My thanks to Thread Books for an eARC via NetGalley, of ‘My Mother, Munchausen’s and Me’ by Helen Naylor in exchange for an honest review.

As the title indicates this is a memoir focusing on Helen Naylor’s troubled relationship with her mother, Elinor. Ten years ago Helen discovered that her mother had been faking debilitating illnesses for thirty years.

Then after Elinor’s death, Helen found the diaries that she had been writing daily for fifty-five years. Having these allowed Helen to do a “psychological autopsy” and as she writes: “as I unravelled my mother, I unravelled myself.” Throughout the text she includes excerpts from these diaries.

While I don’t read many memoirs, I was drawn by the title as the phenomena of Münchausen Syndrome along with its related ‘by proxy’ seems so inexplicable.

I am sure many readers will relate to having to deal with relations or friends who seek attention by constantly going on about their ‘aliments’ though this was a completely different level in which someone is actually falsifying symptoms.

I will admit that it took me a little while to get into this book. Yet it wasn’t long until I was caught up in Helen’s account and read it in a single day. At some points I had to remind myself that I wasn’t reading fiction but someone’s real life experiences.

Elinor’s bullying, body shaming, and manipulation of Helen at times made for uncomfortable reading and throughout I felt compassion for Helen and her family.

I was pleased that in her letter to readers, that she included details of organisations and resources to assist those effected by these issues.

Overall, I found myself moved by this memoir and felt that Helen Naylor was very brave in sharing her experiences.

I did not expect to enjoy a non fiction book so much. It seems like a strange thing to say, when reading about someone's life, but I found this book a page turner. I really cared that Helen would survive and go on to live a happy and normal life but this book was never going to have a conventional, happy ending.

From the title you know that Helen, eventually, realises that the one person in her young life, her mother, who should unconditionally love, nurture, protect and encourage her daughter is not a vulnerable person, in need of Helen's support and care (a role reversal if ever there was one) but is actually an abusive monster who would stoop to any depths to destroy her daughter's confidence, happiness and even physical well being, putting her own needs and huge ego ahead of the needs of her daughter. The story of how Helen gets to this realisation and finds out and researches the reasons why and eventually finds out the truth as to who her mother really is does not make easy reading. But it does make compulsive reading.

First, I want to thank Helen Naylor and Thread Books for providing me with this book so I can bring you this review.

WOW!! Helen Naylor is incredibly brave to share her personally raw and eye opening story in My Mother, Munchausen’s and Me. It is an incredibly interesting book on how this disease affects everyone in the family.

The Graphic Designers for Thread Books did an amazing job with the cover graphic. It showed Helen as a young girl with her Mom.

Helen wanted to write this book for her children who were too young to understand what her Mother was going through at the time.

I can’t imagine how Helen dealt with all the mental and emotional abuse growing up.

Literally I was blown away by this book as it was an incredible story! If you are like me and love medical books like I do this is the book for you.

Helen is so grateful for her husband and her friends for standing by her through her Mother’s lives and love and care for her after. They were the ones who got her through this.

We the reader’s got a glimpse into Elinor’s mindset via her diary entries. Reading them gave us a more personal look into how she was feeling and thinking.

There were things that Elinor said and did that left me totally speechless and in shock! She totally boggled my mind on many different occasions. My heart went out to Helen so many times!

An upsetting but powerful read that provides insight into a condition that has long lasting traumatic effects. Thank you to the author for being brave enough to honestly share her experiences.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thread Books for gifting me both a digital and audiobook ARC of this true story by Helen Naylor - 4 stars!

Helen grew up in a dysfunctional family - both her parents were always ill and she suffered neglect as a result. However, as she grew up, it started to become clear that her mother was making up her illnesses to get attention. While never diagnosed, she had Munchausen's and was a narcissist. It was difficult for Helen to be a good daughter to her mother when her mother was obviously not a good mother and she suffered much guilt and blame by others. In addition, her mother resented any attention Helen showed to her own family instead of towards her, causing more guilt and blame. The audiobook was narrated by the author, which added a layer of truth and sadness to the story.

While I have read many stories of Munchausen's by proxy (where an adult harms a child to get attention), this is the first account I've read of someone suffering themselves and how it affected the entire family. It was heartbreaking that Helen's dad and the many, many physicians her mother went to never supported Helen or got psychiatric help for her mother. I would hope that today we would be more aware but these people are also perfect manipulators. Hopefully writing this book was cathartic and will help Helen move forward with her life.

Wow. I wasn't ready for this. What an incredibly sad story but also one of hope because Helen overcame so much. The narration was awesome and I can't recommend this book enough.

Such a heartfelt and inspiring book of one woman's struggle to except her mother's many 'illnesses '.
Helen recounts her life from a young age to teenage years and into adulthood and having children of her own whilst trying to understand and help her mother throughout the years.
It's several years after her mother's death that Helen feels strong enough to read her mothers dairies and to write her account of living with someone Munchausen's.

My Mother, Munchausen’s and Me by Helen Naylor
Published: November 25, 2021
Thread
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Helen Naylor has been writing as a hobby since she was a small child. Still, it wasn’t until she began a memoir about growing up with a mother who faked illnesses and had narcissistic personality traits that she was encouraged to pursue writing professionally.
Helen lives in Nottingham with her husband, two children, and cat and enjoys playing guitar, drinking good coffee, and cycling.

“Something about my mother really wasn’t right.”

Helen thought she adored her mother. Growing up, for a long time, she thought her mother was her dearest friend. Until Helen started seeing things that didn’t feel right, her mother would require long rest periods. She would constantly complain of her ailments, and she collected diagnoses’ like most people collect memories.

I just want to hug Helen. And tell her she is valid, strong, brave, worthy, special, intelligent, kind, and a survivor.

My heart hurt for Helen throughout this book. The things she went through, were horrible. And the fact that for most of her life, Helen just accepted it because she trusted her mother.

This was a shocking look into munchausen’s, and it’s a side that most of us were probably not familiar with. Considering most of what I knew going into this memoir regarding munchausen’s syndrome, is what I’ve learned from Gypsy Rose Blanchard.

This memoir is not that story. But the abuse Helen suffered is just as ugly. This is such an open, raw, vulnerable telling of a childhood manipulated, and a young adulthood shattered.

What I found the most striking, is Helen’s strength. Despite the atrocities she suffered at the hands of the person who should have loved and protected her fiercely, Helen is kind.

In the memoir, Helen touches on how she has fragments of memories, and that the emotion comes in waves. This woman survived unspeakable trauma, and she has come out the other side, victorious.

Seeing that Helen took her power back, and that she devotes everything she has to her husband and children, and that she makes sure she loves her kiddos where she was unloved, is beautiful.

I don’t see Helen as a victim of her mother. Helen is a survivor, and she is using her voice to reach out and help anyone who is going through or has gone through a similar situation.

She has turned her fear into her battle cry, and has opened herself up and is revealing her most painful secrets to the light. Helen, I truly hope the rest of your life is filled with sunshine, rainbows, and bliss.

This is a true account of one woman's journey to discover her truth and find herself. It is fascinating, smooth to read and propulsive! When growing up under the shadow of untreated mental illness, a child has a long and hard road to bring themselves into normality. Amazing read!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thread Books for this ARC!

I am going to be honest... I thought this book sounded interesting even though I have ZERO experience in this category. I did NOTY finish the book... Its not poorly written, I liked the style of the book, but having no experience with the topic I found it hard to keep my attention. I am hoping to circle back to it, but right now I have not finished...

A heartbreaking read a book about the authors childhood.Munchausen is a psychological disease a person claiming to be ailing with so many diseases and in Helen Naylors case claiming her child has these illnesses.I found her story fascinating an intimate look at what this disease did to her childhood.A brave story.#netgallley#thread.

This book is heartbreaking. Helen has grown up with a mother who is often cold and cruel, who is always ill and needs rest every afternoon so Helen as a child had to learn to play in complete silence. She doesn’t know any different than how her own home life is and accepts this as being how it is for everyone but it does start to affect her own mental health. Helen really shows how complex her relationship to her mother is, that she loved her mother but also feared being trapped into looking after her for ever. There is a real exploration of how complicated the aspect of looking back on her mother’s life was for Helen and it’s these parts towards the end of the book that really struck a chord with me. This is the point when it felt the reader was really let in to how everything has affected Helen. Helen’s mother behaved monstrously, not just to Helen but to others as well, and it’s uncomfortable to think about whether this woman was a monster or whether she was mentally unwell. I think this contradiction is something Helen must waiver on too as the title says Munchausen’s but in the book her mother is referred to as a narcissist. It is always so difficult to confront who a parent really was, and I definitely felt for Helen as she grappled with this throughout the book. This book isn’t always easy to read but it’s a book that I would recommend.

At times kinda hard to read yet equally harder to put down and not read
A fascinating and honest ( albeit one sided of course ) memoir of a daughters life with her Mother’s ( undiagnosed ) Munchausen’s ( a distinct difference to ‘by proxy’ but none the less all encompassing for everyone concerned )
I mean, got to be honest, the Mother, as portrayed is vile, totally heinous and manipulative and cruel and yet a daughters love, albeit pushed every which way, is still there and still battles for acceptance
At times the descriptions of the Mum made me think ‘how could this happen? Why did no one step in?’ But as we all know people tend not to although if this had happened nowadays maybe they would as people are more aware and more likely to
Its a grim story, and at times because of the subject matter repetitive but it held my attention all the way through, the inclusion of the Mother’s diary entries are as fascinating as chilling
A terrible child’s/young adult’s and then older life with her own children to have had with this Mother and I feel this book is equally written for herself,the survivor,and how she can move on as much as it is for us the reader….

8/10
4 Stars

Helen Naylor's memoir, My Mother, Munchausen's and Me is a trip into her past as she discovers the realities behind her mother's strange, increasingly self-centered behaviors. It's rough to read only in the sense of how alarming it is to imagine how brutally she was manipulated and treated throughout her life. Reading the neverending accounts of her Mother's bizarre behavior was like a terrible traffic accident when you just can't look away.

I am glad Naylor got to experience some validation of her experiences and suspicions before her mom passed away. And I am glad she had key support people in her adult life. It is hard to believe anyone could so relentlessly and remorselessly deceive everyone and the lengths to which they will go to to preserve their own interests. I'm glad there is more information and awareness now about NPD and Munchausen's but I suspect far too many people are still victims of this mental illness to this day.

An interesting insight. I would of liked more diary excerpts to give greater knowledge of the mothers view point, and found the author some what unlikeable, however this could be because it was a warts and all memoir which meant she wasn't trying to hide any less charming character traits.

This is a narrative of a girl growing up in the environment of a mother though to be suffering from munchausens. As she grew, so did the mother’s ailments. Open and honest, this book gives a first hand (albeit one sided) account of the emotive and physical ties parents have over their children. This is a memoir of a women overcoming what life presented her and coming out the other side with the awareness and determination to lead a full and balanced life. A difficult but interesting read. I can’t say I enjoyed reading, due to the subject and reality of the author but am glad I did. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review.

MY MOTHER, MUNCHAUSEN'S AND ME
BY: HELEN NAYLOR

This was an extremely heartbreaking memoir that was very well written by the survivor of this cruel mentally ill mother called Elinor and her daughter, Helen. This was hard to read but I did get through it wondering what had I been thinking by requesting it? Helen was an only child to two disabled parents. Her father sadly really was ill dying when Helen was still fairly young from heart disease and lung disease. On the other hand, Helen's mother who Helen would in much later in life realize that her mother was inflicted with full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Helen had begun this book describing her childhood feeling horrible low self worth, a suicide attempt, not eating and having nightmares and difficulty falling asleep. Her mother had led her and everybody to believe that she suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome spending entire afternoons in bed saying how tired she was. She stopped doing any cleaning of their house or cooking. I had never heard of CFS labeled as M.E, but that is what it is referred to in this memoir. Later on during Helen's young adult life her mother told everyone that she suffered from Parkinson's Disease. It was all make believe.

The damage that this mother caused her daughter was appalling. I was so happy for Helen when she married a kind and caring husband and had two beautiful children. I think that she having her own happy family is what allowed Helen to confront her mother and helped her to heal. I don't know if one ever totally heals after they have suffered child abuse.

I don't quite understand why Elinor would want to throw her life away by faking debilitating illnesses but she certainly treated people who doubted her illnesses by cutting them out of her life. I thought that she (Elinor) made her daughter, Helen suffer much mental anguish. What kind of mother would criticize her teenager daughter and compare herself as superior to such an impressionable young mind as Helen's was? I thought Elinor was cruel and I really feel very sad for Helen having to endure that abuse. When Elinor was a Grandmother I would have thought that she would have been thrilled but showed no interest in either baby.

This was definitely a hard book to read. I am hoping that Helen has received support from sharing her story. She was able to convey how difficult it was growing up with her mother and how it seemed to get worse when she grew older. Helen has written an unflinching raw and honest reflection of the confusion that she must have felt. I hope that her memoir helps anybody else who is currently experiencing the cruelty that Helen endured and her story makes the reader feel less alone. Helen demonstrated that the cycle can be broken.

Publication Date: November 25, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, Helen Naylor and Thread Books Publishing for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#MyMotherMunchausensandMe #HelenNaylor #Thread #NetGalley

I cannot imagine going through everything that Helen Naylor has had to face. This book is a great look at what Munchausen's is and the damage and hurt it can cause. Usually a diagnosis like this is only seen in Lifetime movie plots, but it is a real condition that not many people recognize. My Mother, Munchausen's and Me shows how life can be when you live with and love a narcissist with this psychological illness.

‘Elinor wasn’t reliable, but neither was I’.

When you mention Munchausen’s syndrome, most people think of Munchausen’s by proxy, particularly the sensational story of Gypsy Rose-Blanchard, a young woman whose mother persuaded her, her doctors, crowd funders, friends and family she had all kinds of physical disabilities. The truth was only discovered when Gypsy, finally snapping, killed her mother and went on the run.

Munchausen’s syndrome is a psychological disorder where a person feigns or inflicts their own illnesses to garner sympathy or attention from everyone around them. In ‘My Mother, Munchausen's and Me’, Helen Naylor talks about growing up with her mother who was (perhaps incorrectly) diagnosed with ME and then Parkinson’s disease and explores the effects this had on her childhood and later life.

The book itself is well-written and engaging, I devoured it in one sitting and couldn’t put it down, wanting to know what would happen next. Although the story is a fascinating glimpse into another person’s life, I do think it is very important to take this book with a giant pinch of salt. Although Elinor certainly seems like a hypochondriac, a narcissist and an attention seeker, she is not actually formally diagnosed with Munchausen’s syndrome. Some of her friends and family still don’t believe author Helen’s side of events and this is an automatic red flag for me. Writing a very unflattering biography of your mother is a big risk to take and it seems odd that the title makes it all about a syndrome that is not really mentioned much in the book.

As Elinor has now passed away, we get a very one-sided picture of events. Helen is painted unquestioningly as the victim - a patient daughter who only wanted to do the best for and believe her mother – even when that was painful or impacted her own life and relationships. Childhood memories seemed very specific, for example there’s entire childhood conversations with friends written up – I can barely remember conversations I had last week so I’m sure some artistic license has been taken here. I’m not saying that Helen is being deceitful with this but the diary entries from her mother which are meant to show the other side to these events are very vague and don’t actually prove anything. There’s no smoking gun of her saying ‘I didn’t like what was happening, so I pretended to have a headache’ etc – it seems very much like she believed she wasn’t well even if that wasn’t the case.

Overall ‘My Mother, Munchausen's and Me’ is a horribly fascinating story of abuse and a rare psychological disorder, it’s just a shame that it felt so one-sided in its telling. Thank you to NetGalley & Thread Book for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, just wow. To find out the life you lived, all the effort you put in, was not only unnecessary, but that someone who you thought loved you, only cared for herself. Helen’s account is her account of what she went through. It doesn’t matter what other people believe, it’s what the poor girl had to live through, day in, day out. A stolen childhood in my eyes, very sad.