Nobody Should Believe Me - There's Hope (S1E8 - Season 1 Finale)

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Andrea has made an intense connection with Hope Ybarra's family, and asked experts, doctors, and the detective so many of her burning questions about Munchausen by Proxy. But she's become increasingly fixated on talking to Hope herself as she comes to realize that it may be her only chance to get the insights she needs. In this stunning season one finale, Andrea travels to Mountain Home, Idaho, to meet with Hope Ybarra. In this intense, emotional back-and-forth, we hear straight from Hope what life is like for her after being released from prison. We find out what she's up to and what she hopes for from the future. Hope listens to her own family—all of whom she's estranged from with the exception of Robin—talk about what she was like before everything fell apart. She insists that she still loves her children, despite what she did. We see the human being behind the monstrous acts that splashed Hope's story across headlines and landed her in prison for a decade.  Andrea asks Hope what might have been done to help her and what she might say to her younger self if she could go back. Finally, she tells Hope that if she really wants her family back, she should get treatment and offers to help her if she wants that.  Hope is friendly and warm in person, but Andrea is left with the unsettling truth that she hasn't changed.  * * * Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos:  @andreadunlop  Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to https://apple.co/nobodyshouldbelieveme  to listen on Apple Podcasts and just click ‘Subscribe’ on the top of the show page to listen to exclusive bonus content and access all episodes early and ad-free or go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe.  For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.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! The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

True Story Media. Nobody Should Believe Me is a production of Large Media. That's L-A-R-J Media. 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. 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. Hi, I'm Andrea Dunlop. Welcome to Nobody Should Believe Me. This is our final episode of season one. If you are just joining us, please go back and start at the first episode. Everything is now available for you to binge. I have really been enjoying connecting with you on Patreon this season. We have some awesome content over there. I've been doing a postscript episode every week after the episode airs, just following up on what was in that episode and how it's landing in the world. We are featuring extended cuts of some of the interviews that we've done, including with experts. And for today's episode, we have a really exciting extended cut, which is my entire conversation with Hope Ybarra.

It was a really fascinating one. And because of the sensitive nature of that conversation, I am only going to be sharing that on the Patreon. So you can find that at patreon.com slash nobody should believe me, or we will also link to it in our show notes. And just to give you a heads up as for what's going to come on the Patreon once this season has wrapped, I'm going to be doing some in-between season content. I'm going to be covering some Munchausen by proxy cases that have been in the news recently. I'm going to be following up with some of our experts and some of the other folks that were on season one, and I'm going to be giving you behind the scenes content into the making of season two. And while you're here, let me just tell you, season two is going

to be amazing. I am already so excited to share this next story with you guys. We have done a lot of the interviews already, and we are putting it together. It is a second gripping, horrifying, but ultimately, I think, extremely hopeful story, again, out of Texas. So while it is going to be a whole new case and a whole new group of people, you are going to be seeing some familiar faces, or rather, hearing some familiar voices. And I'm just really excited to get even deeper into looking at some of these systemic issues, to hear some more first-person accounts, and we're also really going to dive more deeply into what life looks like for survivors. 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 want to preface this episode by reiterating that my sister has never been charged with a crime. The two investigations into her for medical child abuse have left me with a fear that has persisted every day of my life for the last decade. Hope Ybarra is really the embodiment of this fear, and talking to her was a profound experience for me, and much of what you're going to hear in this episode is my genuine emotional reaction in the moment, and I really

wanted to preserve it as such. I've never been able to have a conversation with my sister about why she did things like shave her head in high school or apparently fake an entire pregnancy and miscarriage. Hope is a person who we know has done those things. And she is maybe the only person that I will ever talk to in my life who could give me some insight into why. All right, here we go. They are on the road. Finally. Finally. Finally. I had been text messaging with Hope now for months,

and as the meeting time approached, I got more and more nervous. What do you want to get out of this personally? The thing that I could never do, and that I do not foresee having an opportunity to do in my life is to sit down with my sister and say, I can help you. But that's true that I could help her. Like, I think there's this part of me that like one of the things I've really wrestled with in this podcast that I didn't really even realize I was holding on to is this hope that I'll do this and that she'll hear it and say, I'm exhausted. I want to come home. Help me come home. You know, if hope could get to a healthier place, that would be a good thing.

If that could play out in some sense that like Robin could have a better relationship with her. If Paul could have some kind of peace with that situation late in his life. And if they could have some kind of healing. Again, this is not like the thing where like, okay're all going to be having sunday dinner every day you know it's like i don't think that's like a realistic outcome for families that have this kind of thing happen if her kids could get some answers it could be better than it is now and i think that if there's a chance for me to leave this family situation a little better than I found it. And I think that would really help me too. That's like a personal motivation.

I want to look at her and say like, I guess I want to look at her and say like, I'm sorry that you were in so much pain that you felt like you had to do these destructive things. Like, I'm sorry you found yourself in that place. That must have been really awful. That doesn't excuse anything that she did, but that's true. I do feel that way. I started off 10 years ago with my sister wanting to help her. And that was because I still loved her.

And, you know, this question of like the mental illness thing, it's really tricky because where I think we associate mental illness with like someone not being in their right mind, they're doing a specific thing to get a specific outcome and they're doing it knowingly. And that's a really hard thing to empathize with. But I think it's really important that we keep in mind that they're doing it because they're in a lot of pain, and if we could address that pain before they get so destructive, that would be ideal.

Okay, here we go. Hope had suggested that we meet at a burger joint in the tiny Idaho town where she now lives. My producer, Tina Knoll, who'd been with me on this entire journey, and I walked through the door of this little burger joint that had this retro 50s decor and was playing, like, 50s jukebox music. And we sat down in a booth and glued our eyes to the door. I sent Hope a text message letting her know that we were there and she said she would be there in a few minutes.

And even with that text message, I just still had no idea whether or not she was going to show and furthermore, whether or not she was going to want to record the conversation or whether this conversation was going to be productive on any level. There you go. Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Watching Hope walk through the door, she felt strangely familiar right away. We had been text messaging back and forth for months, and there was a little bit of intimacy that had developed. We asked Hope almost immediately if she would be willing to let us record the conversation,

and she agreed. Hope Allison Pusher and I give you permission to use whatever's on this recording for whatever means you need to use it. Thank you, miss. It was really focused on trying to have this be a conversation between two women. So we started off just with small talk. This is my favorite place to go. It's a good spot. So what else is there to do here in Mountain House? All we do is when we go out to eat this is out to eat. This is the Big J

night spot. Well and we don't hardly ever do it. We don't go out. We don't do much. We sit at home and now that we've got the dog now we've got our baby. Take care of the baby. Even though hope seemed warm and friendly and on one level forthcoming,

from the get-go, she was keeping up the facade that she is deaf. This is something that she's done for many years now. She did it in all of her prison interviews, and she did it with her parents when they would come to visit her, despite the fact that we know she is not deaf. I made a very deliberate choice not to challenge her on this assertion or really anything that she was going to say during the course of this conversation

because I knew that that would lead to defensiveness, and I wasn't looking to hope to get facts. I was looking to her to get insights and to have what I hoped would be a human moment between the two of us. You've been written about a lot and I wanted to keep this podcast from being a thing about you, not with you. And so now that we have you are with us, you're about to start a new job at Walmart. What makes you happy now? What brings you joy now? Right now being with him.

That's what makes me happy. Hope is referring here to her boyfriend who joined her for the interview. He's very affectionate, very much a caregiver like me. So we take care of each other. Not a day goes by that he doesn't tell me something sweet or special. What do you want people to know about Hope? That I'm an individual. I have feelings.

And that I love my family, especially my children, more than anything on this planet. Regardless of what I've done and the choices that I've made, what I would say to all of them is that I am so sorry for everything that I've put them through. I was selfish. I love my family, especially my children, more than anything on this planet. It was not fair, not right, that I put them through what I put them through. She was lonely with my baby girl, and I have so much regret for hurting her. And in the process, hurting the other two as well. I was selfish, and I will carry that guilt for the rest of my life for hurting all of

them. My biggest hope is that my kids one day see that I didn't do it to hurt them. I didn't do it because I don't love them. I did it because I didn't know better. I thought that's what I needed to do. What have your revelations about that been? Because I think that that might really help people understand better how things get to that point. There's other ways to feel loved. I didn't feel loved. I had a wonderful husband. I had three wonderful kids. I didn't see another way to feel loved. That's just something that's internal, something that I had to figure out. I had to see the bigger picture. That I'm loved regardless of what people say, how people respond.

You said nobody wants to feel like an outcast. And that struck me so hard because, especially the deeper I've gotten into this and talked to your dad and talked to your brother and sister like that's not how anyone else in Hope's life would have described her you know just that you were really fun and really smart and like life of the party and that's not the way I felt most of the time I felt like the loner. I enjoy being with people. I'm a people person. But I don't feel like the center of anything.

Now I'm okay with that. And so because I was going through adolescence and all that, and because I was not popular, there was a lot that I felt like I was missing out on. When I got towards the end of high school, I knew what I always knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. Of course, those plans kind of got interrupted, and that's okay, because I have three wonderful children, and let me tell you what, I would take those kids over a career any minute. You also had a career any minute you also had

a career like you're almost describing it like you sort of underachieved but I mean you didn't you got your degree and you had good well-paying jobs and you were working and you were like involved in the community and you had your kids and you were I mean you were doing a lot one thing that I've wondered in looking back through my sister's pattern of like when these behaviors started to emerge when they got really bad it seems like that sort of stress level getting really high that it was almost as though she was doing some of those behaviors to like get some kind of relief. Is that something that resonates with you at all?

That's an interesting thought. I don't think so. So what do you think you were seeking? I just wanted to feel loved, and I didn't, and I don't know why. I had a wonderful family. I had a wonderful husband. Wonderful children. I don't know why I didn't feel loved.

I just wanted to feel loved. That was all. And I did what I did. I'm guessing because it made me feel loved. It's not that I want to make you relive the details, but I just, again, I'm really just looking for insight. You know, in terms of the cancer, do you have any sense of what kicked off that situation

or, like, where, you know, that played into what you were needing at the time. No. Because I think that maybe one of the keys to helping families is to be able to catch things earlier. You know, after what happened with my sister happened, I thought back on like, my parents and I sat together and thought, oh, this thing, oh, God, this thing. And we sort of saw this whole, like, chain of events going back to when she was at least a teenager and for my parents, I think, even far beyond.

And I could see then, in retrospect, things escalating. Is there a moment when we could have said, you're clearly going through something. You're clearly doing some destructive things to get what you need, to get your emotional needs met. Like, I think that's a better way to say it, right, than getting attention, right? Like you said, acceptance, love, those things. Like, I wish that I could have seen those behaviors

as sort of these cries for help that they were, and it's clear that those were cries for help now, in terms of like, my sister is not getting her emotional needs met. She does not feel loved. She does not feel accepted. She feels alone. All of those things that you've described to me today. I wish that I could have seen those seemingly bizarre behaviors as, oh, this is a symptom of what she's feeling on the inside, and then, like, gotten to her, helped her, helped her address what she was feeling before she ever hurt anyone else.

Was there a moment some of these feelings really started to manifest for you? And, like, what could someone have done? Meeting with counselors and seeing what the source of the behaviors was or could have been. Now at the back side, I can see, see the truth. And what do you think that truth is? That I am loved.

Regardless of what my life looks like or how I feel, I am loved. I couldn't have picked a better father for my children. And he's done it all alone because of my stupid decisions. He's had to do it all alone. And I know that's some hard work. I just, I wish, one thing I could change would be go back and change what I did

so that it would have never broken apart to begin with when you think about your younger self before the very beginning of these behaviors and like before it escalated to the you know stuff with the

cancer and all of that like what would you say to your younger self look at the bigger picture stop looking within it's the look throughout do you get now the sense that your internal reality like did not match the external reality. Very much so. The way I feel, a lot of the time it's not true. It's false perception. My big focus and part of my changing now,

I want to make sure that I don't ruin another relationship. The guilt that I have, not only with the kids, but I hurt Fabian and his family as well. And it was not fair. If I could have changed anything, aside from not hurting the kids, I wouldn't have hurt the man who was standing by my side through everything.

But I did. And he did what he needed to do, walked away. I'm going to make sure that I don't make that mistake again. Your family had some very sweet things to say about you. Do you want to hear one? Well, I can play for you some sound. And Nick had some really sweet things to say. Really? Mm-hmm. I'm surprised.

Do you have really good memories of you? I'll turn it up really loud. They just repeat what she says. Well, here, we'll listen to it and then we can kind of, yeah, talk you through it. Yeah. So Hope was the oldest of the four of us, so she was kind of, when Mom was gone or Dad was gone,

she was kind of the adult in the or dad was gone she was kind of the adult in the house which was always kind of interesting because she was a bit a bit of a wild one sometimes but we were really really close especially as I got into high school and that's really where my relationship with Hope had grown a lot because she was the first person in my family that had gone to college she did really well she was doing well in her life, and it was kind of an inspiration for me. So when she had her oldest kid, she was still in college, and so I spent a lot of time. We got to go out and see her and kind of see what that life was like,

and so it was kind of inspiring to me. Like, she was someone I wanted to kind of be like. So Nick is saying that he was very inspired by you, that he looked up to you, and he was very inspired by you. That he looked up to you and he was very inspired by you. And you taught him something that he still remembers today. He just so looked up to you and you were the first person and, you know, your family to go to college. He wanted to be like you and be as successful as you were. How does that feel to hear that?

He always did so good. It's strange that he did good because he looked up to me. It seemed like he always just did good on his own. You were his example. If someone else, if another mom, finds herself where you were, in this sort of situation where she feels like the only way that she can feel loved and accepted is to be in the position of having a sick child. I've got an answer. Look outside the box.

Don't look internal because you are loved. Regardless. It may not feel that way, but you are. Because you don't want to wait until you get to the other side of a bad decision to be able to see it. Don't wait until it's too late. Because that's what I did. If you could go back and, like, grab your hand,

you know, right in the middle of that, what would you say to Hope? Like, what would you tell Hope to do? Like, I would have told my mother. If she couldn't help, she would have find the right help. I wish I could go back and tell my sister that. And that's the thing, I guess, what breaks my heart is, like, my sister could have, she could have said that to us.

My God, we loved her. We would have done anything for her. She could have come to us. And, like, there's part of me that's, like, that's all I ever wanted was for her to just say, like, please help me. Part of me with this podcast almost hopes that, like, I'll put this out there and she'll say I'm tired of doing this I want to come home I don't think that'll happen but like it's a wish it's a wish it's a wish and the hardest thing about

talking about it is having to admit that you've done wrong to accept that you've messed up and that's the hardest thing about talking about it yeah you have to face the facts eight years into my imprisonment I still hadn't faced the facts. It wasn't until I'd given up on myself and my family that I was kind of forced to face the facts. And that's what keeps me from doing it again. There's a lot of days where I feel like it's not worth living anymore. Then I remember, you've got gotta be strong for those kids.

Whether they know it or not, it doesn't matter. I've gotta be strong enough for those kids. And I believe one day, I'll want that relationship with Mama again. And I keep being strong every day until that day comes. Because I'm still their mama regardless. And nothing can take that away. If it's 10 years away. How do you think you prepare yourself for those eventual conversations?

I've got to be honest. Whatever they ask, I've got to be honest. And do you think that you'll be able to kind of have a relationship with them, like, on their terms? It'll have to be. It'll have to be. That's not an option. It's going to have to be on their terms. That's going to have to be that way with my entire family.

I lost my terms. With my own sister, as I said, there was, like like a lot of things that led up to that break. And one of the most frustrating things was that she wouldn't ever fess up. Even if you can't undo it or make it better, just to have someone say, you're not crazy. I did that thing, is a relief. And if you don't get that accounting, if you don't get that person looking you in the eye and saying, I did that thing, here's, you know, where I can try and explain why I did it, and I'm sorry, it reaches a point where you just think, like, if I can't have any honest accounting, I can't just keep acting like things are okay.

One of our projects in prison was to write a forgiveness letter to somebody that we've hurt. The letter I wrote was to my mother. I sent that, but I don't know if she ever got it. And I hope she did. Because I fessed up and asked her to please forgive me for hurting her. Because I know she's the one that I hurt the most. But I sent that very close to the time that she passed away. So I don't know that she got it.

What do you hope for going forward? I want restoration of my family. Because of the effect that this has had on my personal life, that's helped me a lot to understand what sort of goes on in these cases and what genuine healing and restoration can look like and it can happen and it takes a lot a lot of work you know it's means taking you know a full accountability and sort of working through these steps probably wouldn't look like what you might have hoped when you were younger, that your relationship with your family,

you know, there's no way that these events are not going to take a toll. But, you know, if you wanted to put in that work, I'm happy to help connect you to some folks that can help you do that. And to me, that is a really necessary part of like you being, you know, healthy enough to have that relationship with your kids that you want. That's going to be good for them. You know, you've said to me over and over again that you don't want to hurt your family anymore. You were worried about doing an interview because you didn't want to, you know, compound the damage and that kind of thing. And I think that, like, there is a way for you to do that. I think that's been a new revelation for me that that is even possible.

You know, you were in prison for 10 years. You've lost your whole family. Like, you, I have no, there's no question of you having suffered consequences. So I also just wanted to come here today to tell you that, like, if that is something that you are interested in, if that is something that you are willing to do, then it can be done. It will be a difficult process, and it will take a lot of work on your part. I don't skirt or walk away from hard work. And if it means that my family can come back together,

I'll do whatever I can do to make it happen. Because the family that I know, I don't have right now. If the time comes for us, I want my family to be there. My entire family is phenomenal. One thing I could change would be go back and change what I did so they would have never broken apart to begin with. I mean, is there anything else that you want to say to them? Just that I love them. I know I didn't show it.

My actions showed how much I didn't love them. But that's not why I did it. It wasn't because of them. It wasn't their fault. And then my biggest regret of all my decisions is that my family is not together like it used to be. How much my parents lost because of me. It's not fair. It's not fair. Not right.

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with iGaming Ontario. 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 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 understand not just the case itself, but why it matters to our understanding of the world. Her long-awaited second season is airing now, and the first season is ready to binge. So go check out True or Crime with Cilicia Stanton wherever you get your podcasts. My empathy for Hope is real and I don't think that it's helpful for anybody to put her at the remove of making her into a monster. She is the person who did those things. Lied to her family for a decade about having cancer. Told her children that she was going to die. Poisoned her co-worker. Took blood

out of her daughter who put pathogens into her daughter and put her daughter at substantial risk of death. Put her family in a situation where they lost their livelihoods and their relationships with their community, we don't have a reason to believe that she's truly changed because true change for someone like this is rare and very hard work. Even though Hope said so many of the right things in the moment. And in the moment, I tried to take those things at face value so that I could continue sitting with this woman and having that conversation. I didn't want to let my own grief or anger take a hold of me. And it was really important to me to see this conversation through to the end. The moment that it was over, I felt

tremendous relief, and I felt the veil of hope's influence lift. My producer Tina and I met up with two friends after this extremely intense conversation. As we walked those several blocks, I sort of felt reality rushing back towards me. All those waterworks were like an attempt to get me under the spell of like, I'm a victim. And I feel empathy for her her but it's a knowing empathy it's interesting to be able to hold both those things she does remind me so much of my sister you got to see this person you know and she did say like that I'm an individual with feelings I'm a person here and I thought that was really important

because what happens in cases like this when they get media attention, it's a black and white, it's a myopic character. The character is their crime, their punishment, and then they're gone. So life began in their crime, ends when they're either punished for it or they die, or they disappear. Yeah. It or they die or roll the credits yeah

it's satisfying to have had the conversation I don't think that I think there was like a couple of moments where I felt like the real person came to the surface one of the really interesting things that like comes up that like becomes this very like high level philosophical question that I don't even know how to begin unpacking is like are people who do this capable of love like the idea of doing any of the things the most minor of the things that Hope or my sister has done I can't even I don't think she did those things because she specifically wanted to hurt them. I think she felt a disconnect from them

and objectified them and used them to get her emotional needs met. And I don't think that she was never loving towards them. I think she might've been. And actually from Robin's description she was and I think that she can learn to have more empathy I do think that's something but it's crossed my mind that Hope having this contact with me is something she could try to leverage to get what she wants I do think she wants back in the family fold I do think she wants all those people to love her

and I could be a means to that and that's why I was kind of trying to make it clear to her today is like this is not I'm not talking about oh they just need to forgive you like they don't I don't know if they want any of those things like I listen I have had to have this conversation with my parents if you are on your deathbed do you want me to call her that's their choice I'm not gonna be, you should reconcile at this point. No, because she's going to come in there and manipulate them. What I realized during the process of this is that, as I was telling, I said to Hope, I was like, I think there is a very irrational part of me that has hoped that if I do all this, if I put all this out there, that somehow I'll put this out in the world. She's going to pick up the phone and say,

I'm tired of living like this. Tired of hurting people. I want help. I want to come home. What I also realized is that I have a death that I have never grieved properly. And what I really need to do is say goodbye. I need to say goodbye and just let her be gone. Because I think that that's the thing that we all struggle with those of us in the blast zone like how do you reconcile the fact that this person that you loved and have many good memories of in some cases not in all cases turned into this other person who did these monstrous things that you just can't even wrap your head around. And I think, like, I have to say goodbye and to stop regarding the person out there with her name and face as my sister. It's not my sister anymore.

And I think that's where this ends. 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. If you are curious about this show and the topic of Munchausen by proxy, follow me on Instagram at Andrea Dunlop. Nobody Should Believe Me is a production of Large Media. Our lead producer is Tina Knoll. 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.