,

it really brings a lot of stuff up. So what has that been like for you? Yeah, I think one of the most interesting things about postpartum life in general is that, like, I feel like every month I look back and I'm like, oh, we weren't doing as great as I thought we were doing. I remember some of the advice I got when we first brought my baby home was that, like, it's going to get better. And I kept thinking to myself, why are they saying it's going to get better? This is fine. It's not that bad. And then, you know, three weeks passed by and I realized we were in absolute autopilot and things were very much not well. Just because it's like you said, it's such a huge, like you have to adapt and grow and

learn as individuals and as parents. So it's just an interesting time. Yeah, absolutely. And what was going through pregnancy like for you? Yeah, I mean, I felt like pregnancy was actually relatively easy, just from like a mental standpoint. Physically, obviously, it's a little bit strenuous, but I felt really ready to be a mom. I had always wanted to be a mom just because the background that I had growing up, I wanted a chance to do it better and give my kid a better life. But because of that, I will say it had really caused me to have a lot of

postpartum anxiety just because there was a lot of pressure on me to show up for my baby in ways that I think I deserved or that I would have wanted as a baby or a child. And so there's just a lot of added pressure on me. And then because of that, I was putting pressure on my husband. So it's just very difficult to let go of some of that perfectionism. I mean, I wonder if this was present for you at all. Did you worry at all that you might have inherited some of those tendencies? Absolutely. My biological parents actually had a lot of addiction issues. And so I've always been like very aware that that may be something that I've inherited. But I think more of a relatable issue is that I felt like there was a lot of pressure to do things the right way. And I was very aware

of my responsibility and still am very aware of my responsibility and how even small things can really affect the way that my child perceives life. And it's a lot of pressure, even just being worried about some of the mental health stuff that may be passed down to myself or to my own child. You're five months in, you're still definitely like in the thick of it. I think you're past what I think of as sort of the zombie apocalypse phase of parenting. So much of what you're saying resonates with my own experience of having my first baby when I was you know 36 and the sort of I'm doing fine and then you look back and you're like oh I was not fine and like I was not at all fine you're like I was surviving but I was not you know I was not

doing so hot and then I think for me if this is any consolation if you do plan to have another one on the second time it was a totally differentgame. And I feel like I was much more sort of prepared to be able to like take care of myself. I think it like it evolves and evolves and it evolves so fast in the beginning. But of course, that time period feels like it's going by really slowly sometimes. And I found that the way that I relate to my family history has evolved so much over time. And then in particular, in those huge adult milestones of getting married and then starting a family, I felt really differently about my sister and what she'd done kind of right away when I had Fiona. The first time that you hold your baby in your arms is like, there's sort of no thing that you can possibly sort of compare it to in life, I think. Was any of that going through your mind or were you just in the moment with your baby? Like,

how have you found that things have maybe like rearranged themselves a little bit? Like you said, every life event has been really just an additional chance to kind of go back and relive some of that childhood trauma in a different way. And so throughout my pregnancy, I noticed that I was grieving like the childhood that I didn't have, which then kind of when I did have Booker, I felt like it was me and him against the world. And that's such an unreal experience to have. But given my background, and then having him, I felt almost like it pushed me into an avoidant kind of attachment style. And I was like, Nope, I just need to take care of my baby. And no one else can take care of him as good as I can. And I had a lot of like mistrust in literally anyone else that wanted to be around him just because working my

job and what I do I see a lot of bad things as well and then my childhood also was very triggering so I think it was something that had pushed me into like a really avoidant attachment. Everything you're saying really it just it it takes me back there. New motherhood is such an intense, like there's so many things going on, right? It's like, there's so much going on with your sleep and your mood and your hormones and your like, just everything. I mean, literally everything coming at you that could sort of potentially be destabilizing. So it's hard to say which specific parts of this are related to trauma and which are sort of, I don't know, quote, normal, new motherhood, whatever that is. I think the thing I was aware of was like postpartum depression, not the anxiety, not the like intrusive thoughts about like,

I remember distinctly going through this period where I had a thought looping in my head about not throwing the baby out the window. And then you sort of go through this and you're like, why would I throw the baby out the window? I wouldn't throw the baby out the window. But what if I suddenly did? Well, I can't do that. And then you just sort of like loop that thought. And now I've talked to a bunch of other people that had that same experience

and sort of had those same thoughts of like, what if this happens to the baby? What if I accidentally do this? What if I accidentally drop the baby down the stairs? But it's like, people don't talk quite enough about that, I think. And like that, when I was having it, I was like, oh my God, what is wrong with me? Like, it's like, what's wrong with my brain? Yeah, I had a lot of those as well. One of my recurring dreams that I would have as I was kind of drifting off to sleep was that I was holding the baby and like, I actually smothered him while I was holding him drifting off to sleep was that I was holding the baby and like I actually

smothered him while I was holding him. Just this massive fear of co-sleeping and accidentally co-sleeping. And I don't know why, I don't know where that came from, but I was like very aware that something bad could happen if I fell asleep with him in my arms. And so I would constantly have these like little dreams as I would drift asleep that he was in my arms still. And I wake up in a panic and be like, oh my gosh, no, he's in his bassinet. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's a lot. I know you're right at the beginning of the journey. I know for me, it's like the minute you have your kids, you're like, I don't remember what life was like before I had this person in my life. Right. It's just like, I know there was a long period of my life where it was just me, but what are you excited about with motherhood?

When you think about kind of the future and what's really fun about it, we're talking about, you know, some of the hard stuff, like what's some of the good stuff? I'm just really excited to see what kind of person he turns out to be. He's already got such a goofy personality and he's so fun to be around. So much so that it's really hard to like go back to work and not be around him I'm so excited to just re-experience life through his eyes I feel like kids in general they're so much more magical thinking and like see beautiful things and such simple things and so like having that experience with him and I know that sounds silly but I love already his relationship with our dog.

Like, it's so cute. He just sits there and watches him and laughs at him. Yes. So fun. Our very elderly dog just passed away last fall. It was very sad. But my son, I have this video of him when he was probably about the same age as your son is now, just laughing at the dog. It's so cute.

You know, my kids are older. Fiona is five now and Colm is 19 months. Yeah. It's just like seeing a person become a person is really special. Like it takes you out of your kind of like everydayness of the grind, right? Because you're just like, oh my God, this person person seeing everything for the first time. You're like, yeah, man, like dogs are funny. Like they are like it is hilarious. Like, right. And it's just, you know, even if this feels like on the nose, I think for me, you know, even before I was a mom, you sort of think like, how can anyone hurt their kid? And then you have one and you're like, wow. I think for me, I realized how much your empathy would have to be turned off. It's impossible for me to think about going against that protective instinct with my child.

Yeah. And you sort of realize like, oh, if someone's capable of that, something's really, really wrong. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's really disturbing when you don't have a child, you see any child abuse and you're like, wow, obviously that's wrong. But when you have your own child, it really, really feels icky. And that's been one of the hardest things about returning back to work because we do see a lot of child abuse cases. I see like my baby in every one of these kids and I'm like, how can you do something like that to your child? Like there's something biologically ingrained in myself that I feel I can never do something

to harm him. Like I just want him to have the best possible life. Yeah. So if you can remind us what your job is, and it probably has evolved somewhat since we were on the show, but I know what field you're in. But tell us about your job and tell us about some of these thoughts about returning to work.

Because I think it's like being a mom in a field where you do anything around child abuse is extremely challenging. And that's something that I'm really interested in hearing about. It's nearly impossible to do what I do now. In fact, now I'm looking for a different position. But what I do is I'm a pediatric trauma PA. So I see children who have injuries anywhere from falling off the monkey bars and breaking their arm all the way up to shaken baby syndrome. And we have seen

a couple of poisonings as well. I've been doing it for seven years now. And prior to having my own child, I thought I would never leave that job just because I felt like it was truly my calling. I'm able to provide care to these kids and be an advocate for them. And that was really big for me just because I felt like I didn't have a voice and now I get to be their them. And that was really big for me just because I felt like I didn't have a voice and now I get to be their voice. So it was really important to me when I did start working there. That still feels very important to me, but now I'm trying to find more balance in work and life and having my own baby and having that job has been so triggering and very difficult to continue working in that position. We'll see what the future brings. I'm actually like having some

conversations about different positions as we speak. So that's very relatable and everything that you've brought to it over the past several years is important. It's a tough job even when everything is not what state you're in when you have a new baby. Even when you're not going through all that, it's pretty psychologically difficult. So I'm not surprised to hear that. But to just kind of take a little turn here, did you listen to the episode when it aired? And what was it like listening to the episode? So I did listen to it right when it aired. And I don't know about you, it's just cringy to listen to your own voice. I hate that. That was my first thought. Second thought was even when it was released, I felt like I was in such a different place. And I'm so I can tell in some of the conversation that we had how triggered I was just having the conversation. That's so interesting.

So how has your feelings about your experience and like where you were then and versus where you are now? Tell us a little bit about that evolution. Yeah, I think when we had first connected, Liz and I were trying to really put a name to what we had experienced and truly just kind of understanding the full extent of the abuse that we experienced. Because I think throughout our childhood and especially our teenage years, we just kind of put our head down and did what we needed to do to get out of that situation. And then we kind of popped up our heads again in our 20s. And we're like, wait, that was not okay. And that wasn't normal. So I think

like back then, I was truly still wrapping my head around it, and having a lot of anger and frustration. And like I said, a little bit of grieving the childhood that we deserved. You know, now I feel like having my own kid has taken over my entire life in more ways than one, but I feel like I haven't really put a whole lot of thought into that abuse or that past history of trauma, only to say that I want to do better for my son. I have the same reaction to myself. I mean, I've gotten pretty inert to listening to my own voice and reading the occasional comment about it, but even for me, like, my voice actually sounds very different in the first season than it does now when I've listened to more recent episodes. And part of that, I think, is probably because I've gotten used to talking on a mic.

But I can hear that I was at a different stage than I am now. And, like, my voice sounds like it's kind of less in my body. And, like, I was at a different point in my processing and you know especially with the first season like this show was a way of processing for me and and I thank you for being part of that journey but yeah it's really interesting to listen back and sort of think like oh wow that's not the way I would say things now or like that's not really how I feel about it now I mean is there anything like that you thought about Ursula as we called her on the show or like how you feel about what justice would look

like in that situation or how you relate to her I'm have you talked to her at all since this came out did you hear from her or anybody in your family when the show came out? When the show came out, we had two siblings reach out to us and to you guys. They were very upset about the release of it. In fact, I got text messages that said, quote, so what? She abused you. Look at the life that you get to have. And it was just really sad to see where they're at in their processing, just because they're so trauma bonded and so in denial about what our experience was like they know that they were abused and they know we were abused and they're saying so what and how dare you like bash her yeah it's not bashing it's telling our truth and it's really unfortunate that they haven't reached the point where they

have processed or started to heal. But as far as justice goes, I mean, there's always been a lot of pressure. Like I don't want to create trouble. There was this phrase in our childhood that was like driven in our heads, do not create drama or they're starting drama. And because of that, I'm just hyper aware of sharing my story can start drama. And when we initially recorded, I was in that mindset of I'm not trying to start drama, but it may be seen that way. And I was very aware of that. And now I'm to the point where it's like, I don't really care. You guys can come after us and do whatever you would like. But we have proof of what happened. And we have the right to share our stories. We're not going to hide. And it's not fair to say that we're starting drama. That's quite a framing to put on telling your own life

story. And also just, I mean, the irony of someone who engages in these kinds of behaviors, accusing someone else of starting drama is just, whoo. Obviously the same experience with my sister and her reaction to the show and her husband's reaction to the show and some of the things that they've said over the years. And I approached it in the same way, I think of like almost over clarifying my intentions of like, I'm not trying to make her the bad guy. I'm not trying to do this. I'm just trying to, and you're like, no one, unless someone is just determined to hear it that way, that's not what they're going to think. Most people understand like, yeah, you're just telling your story of what happened and there's a reason for that. And that's helpful to other people and hopefully helpful to you and

your processing. And that was kind of one of the first times that you'd really shared your story publicly. Is that right? Yeah. So the first time we shared our story publicly was actually with your podcast. And then we shared one on a local podcast, actually, a few years after we had initially recorded with you, but the airing was similar timing. But yeah, it was fun to be able to interact with different kinds of people too. I don't know about you, but like, I feel like anytime I share my story, I get a little bit more validation and more confident in sharing it because it's almost like we spent our entire childhood being gaslit that this wasn't real. And then people continue to try to gaslight us that it's not real, but it's been really validating to just share it and, you know, hear some people's reactions and them to say

that wasn't okay. Because I think we spent so much time hearing that it wasn't a problem. Right. And even you're hearing that from your siblings who were there with you. And you're right. I mean, I think that your take on that, that it's sort of evidence of a trauma bond is probably spot on. It has been amazing to me. And I think it's a lot about timing, right? Going public at a time when you're not really ready for it can be really tricky and can potentially be damaging. And, you know, my read on you guys was that you were ready.

And I think you did a wonderful job telling your story. And I'd hoped that it would be that experience for you, that it would sort of make you feel a bit freer about it and be validating. Because I think that's really important in these situations where there is so much deception and like people use gaslighting to mean a lot of things like it's become a sort of fuzzy like TikTok you know diagnosis but yeah I mean when we say gaslighting like we really mean like someone trying to convince you that the thing that you know happened that you have evidence happened did not happen and that really does a number on your brain. And I think there is so much deception

and so much secrecy and so much hiding under the surface that there is a huge power to dragging these things out in the light, you know? And I think that that can be helpful to you. And it's also, it's, I, and I don't know if you heard from fellow survivors after you shared your story, I expect you did. I've heard from a lot of people who've either had family members or are survivors themselves. And I know that for them, hearing stories like yours on the show is extremely validating. And it gives them some of that like, oh, this person is describing an experience exactly like mine or so analogous to mine, and they're calling it what it is. And that makes me feel, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm not the only person this has ever happened to.

It's really powerful. Yeah, I agree. It's super powerful. And I'm glad that we have the connections that we're able to have this platform and have the conversation because like I said earlier, it's so important to be able to feel like we have a voice now and we've been given that opportunity and I'm not going to stop talking about it just because it makes other people uncomfortable. Yeah. I will be very interested to continue to hear from you as your motherhood journey continues, because I think one of my big questions is like, if you've been a victim of this abuse, figuring out how to be a mom and how to sort of be in that role, I think is going to be a really interesting journey and just can help other survivors who are struggling with that as well. One of the things that we were chatting about on social media is one of the cases that has

been in the media. It's been a big year for Munchausen by proxy in the media between the Maya Kowalski case in Florida, which we covered in the third season of the show, and also Gypsy Rose Blanchard being released from prison in December, got such a crazy amount of press. And the conversation around Munchausen by proxy in this moment, the cultural conversation is a bit confused, but at least it is happening. I am hesitantly hopeful that maybe people are sort of having a moment of awareness. Yeah, we had been talking about the Maya Kowalski case, and you'd shared some really interesting

thoughts from your perspective and I wonder if you can tell us if you watched the film what did you think and if you experienced it sort of through just the media coverage like what's your perspective on that case and what happened there? Throughout pregnancy and even acutely postpartum was avoiding any negative media any negative or sad shows, I pretty much stuck to like the office and things that I knew were going to be happy. So I had heard about taking care of Maya, but I hadn't actually sat down to really give it attention. And finally, I was feeling like I was in a spot emotionally where I could be able to watch it. And my initial thought when I watched it was, how is this being

portrayed that it wasn't Munchausen by proxy? And I was really shocked because my gut instinct right away was like, this is definitely what that was. And the Netflix documentary did a really great job of making you think it wasn't. And immediately I started Googling things and I'm like, there has to be more to the story. And then I happened to see that you had talked about it. So then I started listening to your show and listening to season three to just kind of hear your take. And it really resonated with my views of how things have developed throughout the entire case. You know, what you said to me, which was really fascinating, and I wonder if you could share it with us. Your comment was specifically about

Beata Kowalski died by suicide during the investigation. There are a lot of complicated things that happened around the death, but putting those aside, this suicide was framed by the plaintiff in the case, Jack Kowalski, and his attorney Gregory Anderson, as this ultimate motherly sacrifice because the idea being that Beata knew that she had to take herself out of the equation in order for her daughter to be able to come home. I don't see the logic in that framing. It would be impossible for anyone to know what was Beata's state of mind or what she was thinking before she died, but you had a very different take on the idea of that act. And I wonder if you could share with us what you sort of thought specifically about her death by suicide. My initial thought was that it was almost the ultimate last hoorah for her of manipulation towards Maya. Again, I have no idea what actually happened. I can't really speak to the psyche of Viada or even Maya herself, but

it was almost like this is her last attempt at manipulating Maya. And through her death, now Maya will think that she died for a cause, for her illness. And it makes it very hard for Maya, I think, to really process that she was abused because now it's forever going to be in this light of she did it for my illness. And it puts a lot of pressure on her to continue the story. Yeah, and I just thought that was a really incisive take on it, and you kind of put into words something that had been sort of like swirling around in my head. And, you know, I think with Jack Kowalski being such an active participant in this story of his daughter's illness and what went down with like why Beata did what she did, and especially now that this jury has awarded them this huge amount of money. And something people ask me about this case is they're like, well, do you think that Maya Kowalski lied on the stand?

And I was like, I don't even think that's, like, the right question. It's like, I don't know what her telling the truth under these circumstances would even mean at this point, right? Because like, I don't know what she believes to be true about the state of her own health or what happened, but it's like, what choice does she have? Like, what is she going to do? If she looks at the truth now, that whole thing is like, she's been taught to believe like, oh, you have this illness and your mom died for you. So if the illness wasn't real, then what does that mean? And what does it, you know, it's like sort of like the whole thing is like, she's been taught to believe like, oh, you have this illness and your mom died for you. So if the illness wasn't real, then what does that mean? And what does it, you know, it's like sort of like the whole thing would fall apart. And then on top of that, she's been put under

tremendous pressure by her father to keep up that story because of the lawsuit and then tremendous public pressure by being made the face of this illness that there is tremendous amount of evidence that she does not have. And I'm like, what could we possibly expect from this girl? Like, what would telling the truth even mean at this point? And like, how could we expect her to have keep track of the truth when you're talking about like,

she was in this traumatic situation, she was being given a tremendous amount of drugs. Like, what does that even mean in that situation? I kind of wonder what you think about that. Yeah, I think it's interesting because she was so young when all of this happened to and then she, you know, the rest of her childhood was with this narrative that was being told to her. So I think eventually what happens is I wouldn't call it lying.

I would say that this is her reality. She doesn't know different. And I think there's a lot to be said with the fact that many survivors realize in their 20s or 30s, or maybe even later that what they experienced was this, or that they had something wrong with their childhood. Because you have to be in such a perfect spot to be able to fully process what happened. You have to feel like physically and emotionally safe. And I don't think that the environment that she's in right now is emotionally safe at all. No, and I think I agree with you.

And we definitely have seen that sort of over the course of like, I've met many more survivors since I first spoke to you. And you were like one of the first survivors I ever spoke to. And, you know, we've seen as like, that is the norm that people are in their twenties or thirties, they've gotten some distance, they have some kind of stability in their life that sort of allows all of that to come to the surface. And so I'm like, well, you're asking this child if this happened to her and

she's 18, you know, 17 now, most of the survivors I know would not have identified what happened to them as abuse when they were 17 or 18. No, I mean, to put it into perspective, at 16, Liz and I were applying for emancipation. And in that document, we stated something about us having fetal alcohol syndrome, but it's not that bad. Like, we were fully in it and fully believing that there was something wrong with us. So I really don't think she's in a space to be able to process it. She's spent her entire childhood being told that there was something wrong with her. And now she's having a huge media presence. So people are following this story. She's almost being forced to keep up

a facade. If she does come to realization, there's really no incentive for her to fully process it or put a name to it. For me, like the most heartbreaking moment of the trial was watching. She was front and center for all of the experts who claims he does believe she had CRPS and was talking about how awful it was and how it was going to impact her for the rest of her life and how she was in such horrible pain. And I'm just like, I feel like I'm watching this abuse happen before my eyes, like that she's continuing to be told, you know, you can't do this, you won't have a normal life, you this, this, this. And it just like, it was so uncomfortable and just wrong, you know you can't do this you won't have a normal life you this this this and it just like it was so uncomfortable and just wrong you know yeah and people don't realize how absolutely

damaging that is you're being told over and over again by medical professionals or these experts and by your family that something is wrong with you and you're not going to have a normal life that is so damaging and has affected who she has become. It will continue to affect the way that she processes her childhood too. One of the things that some of the pediatric doctors that we spoke to in that season pointed out is like even when children do have legitimate health conditions, it's very important to talk to them in a positive way and help them embrace what they can do. And like all of this sort of doom and gloom is like, it's not a good strategy regardless. Oh yes. Can you tell us how Liz is doing? Yeah, Liz is doing really well. She's loving being an aunt. She's like second mom.

It's just been so fun to see her interacting with Booker and their relationship developing. I also realized like in my childhood and teenagehood, I always felt like I was responsible for Liz just being like the older twin by two minutes. I know. I just always felt like this responsibility of, you know, taking care of her. And I didn't realize until after I had my baby that I blamed myself for her experience because I didn't do my job to protect her. And this is trauma Erica talking. And so it's been really healing to feel like I'm taking care of and protecting my own kid. I didn't realize it was what I needed, but it's been very healing for me.

That's really beautiful. Becoming a mother is so interesting. It's like you simultaneously become the strongest version of yourself and the most vulnerable version of yourself, like all at once. Exactly. Liz was there during the birth. It's so funny. She's said that she's not sure if she wants to have kids, but she said that the birth

experience, her being in the room with me, she's like, that was it. I don't need to do that. I labored for 36 hours and then I ended up getting a C-section. So it was a really tough situation, but she was my rock. I'm so happy and grateful that she was able to be in there with me because I don't know that it would have gone as well. I wouldn't say it went well, but, you know, I had a really good support system. That's so important when you're in that situation. Well, I think that's really beautiful.

And, you know, these stories of survival are so poignant because whether it's you and your sister having each other, people with their found families, people finding really great partners, having kids of their own, like you get another chance to have what you didn't have. It is that sort of moment of renewal and sort of a second chance to have the family that you wanted. And I'm just very happy for you. In the episode, you mentioned that you and Liz were still in the process of trying to get some of your records. Like, have there been more revelations about whether or not you were ever legitimately diagnosed with FAS, whether there were any questions about your mom from providers, like what else has kind of come up in that time? So we weren't able to get any of our results because they were paper documents at the time that we were evaluated. And so they had gotten rid of that system. We didn't have any diagnosis

that was carried throughout our childhood. The things that we found most of was the domestic violence proof. It's much harder to find the documentation for them on Chosen by proxy stuff. We did see some documents about one of our younger siblings that she was going from psychologist to psychologist trying to get a schizophrenia diagnosis for a three-year-old. We did have some of those documents and we had some documents of when we had first been placed in the care of her that she was trying to start us on medication for anxiety. So really those are like the only documents that we have for the Munchausen by proxy things. But we did come across a lot more documentation for like domestic violence concerns and issues. And there were upwards of 70 reports of domestic violence that were responded to. And still she has children in her care. Wow. I mean,

I don't know how that happens. That's horrifying. Like how do they track that all up to being like just misbehaving children? 70? 70? Yeah. I want to say there was 77. I know it was more than 70. Oh my god, that's a very frequent flyer in the system at that point. Right. It's good evidence that in many cases, it's not just this form of abuse that the interventions are not working on. It's just child abuse, end of sentence. When we had spoken last, your younger sister was still in the home. If you feel comfortable sharing what's going on with her now. So I believe that there are two that are still in the home. We really have cut ties completely. After that interaction that we had with two of the younger siblings about like the conversation surrounding our childhood experience and so what

that you were abused, like basically more or less telling us to get over it because we have wonderful lives so clearly it's not that big of a deal so I think like it was so damaging to my psyche to hear that even though I like logically I know that what she's experiencing and her lashing out it has nothing to do with me and my experience but it was really damaging to my mental health. And so I just had to completely cut off ties. So I really have no contact with any of them. I don't keep up on any of their social media or ever look at any of that stuff. And in fact, I don't even know if any of them know that I had a child.

So I've just made that be a very hard boundary for myself. Yeah. Well, that sounds like that's the right choice. And I know that's not easy to do. So in this moment where it feels like an unprecedented number of people are sort of paying attention mind from a survivor's perspective as they're absorbing these stories like Gypsy Rose Blanchard and, you know, the Maya Kowalski case? Yeah, I think it's so important to realize that Munchausen by proxy is not so black and white. We've talked about this before in the past, but I think Hollywood and these bigger media cases really make it seem like it's very obvious these people are absolutely crazy and it's not as black and white. There's such an intense amount of manipulation and the people who are perpetrating that kind of abuse have made

themselves so intertwined in the community and made themselves appear as a very well-trusted person. And so just understanding that it's not black and white. And even with our experience, it was never medical diagnoses that they were seeking out. It was all psychological. And that even has a more interesting twist to it because when you're bringing a child into a psychologist or a therapist, they really do rely so heavily on the subjective information from a parent. And I feel like it's so much easier to get away with that. You know, within the committee that I'm on and that sort of group of us, we have some robust conversations around terminology. And one of them is sort of that

question of like, well, medical child abuse is, you know, if you're looking at it in a criminal context, right, it has the benefit of being really straightforward. But I sort of that question of like, well, medical child abuse is, you know, if you're looking at it in a criminal context, right, it has the benefit of being really straightforward. But I sort of increasingly refer to it as munchausen by proxy abuse because it does encompass these other things. And there is this like intense psychological abuse, educational abuse, emotional abuse, and that's sort of not captured by just the medical side, right? And you see so many things like something that comes up a lot is parents that are claiming that their child has autism or ADHD or something, and they're medicating that child and they're putting them in a special program at school and sort of isolating

from their peers. And if the child does not really have that thing, that is still abuse, but it's not quite straightforwardly medical. It might involve medication, but as your story really well illustrates, it's still extremely damaging. And I think the psychological damage is the part that is just so particularly thorny. And it's interesting that you bring up the autism and the ADHD thing because I feel like there is such a huge increase in those diagnoses. And I truly wonder, is that because we're seeing more of it, or is that because it's harder to prove that somebody has those things? Again, you're really

relying on the subjective story from a parent. And it's just really interesting that these kinds of diagnoses are sought out by some of these people, just because, like I said, it's easier to get away with. You get the kind of attention you're looking for, and there's not really a way to prove that you're doing anything wrong. Right. It's very hard to sort of like disprove that diagnosis. And yeah, and I think with your comments about ADHD and autism in particular, I mean, I think it's kind of both and. Certainly throughout the course of my adult life, like the conversation about autism spectrum disorders changed so much, right? And there's so much more awareness of it.

And I think that there's a lot of people that do legitimately have it that just weren't diagnosed for a long time because they were only sort of looking for this certain set of traits or didn't really recognize it in women or all these other factors, right? That and anything that is sort of in the medical zeitgeist in that way is going to be especially attractive to perpetrators, especially if it's like not something that's going to show up on a blood test. So I think it's one of many situations where it's a both and, and I think the solution is for anybody who's working with kids to be really aware of this form of abuse and to be watching out for those warning signs. And it's interesting too, because I felt like Maya Kowalski's case had a little bit of that as well. Like there wasn't like blood tests that said that she had this. So I think that part was interesting too, because it did bring a little bit more light into some of the more gray areas

of Munchausen by proxy. There is what we now know, the evidence that came out about the road to that diagnosis being given to Maya Kowalski is that Beata was specifically seeking that diagnosis, right? She had given that diagnosis to another doctor before she got it. She was in an RSD community. She was like sort of doing the RSD CRPS branding on social media before that diagnosis came up. So I think it's also that if something is really rare and difficult to diagnose and kind of like either a controversial diagnosis or there's just like a lot of murkiness or there's only two specialists in the entire country, like that is going to be attractive to a perpetrator. And that's really sad for like how that affects people that really have that disease because then of course that affects how they're sort of seen. So yeah, it's infinitely complex. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

It's so good to see you. Keep in touch and let me know how things are going. Big hugs to Booker, big hugs to Liz. And I'm just so happy that everything is so good in your life. I know that being a new mom is a really, really tough time, but it sounds like you've been on a really beautiful trajectory since we talked. So it's really nice to see you again. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And thanks again for allowing us to come on and share our story because it was so important to us and also very healing. So thank you. It was an honor. Okay. Thanks, Erica. Thank you. I want to give you an update on where I was with getting an interview with Hope. Needless to say, I'm not a professional investigative journalist. But fortunately, my producer, Tina, is a longtime news gal.

And what she recognized in my communications back and forth with Hope was that even though she was saying no, she had kept the conversation going. And so we both were able to discern that there must be some part of Hope that did want to sit down and have this conversation with me. And I felt like it could be a good thing for both of us. People who are involved in this kind of crime don't get treated with very much empathy. And I felt like I was uniquely positioned to have some empathy for hope.

I was determined to do whatever I could possibly to have this conversation. Next time on Nobody Should Believe Me, we will dig into the psychopathology of Munchausen by proxy perpetrators and attempt to answer the crucial question, can they be saved? If you've been listening to this podcast and some of the details sound very familiar to you from your own life or someone that

you know, please visit us at munchausensupport.com. We have resources there from some of the top experts in the country, and we can connect you with professionals who can help. Our lead producer is Tina Noll. The show was edited by Lisa Gray with help from Wendy Nardi. Jeff Gall is our sound engineer. Additional scoring and music by Johnny Nicholson and Joel Shupak. Also special thanks to Maria Paliologos, Joelle Knoll, and Katie Klein for project coordination. I'm your host and executive producer, Andrea Dunlop. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that I have very strong feelings about what is and is not responsible true crime content. Maybe you've heard me make some pointed comments

about the producers of a certain film, or perhaps you've heard one of my dozen or so rants about a certain journalist whose name rhymes with Schmeichel. And if you've been with me for a while, you'll also know that getting Nobody Should Believe Me on the air was quite the roller coaster. Podcasting is just the wild west, y'all. And these experiences are what led me to launch my new network, True Story Media, where we are all about uplifting true crime creators, doing the work, and making thoughtful, survivor-centric shows. And I could not be more thrilled to announce our very first creator partner, You Probably Think This Story's About

You. The first season of this enthralling show from breakout creator Brittany Ard took podcasting by storm in 2024. Zooming to the number one spot in the charts on Apple and Spotify as Brittany revealed the captivating story of a romantic deception that upended her life and traced the roots of her own complicated personal history that led her there. Britney is back in 2025 with brand new episodes, this time helping others tell their own stories of betrayal, heartache, and resilience. If you love Nobody Should Believe Me, I think you will also love You Probably Think This Story's About You for its themes of deception, complex family intrigue, and its raw, vulnerable storytelling. You can binge the full first season and listen to brand new episodes each week by following the show on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it at the link in our show notes.