Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Munchausen by Proxy

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

It's a cult of one dynamic almost too frightful for this show. When your very own caregiver poisons, manipulates, exploits, and lies to you for personal gain... it's the cult of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome, a nightmare phenomenon made internationally famous by the notorious (iconic?) Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a victim of child medical abuse, who played a role in the murder of her cult leader of one, aka, her very own mother. To explore the many culty angles of this week's unique subject, host Amanda is joined by novelist and investigative podcaster Andrea Dunlop, whose show Nobody Should Believe Me was inspired by her very close personal connection to the "cult" of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. Stick around for the verdict—we're fascinated to know if you agree! Get your tickets now to The Big Magical Cult Show—dates and ticket links below! April 9: Los Angeles, CA — feat. Pauline Chalamet (tickets here) April 12: Brooklyn, NY — THE BIG MAGICAL CULT SHOW feat. Ceara & Griff from Petty Crimes (tickets here) Use code CULTMAGIC for a 10% discount!! April 13: Boston, MA — THE BIG MAGICAL CULT SHOW feat. Sasha Sagan (tickets here) April 15: Washington DC — Solid State Books (tickets here) April 16: Philadelphia, PA — THE BIG MAGICAL CULT SHOW feat. Kelsey McKinney from Normal Gossip (tickets here) April 17: Portland, OR — in conversation with Chelsea Bieker (free, no ticket needed) To preorder a signed and personalized copy of Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, click here :) For podcast updates and more, consider subscribing to her newsletter! Follow @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell Thank you to our sponsors! Go to StickerGiant.com/cult and use code CULT at checkout to get 25% off your first order. Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/cult. 

Hey culties, it's your host Amanda. Before we get into this very special episode, I just wanted to invite you to come join me on my live tour this April. In celebration of my new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality, which is available for pre-order now.

And if you pre-order it from the link in our show notes, your copy will show up signed and personalized. It's coming out April 9th. And from April 9th to April 17th, I'm going on tour. I'm going to be in New York, LA, Portland, Philly, D.C., Boston. Some of the events are going to be bookstore events, but some of them are going to be this ridiculous live podcast variety show called The Big Magical Cult Show. Some of the people who are joining me on tour include the actress and icon Molly Ringwald, the actress Pauline Chalamet from the Sex Lives of College Girls,

podcasters you might be a fan of, including Kelsey McKinney from Normal Gossip and Kira and Griff from Petty Crimes. The link to book pre-order and tour ticket information is in the link in our show notes and I so hope to see you there. I am downright honored to be sponsored by my go-to brand for all things stickers and labels

sticker giant. They make custom stickers. How fun is that? Go to stickergiant.com slash cult and use code CULT at checkout to get 25% off your first order. Your fantasies are safe with Dipsy. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipsyStories.com slash cult. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to DIPSEAstories.com.

The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. The biggest revelation for me is that not a single expert I spoke to thinks that this is rare. Oh, shit. I hear from people daily who are either doctors who've had a case, survivors who've lived through a case, people who've had a case in their family.

These stories all sound so similar and every single person who reaches out says, I thought I was the only person in the world. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host, Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism and the forthcoming The Age of Magical Overthinking out April 9th. Every week on the show, you're going to hear about a different group or guru that puts

the cult in culture, from SoulCycle to the Supreme Court, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult. What is it really? And if so, which cult category does it fall into? A live your life? A watch your back? Or get the fuck out? After all, cults don't just look like Jonestown and Scientology, oops I said it, or Heaven's

Gate these days. Cults can show up in your fitness studio, cults can show up in your corporate office, hashtag girlboss, or cults can show up in your corporate office, hashtag girl boss, or Colts can show up in your very own home. Your mother could be your cult leader. That's right, we're getting straight into it. This week, we're talking about the cult of munchausen by proxy syndrome. That's a fucking mouthful. If you clicked on this episode because you already know what this syndrome is, then that means you're as fucked up as me. Or on a more serious note,

another reason you might've clicked on this is because you've unfortunately encountered this phenomenon in your real life, Gypsy Rose, are you listening? And if you don't know what Munchausen by proxy syndrome is and you clicked on this already, you are brave. You love to dive into the unknown and we love that about you.

I am obsessed with creepy medical mysteries and crimes and I am equally as obsessed with Cult of One dynamics where you're in a toxic one-on-one relationship with a boss or a friend or a co-worker or your mommy, your very own mommy that has a lot of the same grooming and manipulation that you see in a cult except this, that has a lot of the same grooming and manipulation that you see in a cult, except this one is just a cult of one. And that's what Munchhausen by proxy seems to be. Here's the thing that sounds like a cult though.

I know it's our whole shtick to toss the word cult around willy-nilly to be like, Goop is culty, CrossFit is culty, fucking heterosexuality is culty. But it's still important not to be too sensational, to not like totally zap the power out of this word cult. And that's why we're here to ask this question today. Is munchausen by proxy really a culty disorder that we should all be aware of? Do people who have this disorder have enough in common

with cult leaders to be labeled as such? Or is this just a sort of cult followed issue because it's so bizarre and good for TV? Was Gypsy Rose Blanchard the victim of a cult leader? Is she a cult leader of sorts herself now? Let's get motherfucking into it. This mouthful of a condition leader of sorts herself now, let's get motherfucking into it. This mouthful of a condition gained mainstream attention due in large part to the splashy true crime story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, our criminal girly icon who has the true crime

culture in a chokehold right now. But this syndrome has shown up in a lot of other media recently too, like HBO's Sharp Objects or Who Lose the Act, which was actually based on the Blanchard case. I first heard of the Blanchard case from the documentary about it, Mommy Dead and Dearest, such a creepy, spooky title. There's also a Netflix documentary called Take Care of Maya, if anyone's seen that,

which was about an alleged false accusation of munchausen by proxy. A highly contested premise to say the least. We'll touch on that later in the interview, speaking of what's to come. I'm excited for you to hear my interview later with my special guest host of the week, Andrea Dunlop. She is a novelist and she's also a podcaster. She has a super popular investigative, but also very personal podcast. It's so great. It's called Nobody Should Believe Me. And it

was inspired by her very own personal story of her sister being investigated for munch housing by proxy abuse more than a decade ago, but never convicted of any crimes, which Andrea firmly believes was a grave injustice. And unfortunately, something that's very common in these cases, because of how little understanding there is of this condition. So what the fuck is Munchausen Biproxy Syndrome

and how is it like a cult? Sometimes this disorder is described as medical child abuse. It's also been labeled factitious disorder. And it was first described in 1977 to categorize children whose primary caregiver, most often it's their mother. And don't worry, we will get into the reasons why mothers are most often the quote unquote cult leaders in a Munchausen by proxy dynamic whose mothers fabricate illnesses in their children. So they might manufacture fake documents,

showing that their kid has a battery of sicknesses that they don't really. They often exaggerate symptoms, outright lie about symptoms, create symptoms by poisoning food. Some caregivers even have their kid go through painful or high risk tests and procedures, sometimes even surgeries to make their family members and procedures, sometimes even surgeries,

to make their family members and communities and certainly the doctors, pay them attention, have a sympathetic reaction. Now, this might sound like a very, very niche disorder, but here's the thing, it's really hard to determine how niche it is. Think about it, for a caretaker to be diagnosed with Munchausen Biproxy,

they'll have to admit to the abuse, submit to psychiatric treatment, but the whole thing with Munchausen by proxy, they'll have to admit to the abuse, submit to psychiatric treatment, but the whole thing about Munchausen by proxy is dishonesty. So diagnosing the condition can be extremely difficult. It's basically as hard as diagnosing someone as a cult leader. It's like, who's going to admit that they're a cult leader? Now there's also a condition called Munchausen syndrome. That's when the person themselves fakes an illness. They might intentionally harm themselves

as opposed to their child. So you might be asking yourself, why the fuck would someone do this? Sympathy, is that worth it? It's theorized that Munchausen by proxy patients are typically motivated by the emotional feedback of getting attention and pity and adulation even for having a sick kid. It's also believed by some that people with Munchausen Biproxy may enjoy

the satisfaction of deceiving people whom they perceive to be more powerful than themselves, particularly medical professionals. If that is not a cult-leader-y motivation, tell me what is. Other research theorizes that many who are actually diagnosed with the disorder grew up in families in which being sick or injured was a way to receive love. I actually was recently reading a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by a psychologist named Lindsay Gibson,

in which some anecdotes were mentioned that described kind of just this, how like if you grow up in a household with emotionally immature parents, they might only pay attention to you or show you love and support when you're really, really sick. And in a super worst case scenario, that might condition you to believe

that the only way to receive love is to pretend to make your kids sick. So before we get into it with our guest, let's touch on some of the culty aspects because this is one of those topics that doesn't seem on the surface like a cult story. It's not a cult leader gathering a bunch of people on a compound convincing their flock that everyone is sick.

Ooh, that would be a good idea for a cult. Sort of like cosplaying nurse in a hospital. Has anyone done that? I don't think so, because here's the thing. Cult leaders end up achieving the type of power that they can get. And we tend to elevate men to cult leader status in spaces like the government, corporate spaces. These are arenas of life and culture in which we expect a man to have authority. Motherhood is a space in which we expect women to have authority. Women are not, I don't think, naturally less inclined to commit power abuse. Gwyneth Paltrow is like mommy to all of her little wellness acolytes,

but in a munchausen by proxy dynamic, your cult leader literally is your mommy. Mothers indeed have been found to perpetrate most munchausen by proxy cases. The canonical munchausen by proxy perp is specifically a white woman with some medical knowledge or background that is according to our guest Andrea Dunlop, a very interesting article published in Time Magazine

titled Why Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is Having a Moment on TV, found that in many families in which Munchausen by Proxy cases were diagnosed, traditional gender roles where, you know, the fathers go to work and bring home the bacon and the mothers take care of the kids are upheld more strictly. And the mothers are able to sort of get away with this abuse because

the fathers are like off in their cubicles and drinking beers after work and are kind of oblivious to what's going on between their wives and their kids. When I first learned that Munchhausen by proxy was so, so, so, so much more overwhelmingly common in women, I had this knee-jerk reaction where I was like, is that, I wonder, sexist? Where we like, love the story of a bad mommy and so we just want to like, eat up that sensationalist tale. But as it turns out, that instinct was not correct. There is sexism going on here, just not in the way that you might think. I found a super fascinating analysis published by the American Economic Association, titled Bias on the Bench, that surveyed judges' reactions to defendants based on gender. And the authors of this piece were surprised actually by how lenient Republican judges were on women.

One of these authors, a woman named Al McCohen said, conservative judges are more likely to feel that if a woman committed a crime, it must not have been her idea, or she might have been forced to do it by circumstances. So it's the squared sexism of like, oh, women, they're so dumb, they're so weak, they couldn't possibly commit a cult leader crime.

Yes, we can't. So we obviously can't do a Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome episode without addressing Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the mania surrounding her. So arguably this condition entered the American mainstream consciousness with Gypsy Rose's case and the subsequent documentaries and TV shows highlighting the extreme abuse of her mother that actually led to her mother's

murder. So if you somehow missed this story, basically Gypsy Rose was born healthy but throughout her childhood she was falsely diagnosed with all these serious illnesses because her mother, Dee Dee, subjected her to a smattering of unnecessary medical treatments and surgeries. Her mother had such, I'm telling you, cult-literish control over her life, but as Gypsy Rose got older,

she was able to meet this boyfriend online, this guy named Nicholas, And together with Nicholas, Gypsy Rose plotted to murder her mother. And indeed her boyfriend did kill Dee Dee in June 2015. Gypsy was convicted for her role in the murder and was sentenced to seven years in jail and just got out. And she's since said that she was so sheltered, so isolated, so desperate to get out that murder seemed like the only viable option. So why have these Munchausen by proxy stories, particularly this Gypsy Rose one, taken such hold of us? Our fixation with moms with Munchausen by proxy, I think reflects our culture wide fears about what the perfect mother even is.

There's just always this hyper focus on a mother's performance. But mothers with Munchausen by proxy syndrome, according to this time article, make for even better fodder for drama on screen because they're doing the mother Teresa-esque work of caring for a super sick child. And all the while, this unbelievably sinister reality lies underneath. Extreme parenting is fascinating to us and the extreme reactions to that extreme parenting, AKA Gypsy Rose Blanchard participating in the murder of her mother

and then getting out of jail and becoming a TikTok star. This stuff is just true crime gold. But is it a cult story? That's what we're here to find out. Take it from our special guest, Andrea Dunlop, author and podcaster who's here to talk from personal and journalistic experience about how bad the cult of Munchausen by proxy syndrome

is really. Oh my gosh. Hello, friend. Hello, Amanda. Could you please introduce yourself in your work to our listeners? Absolutely. My name is Andrea Dunlop. I am an author, podcaster, mother of two, and I am a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's Munchausen Biproxy Committee, and I have a 501c3 dedicated to supporting Munchausen Biproxy survivors and families going through that. And we also do some work in professional trainings.

And that is the subject of my podcast, which is called Nobody Should Believe Me. Do you ever forget the name of your very own organization? Cause woof, that's a mouthful. 100% I do. And a lot of practice went into that little preamble. And I always feel bad for people who are introducing me because they have to get their head around saying things like American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and Munchausen by proxy. It's a wordy intro. I feel like I've gotten it down to the necessary specifics

at this point. Literally kudos. I know it's tough. I mean, my introduction isn't quite as cumbersome, but people do stumble on the word fanaticism. That really gives people a run for their money tongue twister. Say Munchhausen by Proxy and the language of fanaticism five times fast. Listeners, go. No, I shan't. fanaticism five times fast, listeners, go.

No, I shan't. I shan't. No, that sounds hard. Way too hard. We're not here to torture ourselves. We're here to torture our enemies. And on that note, could you tell us more about your podcast and what led you to create it?

It is so popular. Thank you so much. And yes, I hope I'm not going to be the single most depressing episode on it. It could be dark. But yes, so my podcast is called Nobody Should Believe Me. We have been on the air for one year. We just had our birthday, our first birthday.

And we are in the middle of our third season. So yes, we explore Munchausen by proxy, also known as medical child abuse. We can get into the nuances of those two things that is kind of interesting from a really intimate lens. So I come to it from having a situation with a family member, which we're gonna talk about today, I know, and that led me down this road

of getting involved in the professional sphere, in this app set committee that I'm a part of, and I met all of these interesting people in that committee, and especially Detective Mike Weber, who is a frequent contributor to the show and just thought these stories really needed to be told. I couldn't believe how similar so many of these stories were and I know it's fascinating material and really wanted to put a human face on this issue and set off making the show in 2021 and we've had a really interesting road to get here.

We are doing our third season in real time. We are covering the Kowalski trial, which is happening right now. We are talking on the end of October. That has been a totally different experience than making the other two seasons. It's very like sort of only murders in the building where we have like lots of like things happening in real time and getting updates and so that's been really interesting. Yeah and so we we've looked at a number of cases, we've talked to family members, dads, like non-offending spouse dads, we've talked to survivors, we've talked to a perpetrator, talked to lots of professionals who who know a lot about this topic and have shared amazing information with us and I've ended up sharing a lot more of my personal story than I ever anticipated that I would but it's been a really incredible

experience. The reception for the show has been beyond my wildest dreams honestly. That's amazing to hear. I really relate to your story so much because I don't know if you were a true crime fan before you actually made a true crime podcast. I would say I was a fan of cult content before I wrote my book and made this show, but it was really like having a family member connected to this story that drew me in. And I too have now revealed more details about my family history than I ever anticipated. But I think that personal touch is compelling for a listener, for a reader, because there's a lot of true crime content out there, but to be able to talk about it in a measured, but also vulnerable way is I think pretty special, and you do it so well.

In general, I have to say it really seems like the American healthcare system in particular lends itself to cultishness. We did an episode on the cult of med school. And then of course, there are so many wellness-centric cults throughout history that have emerged in large part because folks tend to lose trust in our healthcare establishment. I wonder why and start craving alternatives. So considering your very unique experience, could you talk about how the American healthcare system in general can lend itself to exploitation and cultishness

in ways that we might not expect? Yeah, that's such a great question. And also thank you for all the kind words. And no, I was not that into true crime before I started this podcast. And I've met so many other amazing people, like I went to CrimeCon a few weeks ago, and I was very surprised and encouraged

at how many people really are victim and survivor forward into advocacy, all of that stuff. But yes, as to the question of the sort of culty nature why this makes it so complicated, having a topic that crosses over or really happens within the American healthcare system is because obviously it's extremely broken system. And I think most people recognize that

and it just leaves lots of holes. So actually, when it comes to what allows offenders to commit this abuse, mostly unchecked, and even the ones who get caught, it's usually after years and years and multiple doctors reporting and multiple CPS investigations, if they ever are held accountable at all, is because it's so fractured. You have these systems where you're seeing all these different providers. It is not the day, you know, my grandfather actually was a doctor. Actually, both grandfathers were doctors.

And they were doctors in such a different time where, like, one was my British grandfather was a doctor in this small British town where he knew everyone and he was the doctor. And it's such a different setup than what we have now where people are seeing multiple providers. Even my American grandfather, you know, he was a general surgeon.

Those like mostly don't exist anymore, right? There's so many specialists and subspecialists and there's these very fractured systems and there's all kinds of things that people have to do to be able to get their healthcare needs met. And so I guess if you told someone 20 years about the idea of like a GoFundMe, or if you told someone in a country

that has like a civilized healthcare, I'd be like, so here's what you do in America. If you have a chronic illness in your family, go on social media, you put some tear jerking details up there, you get some video content, and you try and get strangers to pay for your surgery. I mean, it's insane, right?

It really is, holy shit. I feel like explain it to an alien from an advanced planet. Yeah, no, it's like that. Like so the system itself is bananas. And then you cross that over with sort of like social media taking off. Social media has such a like good and bad effect in this arena, right?

Because like something, like an example of something we see all the time, I've mentioned the GoFundMe. So that's obviously like most people that are using a GoFundMe are legitimately using it to meet health care costs that would otherwise bankrupt them. We want people to have access to that. However, offenders also use it, and it is a way for them to get money,

but often it's more about sort of the attention or being able to enable their habit of keeping this up. And so the same thing with social media sort of writ large. It's really wonderful that in this day and age, if you have a rare disease, or if you have a child with a rare disease, or if you just have a sick child, that you can find all of these online communities

to get support, to get resources, to get referrals. You know, and like one thing I always want to make clear to people is that like the vast majority of people that you see engaging in that kind of thing online are not abusers, but they infiltrate a lot of those communities. And the way that social media has supercharged this behavior and this abusive behavior cannot be understated. And that is every expert I've talked to thinks that and you can see where like our mechanism for getting attention used to be the people that we know in real life and now it's infinite, right? So I mean, it's so complex. And sometimes I think people are critical of me for sort of while you just think the doctors always have it right. No, I don't. Like I have had bad experiences with doctors, most women have bad experiences with doctors. I challenge you to talk to a person who's been through two pregnancies as I have, who has never had a bad experience

with a doctor. But it's also, there is medical misogyny, like that's a real thing. There is classism and racism within the medical community. I mean, there's all these complications. And also that coexist with this form of abuse. And I mean, I sometimes look at my, I'm like, wow, I really couldn't have taken on like an intersection of more complex things. Like we've got the child welfare system, policing and the American healthcare system. I mean, probably three of the most fraught institutions you could possibly. Yeah.

Are you okay? Like, you seem fine. I mean... Yeah, that's... thank you. You know, I will say, I was saying this to a friend earlier today, who kind of like, sometimes I feel like I tell people about my work and I just like, watch their eyes get bigger and bigger. And I will say that like, this is preferable to the period of my life I spent feeling completely helpless

and completely alone. Because before I did this, I had never met another person who'd been through a case. I mean, I knew it couldn't be possible, but I felt like we were the only family on earth that had ever gone through this. And being able to talk to other people, feeling like I have a voice,

feeling like I have a vehicle to give other people a voice, has been a really good thing in my life. So yeah, it has a lot of heart moments. But by and large, this is a better place to be, for sure. It's a burden, but it's a gift. I totally understand that. And the points that you were making about how social media has really poured gasoline on the fire of the type of abuse that

has always existed. Social media has also poured gasoline on the fire of the type of abuse that has always existed. Social media has also poured gasoline on the fire of the type of cults that have always existed, especially in the healthcare space, whether you're talking about your physical health, your mental health, both. And social media just like continues to prove itself to be a mixed blessing. At once, it's wonderful for DIY fringy grassroots movements to be able to find one another. But that also paves the way for really unregulated, charismatic, exploitative gurus to come in.

I will say we do really try and focus on the humanity of these stories and we try really hard not to sort of Fixate on all those gory details that a lot of this coverage does and part of that is because I'm sort of Recognizing that I'm asking people to kind of walk into hell with me And so it's like we need to sort of give them that support along the way And I think having it be like a down-to-earth relatable vehicle is really helpful So I think for people to think about cultishness in that way that you talk about it, I think it's really helpful because then it gives us a language to understand when we're talking about something more serious or we're talking about like a teal swan or like some of these

things that are more harmful. For sure. And you know, you need to mix it up genre wise in your podcast Ear Holes. Oh, I listen to mostly lighthearted podcasts because I don't have any bandwidth at the end of the day. I feel the same way, like I write about cults and delusion and cognitive biases and linguistics all day long. That's why at the end of the night, I just want to watch the great British pottery throw down.

I just want to watch Love is Black. Thank you so much to our sponsor, Sticker Giant, bringing unmatched quality and speed to the world of custom stickers and labels. If you follow us on Instagram, that sounds like a Colpod, you'll see that we had custom sticker giant stickers made out of the sounds like a Colt logo. So freaking cute. If you've ever wanted to make promotional stickers for your brand or for a project that you're working on or literally just for fun, make little stickers of your doggy's face or your loveless face, Sticker Giant is there for you. This

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go-to place to spice up your me time, explore your fantasies, relax and unwind, or even heat things up with a partner. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipsyStories.com slash cult. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to DIPSEAstories.com slash cult. DipsyStories.com slash cult. Oh culties, I am here to tell you about a podcast that you simply must add to your rotation a little bit culty with Sarah and Nippy.

Sarah Edmondsson has been a guest on this show. She was our special guest on our Cult of Self Help episode, but Sarah and Nippy are also dear friends of mine. Their podcast is the reason why I fell in love with them. It is incredible. So, Sarah Edmondsson and Anthony Nippy is his nickname, Ames, were featured in the VOW docu-series on HBO. This incredible docu-series was all about the rise and fall of the cult nexium. This is a real deal cult. We're not talking Disney adults here. Sarah and Nippy

are survivors of nexium. And now they are podcasting up a damn storm. Their podcast is a little bit different. It's a little more serious. They interview fellow cult survivors, whistleblowers, and experts on everything from mind control to dark psychology and political extremism. I was honored to be interviewed on their show. They go there with their episodes. They've covered the Boy Scouts, Scientology. They've talked about the troubled teen industry. What I love about Sarah and Nippy's tone is that it's very hard on its sleeve, very intelligent, it's heavy, but they also manage to keep it a light listen. It's such a unique show. I'm so glad it exists. So go build yourself a parasocial relationship with Sarah and Nippy. You won't regret it. You can catch all new episodes of A Little Bit Coltty every Monday,

so go find their show on your favorite podcast app or learn more at ALittleBitCulty.com. Okay, so speaking of the personal, in your podcast, you talk about how your sister was investigated for a munchausen by proxy. How's my pronunciation? It's perfect spot on. It's perfect. Thank you so much. Your sister was investigated for munch-housen by proxy syndrome. You detailed this history of behaviors, including her faking a pregnancy with twins and then faking the loss of that pregnancy. You talk about her medically abusing her son and daughter. Can you start by just sort of telling us that story and the effect that it had on your family? Yeah, so my sister has been investigated twice for medical child abuse. And so I was kind of mentioned this earlier of those like we have a very vigorous terminology

debate that happens in this world and on our committee. The terminology is sort of at the heart of this confusion about this. So I still use the term Munchausen by proxy quite a bit because it is the term that if people have heard of this at all, that's probably how they know it, right? But it actually is a colloquial term and it means two separate things that are intertwined. So there is the act of medical child abuse,

which is when a perpetrator invents, induces, or exaggerates an illness in their child causing harm to that child, right? And then there is fictitious disorder imposed on another. So that's what's actually in the DSM fact, right? So if you're talking about an underlying sort of mental disorder, that is what you're talking about. The crime of medical abuse is separate. They are intertwined. The crime of medical abuse can also happen for other reasons. There are some people who over-medicate their children,

over-mediculize their children because they are anxious and have gotten a hold of a bad doctor who are having outright delusions, right? So someone who's suffering from some kind of postpartum psychosis might over medicalize their child. So those require different interventions, but the reason we sort of like to focus these days on the medical child abuse picture is that it obviously it centers the child, right? And that's the person who needs to be protected, and that's the harm that's being done.

It is so astounding how many parallels there are between the terminology that you're discussing and the terminology surrounding cults because cult is a colloquial term. There is no legal or hard and fast official definition for what a cult is. It is in the eyes of the bull holder. That's like the more serious foundation to this light hearted show. And starting a cult is not itself illegal. After all, not every group that has been or could be labeled a cult is even bad or dangerous. That's why holding cult leaders accountable legally is so difficult because you have to be able to identify a crime. Like with Keith Ranieri, it was sex trafficking and racketeering. And that was like a watershed trial because a cult leader had never been convicted and sentenced for that

exact conviction before. So the nuances of the terminology are actually pretty fascinating and important in both contexts. They are and they really speak to, again, yes, some of the parallels and some of what we get fixated and focused on. So like you said there, it's like those were the crimes he committed. Did he do other harms in addition to that? Yeah, absolutely. And we get very focused on like, well, what was up with him? And it's like, well, we should be centering the people that it happened to, right, the people who were victimized by that. And so that's, I think when you're talking about the crime,

rather than the psychology piece, psychology piece is really interesting. That's worth exploring, for sure. But I think it's like we have to be focused on like, this person is causing harm. This person is abusive. They are committing a crime in some cases. So true because with Munchausen by proxy, like you were saying, that's a piece of terminology

that gets people's attention. But there's a downside to it too. And that's the same with cult. If you want to identify a really damaging abusive group, cult will get it in headlines, but then you kind of need to unpack, well, what does that word even really mean? And is that the most important thing to be discussing here? Or do we need to get more specific? Yeah, it's so true. So yes, so that was all the preamble to say that, yes, so my sister's been investigated for medical child abuse twice. The first time was almost 14 years ago now,

so quite a long time ago. And that was for her older son. At that point, my family and I, my parents and I were extremely concerned about that situation and did feel strongly that something was wrong. There was no action by the state as a result of that investigation.

And so basically we went through this whole process and then at the end of it, she was like, well, you're out of my life. She cut us out of her life. She cut us out of her child's life. And we have been estranged from her ever since then. It was horrible for my family. It was incredibly isolating. Everyone has horrible things happen

to them and everyone has horrible things happen in their family. But even if you're talking about something like, oh, if someone got cancer or even something, you know, like a, like a death by suicide, it's like there's, we have a sort of cultural context for it. And so you don't have to spend sort of 20 minutes explaining what it is. So that was really awful. And I was close to my sister when we were growing up. Our relationship got increasingly difficult as we got older because of the series of behaviors. But I did not envision ever having a life without her and I did not envision being in a situation where I did not have a sister and was not, you know, getting to see my niece and nephew grow up.

So it was very sad. It was very hard. And this is something that families do not survive intact. You know, it's really something that getting into sort of the coltiness of it, I mean, I think one of the strongest cult parallels is the us and them mentality. Like when you have one of these situations, either you believe that person's version of reality regardless of what evidence you're presented with,

or you are dead to them. And that has been true for all of reality regardless of what evidence you're presented with or you are dead to them. And that has been true for all of the members of my family and really everyone she knew in her old life. So it's sort of like it's a very you're with me or you're against me situation. It took a huge toll and I talked to a lot of people that are at various stages and with family members or people who are survivors and you know a lot of people say oh I really want to tell my story and I really want to be able to help other people and I always just kind of counsel those people like listen if you're looking at me where I am right now I was not here a couple years and

this really took a long time to be able to process to the extent that I end up writing a novel about it that came out in 2019 and that's sort of where this whole thing started from but even to get to, I mean, it really took a long time before I could do any unpacking and certainly before I was going to be helpful to anyone else. Yeah. Well, I mean, I so admire it and I relate to it too because there can be a certain amount of fear or shame that comes with coming out with a story

like this, like this happened to my family, this happened to me. And you open yourself up to judgment, like how could you allow this? And that's something that I think people who are related to former or current cult followers can really resonate with. But I've found actually in my own experience that people are really receptive to these stories. And even if they can't relate to them directly, it somehow gives them permission to tell their own truth, to make art about it, to explore it in ways that they might not have before and that just like creates a less lonely

world, like a more empathetic world and there's so much value in that. I think that's like one of the biggest threats to cultishness is like more listening and more empathy and more compassion for others. Yeah, I think that one of the strongest things about cults like or high control organizations I think is that right is that whatever the official term for that is not used to call a real term. But I think that the allure of being in an organization like that and the allure of being part of a family. I mean, I think in some ways the line between a cult and a family is pretty blurry, right?

So true. And so I think the allure of that is that closeness and that connection and that community that's something that all human beings crave. And so I think being able to create some sense of community around that experience has been really helpful to me and I think is the antidote to just like if we're all alone out here, it's like there's there we're not going to be able to sort of push anything forward. And so I think being able to come together around something that is yeah, and there is a lot of a lot of stigma. There's a lot of shame. There's a lot of disbelief and misunderstanding. And so all of those things are very difficult to deal with alone. Absolutely. The last line in my book is life is far too peculiar to go at it all alone.

It doesn't even have to be that heavy, you know? It's just like life is weird. Let's do it together and let's make space for people to ask questions about it and be confused about it and not have all the answers. So we rubberneck at cults in a similar way to rubber necking at true crime. The first season of your pod nobody should believe me covers. This woman named Hopi Bara. This is a less famous case than Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee, but basically it's the tale of this Texas mom who faked her own cancer as well as her kids illness. When to prison for 10 years there are also some personal details from your life in that season. And I noticed in fan discourse of your show that

there were a lot of listeners early on who were wondering about the lack of very specific details about what your sister did in that season. And I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what went into the decision to withhold personal details in the first season and then include more as you continued making the show. Like, were you nervous about backlash or lawsuits at first? Was some producer trying to silence you? I just want to know about the kind of like personal detail aspect about that in your case. You know, similar to it sounds like Amanda, how you approach this topic.

It's like when you have something like this in your life and you're a writer or a storyteller of any kind, you know, it's gonna come up, right? And I think when I originally conceived of the idea for the podcast, I was not someone who had talked very much about my personal life at all. You know, I had a career as an author. I had talked a little bit. You know, I had my book, We Came Here to Forget, which came out in 2019, and that was partially based on my life.

So I had opened up about that a bit in public, but not with any detail. And so when we went into making the podcast, I was very reticent to share personal details. I didn't want the focus to be really on me. And then as we started making it, you know, I was like, okay, I'll say something about my connection to it, but just kind of leave it pretty vague. And then as we got into making that first season,

and we were talking to Hope Yabara's family, and she had such uncanny similarities with my sister in terms of the behaviors, like they had both had fake twin girl pregnancies and The yabbaras were the first people I ever talked to who had a family situation And they were so wonderful and like I just felt this like profound connection with them like right away

So as we were talking about those things I was like, okay Well, like there's no way for my personal story to not sort of enter the chat here. It just doesn't make any sense. And also, you know, the stuff I talked about in the first season, you know, I didn't use her name. And I talked about this stuff that had happened with her that happened while I was there, right? So the fake pregnancy and some of the other health stuff that happened in high school. And then, you know, sort of a very thousand-yard view of what happened in the first investigation and how we came to be estranged.

And so, yeah, I didn't include very much detail, but I also felt like I was like, you know, this is my life story too. Like, these are things that happened to me while I was there. So I have the right to talk about them. And as I said, I just didn't feel there was a way to do this project in an authentic way where I didn't. And so sure enough, things changed quite a bit between seasons one and season two. And so I'll kind of just tell the story about how and why I ended up sharing a lot more. So basically, we're first making this show, you know, we made the

first season as a limited series, and we had the first eight episodes, and we were ready to launch them. And I had legally vetted the whole thing because my sister had sent me a legal challenge even over the novel. So I knew that that was going to come. And so I wanted to make sure I was all eyes dotted and teased across to speak. And so we did. Sure enough, the day before the podcast was launched, we got a cease and desist for my sister. I knew it was coming. And we were working with a big company at that point. We had a distribution partner and they wanted me to make some editorial changes to the show

in light of that legal challenge and I was not comfortable with that. And so we ended up parting ways. And I have been very glad to be an independent podcaster as I've gotten more into this. That's what I'll say about that. But that was right before I was about to have a baby. So we ended up launching the show about six months later, just as an independent show. But as a result of that process, when we were going through kind of that legal back and forth,

I finally did a public records request into my sister's case because the second investigation that happened, which this happened back in 2018, I believe the investigation began, into her younger daughter. And this had involved a two year long police investigation. So I think it was Detective Mike, who told me, he was like, well, you should do a public records request because there will probably be something. And I don't have a background as investigative journalist, so I was just like,

that wasn't something I needed to do. So I opened that request just to see what documentation I could find, and this was over the course of 2022 when we were airing the first season. You know, I was getting all this documentation, and I'd been estranged from her for a long time when her daughter was born. So I knew that it had happened. I knew the investigation had happened because I had talked to the police detective and we were, you know, very peripherally involved. But I didn't know a lot of specifics about what had happened in that case. And so as I got ahold of all that documentation, I just really was very disturbed by what I found, both the details of what appeared to have happened and also the way that it was handled. I was very upset in the end that the prosecutor

had declined to file charges and the family court judge that made a decision to return her kids to her during the police investigation, which then made it into our local and international media as positioning her as being a person who'd been falsely accused. That had a big fallout, especially for the doctor, who's just got her reputation completely trashed. And so having all of that backstory, at that point, I just thought, I can't not talk about this. And I was really lucky by that point in that I had all these professionals that I was on the committee with and I had some survivors

in my life. And I talked to those people and really just said like, if I was your aunt, like what would you want me to do? What is the right thing to do here? Because I feel like the right thing to do is to share this. And they said that, yeah, they wished that people who had had information about what was happening in their case had been louder about it. And also, in seeing how all of these other cases have played out, most of the time the system fails. So the only thing you can do at that point is try and have that information out there so that you have more eyes on those children. And so, first and foremost, I did it as a protective act towards the Manesan FU.

And then beyond that, I also, I thought this doctor was so badly treated and had intervened and done the right thing and then got her life ruined over it. And so that was also a motivation. And then also, like I said, those systems that I felt like hadn't been held accountable for their inaction,

I wanted to hold them accountable. And also, I think by that time, yeah, we were making the show and I had gotten that question a lot and I sort of realized at that point, now that I know all of this, I can't be the keeper of this knowledge. I can't just know these things and go forward and not say it. And so, yeah, I made a decision in my second season, episode seven. You know, I said her name and said everything I knew and gave it context. And we interviewed the doctor who did the record review. And she talked us about her testimony. And it was very scary to do that.

I definitely had a lot of sleepless nights leading up to that. And a lot of conversations with my parents and my husband, and they were very supportive. I really stand by that decision and feel very strongly that it was the right thing to do. Wow, it is such a fascinating story, and I really respect the hoops that you've had to jump through to tell it. I personally think that your family tie allows you to provide more passion so that people actually pay attention.

You know, that's how I like to listen to stories. I love what you said about that it doesn't make you the wrong person to tell the story, it makes you the right person because that is something that I get from people who disagree with me slash, in some cases, don't believe that this is a real phenomenon, is that, oh, you had this situation with your sister and now you just see it everywhere and you're totally biased. And I'm like, okay, am I biased?

Yes, I'm a human being. Welcome to Earth. But like, I also am bringing expertise to this and a ton of research. And like, I think I did want other people to tell this story. Like, I didn't actually want to be the one to have to do that. But then at some point, it just became clear that I was like, oh, you know what, no matter what decisions I made along the way or how I tried to be like, I'm only gonna tell a little bit of this story, but I'm gonna hold back this part or whatever. Like it was always just gonna come to this. So it's like, I mean, I think it's a it's a fair warning to anybody who wants to dig into something that has to do with family members. Like, you will come to a point where you cannot unknow what you know. And then you're gonna have to make a decision.

And so like, I'm very glad that I was doing this at the time in my life where like, I had a lot of stability and I was a little bit older and I had just more experience in my career and all those things because there was a time where I just don't think I could have made that choice in a way that would have been healthy for me mentally and this did turn out to be the right time.

For sure, oh my gosh, so many challenges from so many different angles. I mean with the podcast network not allowing you to share this true story. I was joking before we started recording about the cult of podcasting but I will come back on for that one any time. Oh my god. Oh my god. I know way too many people who have thoughts. Yeah, and I mean, I think it's a position of privilege to be in that I was able to make this show on my own and that I was able to deal with all that legal back and forth and I'm hugely recognized that.

And I think that also put some extra onus on me because I felt like, well, okay, because I can do this and it's not going to ruin me. I mean, it's very hard to get me fired from my job at this point. So because that is something that doctors, for instance, have to always deal with. I mean, we're covering this Maya Kowalski case right now, fairly or unfairly, especially because they

have to deal with HIPAA. They can't really talk to the press. They can't defend themselves. They are very vulnerable. It's sort of the cults of med school episode you talked about. We have this sort of idea of doctors as kind of larger than life or these sort of the cults of med school episode you talked about. We have this sort of idea of doctors as kind of larger than life or like these sort of

superhero figures, but they are deeply vulnerable when it comes to these cases because they can't defend themselves and often their organizations will want them to settle out of court or like whatever. I mean, there's all the stuff that happens. And so I'm in a pretty unique position to be able to speak up about it and I'm not a vulnerable person in any of these other ways that, you ways that people just might not want to have to deal with a lawsuit however frivolous. And big companies are always gonna have

that bottom line thing, and they're conservative for a reason, I get that. It's just like for me, for this project, it was like the best thing has been to be independent. And I think there's a lot to be said for that. Here, here, independent women. We were discussing earlier how important it is to humanize the victims in these stories, whether we're talking about medical child abuse or cults. There's obviously so much dehumanization of victims in tragedies like Jonestown and Heaven's Gate.

And it's so important to humanize the people involved and the people who suffered because they are often smart, optimistic, service-minded individuals who really haven't done anything wrong or if they did, it was under incredible coercion and manipulation. So that's an important conversation to have. And at the same time to not glamorize the perpetrator, right? Because like cult leaders are glamorized as these like charismatic evil geniuses when oftentimes

they're just like middle-aged white male opportunists that aren't that special or just conditioned to think they are. That said, I'm curious, realistically, what are some of the causes of medical child abuse either psychologically in the perpetrator or like structurally, what does the system bring out in them? Yeah, it's such a good question. And so, I mean, the answer is like, we don't really know what causes someone to like become a perpetrator. Like there always isn't any abuse situation. You know, there's some thought that there's a correlation

between okay, if you had childhood trauma, are you more likely to become an abuser? I think that's probably true across the board. But however, there are many stories that I've heard. Some people who are abusers had traumatic childhoods, some had perfectly normal and seemingly lovely childhoods. So it doesn't seem to be a strong correlation there. I think what we can talk more about is sort of like

the traits of perpetrators that have in common. And this is, by the way, coming from my expert colleagues on the committee. And I'm just talking about sideways, but you know, there's a very high instance of comorbidity with the cluster B personality disorders. Oh, the good old cluster B. Who doesn't know someone from the good old cluster B. And it's so funny because I feel like I can kind of throw that out there, because TikTok has normalized all this discussion about narcissistic personality disorder. And so that's like that one, histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder.

So there's a hugely high instance of those things. And the people who have the fact that it's just sort of imposed on another, it's characterized by intentional deception. So that's something I think it's really important for people to understand that it is very different from someone who is a hypochondriac or who's anxious or who's having delusions. They know what they're doing. They understand right from wrong. They are not sort of insane in a way that would add to like a criminal defense.

So it's sort of like the mental health question can really cut both ways because it shouldn't be used as a defense for behavior. It's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, it's not my fault. I'm just a narcissist. Right, right. Right. So I mean, and these, I mean, those things alone, those cluster B personalities are difficult enough on their own. And then you add this into there. And so a question we get a lot is, you know, is this treatable in any way? And there is some very respectful disagreement amongst experts about that in my experience. You know, I think everyone agrees that it's very rare that a perpetrator would be able to be treated most of the time. You are never going to get anything like accountability for the behavior. And that is the first step of the accepts model which is what they use which is sort of it's almost analogous to like a sort of 10 step program or sort of

it's sort of around those things where it's like you first have to take accountability for the behavior and acknowledge the harm you've caused and that kind of thing and so most people who've committed this crime cannot take it to step one. It's very rare but I do have you know wonderful colleague from Stanford Dr. Mary Sanders who has done a lot of work with perpetrators and she has had some success. And you know, success looks different in every case. For those more severe cases, obviously, you're not talking about putting children back in the home. You're talking about having that perpetrator be able to have, you know, some level of like healthy contact with them and a better situation for the whole family. But

it is very challenging. And I think where it really comes into contact with all that cult stuff is the manipulation of others. And yeah, we get that same stereotype, I think, with much as my proxy offenders, 96% are women. And we can talk a little bit about the gendered aspects. It's very fascinating. But we get a little of that same stereotype where you think like, oh, this person's like a master manipulator.

And some of them are. I mean, Hope Yabara definitely was. She was incredibly smart. She was a lead chemist at a company. She really was like a very sort of intelligent kind of mastermind type. Oh, yeah. There are mastermind cult leaders.

Like, I think Jim Jones was very unique. Jim Jones was a master code switcher. He was extremely well read. He could quote the Bible and Nietzsche in the space of one sentence. You know, that was unique. But most cult leaders are like, kind of not the brightest bulb in the shed. Right, and they're just predators. I mean, so I think like, you know, Brittany Phillips, the perpetrator we covered in the second season,

you know, she was not especially bright, but nonetheless, she got away with it for years and years and years. So I think it's like they are especially terrifying when they're very smart and very charismatic and very like warm and likeable Which plenty of them are but they are not all that way by any means So let's talk about some of the gender dynamics because there's a lot of speculation about like why are cult leaders the way they are You know, is it just the patriarchy? You know like builds up the confidence of a mediocre white cult leader, you know, like what is it? And you can't help but notice that a lot of the cult leaders that the media pays very close attention to, including Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite and David Koresh, they

are white men. And most of the people who are diagnosed with Munchausen by proxy or convicted of medical child abuse are women. And there has to be a reason for those patterns. You know, what's going on there? Yeah, I mean, it's so fascinating. This is something that I've thought a great deal about because I think making this show

and really getting into this topic can feel very complicated as a feminist, which I am very much a feminist. And I'm a mom, right? So it's sort of like, yeah, it's like very impossible to be a good mom, right? You're always doing it wrong. There is that sort of societal and cultural expectations

around moms are ridiculous. And I certainly think also the medical establishment, right, is deeply misogynist just at its roots, right? Because it didn't even sort of like include women until about 40 years ago, right? So it's like you didn't have women. I'm going to get the dates wrong. But it was only a few decades ago that women started being included in clinical trials.

Oh, yeah. It was the 70s. It was like second wave feminism era. Yeah. So it's like, oh, yeah, ladies. Their bodies are a little bit different. Maybe we should devote some specific thought to that. And I mean, you see that, honestly, going through, again, like going through pregnancy,

you're just like, why is this thing that happens to most of half the world's population at some point in their life treated as like the single most mysterious thing that's like, it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. I mean, go on forever about that. So it's like, those things are very real.

However, I think sometimes people are like, well, people are wrongly accused or wrongly suspected of medical child abuse because of medical misogyny. And that, I think, is actually exactly backwards. Because what you see is, I mean, number one, I think when you think about, like, what doctors are like and how they're trained, Anyone who works in pediatrics, a huge part of their training is that you are very reliant on the parent's history. So doctors are making diagnoses 99 times out of 100 based on a parental history if you're talking about really young children. I mean that plays out to anybody who's taken their kids to the pediatrician. It's like, you know, they're like,

well, what are they doing? How are they eating? How are they sleeping? And it's a 10 minute visit. How are you going to know if they're not telling you the truth? And most parents would never lie, right? So they come into it with a very strong assumption that that mother is telling them the truth and most of the time it's mothers who are taking care of children. And I think where the gender dynamics play out is part of it's just culturally, like who takes care of children in this culture, it's women. And I also think interestingly enough, because I've thought very deeply about this, and Mike Weber and I have talked about, and we've talked about this on the show, this sort of really interesting parallel with child sex abuse, and most of those offenders are male, right? And so I think that people who are predators find

power where they can. So true. And this is really the one place that we give women unchecked power. The one place that we give women absolute authority is over their children and like literally. Oh my god, it's like no fair men get to start cults in finance, in spirituality, you know, in sex. It's like what, we just have to recruit our children into-

We get motherhood. Yeah, we get motherhood. Yeah, that's all we get. We get motherhood. Like God damn it. No, it's so true. And so I think like to me that, you know, Mark Feldman always says, Dr. Mark Feldman, who is like one of the top experts

in the world on this, he says, medical child abuse is a crime of opportunity. And so it's like, that's where they have the opportunity. And they are using, just as child sex predators do, they are using the child to get their needs met. So in this case, it's the intrinsic emotional need of attention and sympathy. And so I think that that's part of why it breaks down that way.

And it's also like motherhood is, I think, the single strongest archetype of all. I think the archetype of the mother is the central archetype for most religions. I mean, you can't find a more powerful archetype. And it's the thing that most religions want to control the most is reproduction. Yes. And that's why, because it's so powerful, right? And it's like that we can go on a whole side conversation about sort of reproductive rights

and all that. But it's like, yeah, I mean, it's like, that is why it is so powerful. And so I think what you see is like where male child sex predators will find these positions of trust and authority to hide in, right? Whether it's the church or the baseball coach or the Boy Scout leader, which we have had our cultural revelation about that, right? We're like, okay, the child sex predator is not the creepy guy on the corner. It is the baseball coach. It's the people people love and trust. And

so I think like motherhood is that same institution to sort of hide in. And I think where the gender bias actually comes in is on the other side. I think that where you get to sort of hide in and I think where the gender bias actually comes in is on the other side I think that where you get this sort of benevolent Sexism of like well women would never do something evil or deranged or violent You know, I think that we have this very strong Thing of like not wanting to look at it and we don't recognize female violence And it looks so different than male violence,

and that is an observation my colleague, B Yorker, made that I just thought was so cogent, that we know what hitting someone looks like, or even sex abuse it looks like, and this idea of this quieter, hidden, sort of more subterfuge, kind of quote, they sometimes say in these old cases, like killing with kindness, which is such a weird phrase phrase. But you know, when you're talking about like

poisoning or suffocation or these other kind of things, you know, it's like, it's just the idea that someone could seem like a nice mom on the outside and be doing this is so terrifying to people that I watch them do the most unbelievable mental gymnastics to push it away and to just explain away. And it's like you get to this point in these cases. I mean, even with my sister's case, you know, it's like, here's someone who's been investigated twice. It was by day she's been reported by, you know, four different institutions, like, so you're telling me all these people are in a conspiracy with each other to, they're out to get this person for no reason. And I mean, that's really the same thing that's happening in this Kowalski trial right now where I like watch people absorb this information. They're like, well, I mean, maybe those like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, you know, they're out to get this person for no reason. And I mean, that's really the same thing that's happening in this Kowalski trial right now, where I like watch people absorb this information. They're like, well, I mean, maybe those like weird emails were just a coping mechanism, or you know, maybe she just really was, and it's like, no,

there's just at some point, you have such an overwhelming amount of information, and so many people saying the same thing and observing the same pattern, that you have to get into completely conspiracy-minded theory, which another again, sort of like cults. You have to be so committed to that version of reality that you just won't see outside of it. Yeah, of course. Cult leaders are made somehow, and it's truly a mystery, a combination of nature, nurture,

and personality and systems and whatever, like what makes each individual cult leader. And it's just like, you want to look away. It's like, let women be cult leaders. Just let them have it. And I mean, I think, you know, one, one observation that again, this comes from my colleague, Dr. Mary Sanders, who has worked with more of these perpetrators than anyone else, you know, is that they are deeply disempowered women. And so I do think it's like not to make that as an excuse.

And I do think actually the cult extends it's most powerful with your children. And of course, it's very easy to be a cult leader of your children because you have all those things that cult leaders have over there, which like control of their information. We all control the information that comes to our kids. We all control their behavior to some extent, right? But you can see where it's so easy to like.

Oh, I have every intention to conduct weird linguistics experiments on my children. I love that. Teach them that you're only allowed to speak in rhyme. Full linguistics cult leader behavior. I'm here for it. But yeah, so I think like, you know, if it's like it was the patriarchy all along,

I mean, I think there is an element of that because now would these people be living completely virtuous lives without that? No, but I think like you are looking at those factors, right? It isn't just, I mean, because I think like I obviously want to humanize mostly, you know, survivors and families and that kind of thing, but also perpetrators because I don't think it's helpful to just be like that lady's a monster and she's totally, because it's like, that doesn't help us address the situation. It's not the right way to look at it.

And I think it's so wild to me how people are so bifurcated on this issue, because like, it's like, you look at the two major cases and granted, they do both involve white women and something I am exploring more in my subsequent season of the show is sort of how race and socioeconomic status play into this and I'm having an expert on this season to talk about some of those things. But like, you know, these two cases that people know about if they have heard about this are

the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case where an adult survivor that didn't know how old she was because her mom had hidden that information from her conspired with a boyfriend that she met online to murder her mother, Gypsy Rose Blanchard is getting out of jail soon. So you have the DD Gypsy Rose Blanchard story and then this Maya Kowalski story where this Netflix film, Take Care of Maya came out and that really positioned Beata Kowalski

as an innocent mom who was torn apart from her child and died by suicide as a result and that this was a false accusation. We are covering that story. It is extremely complex to say that that Netflix film got it wrong is the understatement of the century. Netflix got a story wrong, shocking. Can't believe it. I think I've made peace with the fact that I'm never getting a deal from Netflix after this season. But anyway, so it's really interesting to look at the way people react to those stories because here you have a story.

It's like two potential perpetrators. Neither of them was ever convicted of a crime and neither of them was ever diagnosed with factitious disorder imposed on another. So you have two perpetrators, both are gone. In the Gypsy Rose Dee Dee Blanchard case, everyone looks at that story and goes, that lady is a monster, she's deranged, she was obviously guilty, but there are so many people

on this Biotic Walski story that is like, despite the several institutions that reported her, no matter what evidence is thrown in the mix, there are these people that are just like, that is a wrongly accused mom. And what's the differentiator? Class. You're talking about a poor woman who, you know, her family who was interviewed in that Mommy Dead and Dearest documentary have those sort of strong Louisiana accents. And then you have the Kowalskis who are this nice upper middle class white family.

And the daughter is this beautiful 17-year-old blonde white girl. And it's like, I see people being influenced by that so much. And neither of these is right. The martyr narrative is flawed. The monster narrative is flawed. And so it's so fascinating to see how people metabolize these stories.

Absolutely. Because these stories themselves are pretty niche. Actually, the biggest revelation for me of making the first season is that not a single expert I spoke to thinks that this is rare. Oh, shit. That has been borne out by my experience of making the show, especially of his grown. I hear from people, mostly I would say daily, who are either doctors who've had a case, survivors who've lived through a case,

people who've had a case in their family. That's why I set up my 501c3 was because we wanted to have a place like support groups and be able to kind of manage this input. And I went in believing, I'm the strangest story in the world and these stories all sound so similar. And every single person who reaches out says, I thought I was the only story in the world and these stories all sound so similar and every single person who reaches out says

I thought I was the only person in the world and I do not any longer believe that is rare I absolutely stand corrected Let me rephrase these stories are seldom spoken of perhaps but I think anyone could listen to this conversation and relate to a cultish aspect of it the The cult of classism, the cult of one dynamic, the opportunism, it's just the perfect encapsulation of this theory that cultish abuse can show up in places you might not think to look.

So I know this is a bit of a departure tonally for the subject matter. That's how we refresh ourselves for the game period of the show. You know where we're going. You know, light a candle, take a swig of something, we're moving on to the game portion of Sounds Like A Cult. Touch some grass as the kids say, you know.

So we're gonna keep it simple. We're gonna play a classic Sounds Like A Cult game. It's just called What's Cultier. Because it is so easy to rubber neck at true crime stories, but sometimes the much more insidious cults are groups and gurus that we're all used to seeing every day. So I am going to read a list of pairings, one of them being Munchausen by Proxy slash Child Medical Abuse, and one of them being another everyday cult that we've covered on this show,

and you're going to determine what's cultier. Oh my God, wow, okay, all right. I would have had a different variety of drink with me if I knew this word. I was like, I'm ready, okay, let's go. Okay, fortunately you can't lose. Which is cultier? Munchausen by proxy slash medical child abuse

or Elon Musk in his antics. Oh my God. Well, I think just out of sheer number and impact, we've gotta go with Elon Musk because I think just on the financial impact level because I don't see any single perpetrator being able to like destroy Twitter for example. Sure. Although if Elon Musk had been born a woman and forced into motherhood. Oh he would be just an absolute terrifying individual so um. Oh my god can you

imagine Elon Musk as a mother? Ilana? Ilana Musk? I think about this man a lot because he has so many children. And like if a woman tried to have any kind of intact reputation with 14 different children by different people, I mean, like I can't even imagine. And he's just out here with all these children. I mean, that's yeah, his, him as a father is like a whole, that's a whole, that's somebody's whole doctoral thesis. So if someone would like that, you're welcome. Oh, for sure. Totally.

Okay, from now on, I'll be referring to Munchasin by proxy slash child medical abuse with just the abbreviation MPB, just to keep it simple. So now we have a full acronym round. What's cultier? MPB or MLMs? Oh my gosh. Well, here is an answer for you. The cultiest thing is when they cross over. The Venn diagram. It's the Venn diagram. I went on Roberta Blevin's podcast and we talked about

the unholy crossover of this because I was like, I feel like there's an uncanny connection. And we talked about, and sure enough, there is because you are talking about the unchecked sort of what happens to women who maybe have bad impulses when they are disempowered by the world around them. And that can get real ugly. And so I think the cultiness, the us, them, like all of that I think is like, and there's more crossover. I hate to tell people this who are, you know, like thinking about dabbling in an MLM.

There's lots of other reasons not to dabble in an MLM, but boy, I see some people's social media profiles and I'm like, ooh, it's both. Holy shit. Yeah. There's gotta be an MLM somewhere where like as a part of your monthly quota, you have to convince 10 children that they're sick.

Oh my God. I mean, well, and the thing is though, because there's so much infiltration in MLMs in this like wellness space. And there is a very like, all of that sort of like wellness alternative medicine again most of it not People who are abusing their children, but like of course that provides kind of a perfect cover for like the medical system is bad The medical system is out to get us. I mean, it's really a unholy

crossover to to say the least it's like all the anti-vax MLM girly screaming hashtag save the children from the cult of the elite medical establishment. I'm like, maybe we should be saving the children from you girl. Your kid should not be drinking essential oils. Okay, for time's sake, now we're gonna do a lightning round. No justification, just vibes.

What's cultier? MVP or the Boy Scouts? Boy Scouts. Okay, there it is. Oh, I won a prize, but it's a lightning round. Okay, what's Kultier, MVP, or evangelical mega churches? Mega churches, and just because of the little impact. I know it's lightning round,

I'm not supposed to explain it, I just wanted to. That was a very lightning-y delivery of that justification, so I'll allow it. If I say it fast enough, it doesn't count. There we go. Completely. What's Kultier, child abuse edition, MVP or the troubled teen industry? Oh, God. Um, you know what? I'm gonna go with MVP on that one. Okay, there it is. What's Kultier, MVP or the Cult of Plastic Surgery?

Ooh, again, I'm gonna go with MVP. Fair. What's cultier, MVP or Swifties? Oh my God, I'm gonna go with MVP because I love and respect Swifties. You are not a cult, you are a benevolent organization. Please never come after me. Don't pander, don't pander.

It's okay, I pass, I pass. Listen, I joke all the time. I pass as a Swiftie. I'm literally wearing my dark blue Taylor Swift sweatshirt right now, but handle this nuance, I didn't obtain it. A Swifty friend of mine obtained it for me. Do I wear it every day?

Yes, am I a Swifty? You'll never know. Okay. Plausible deniability. And I just, I do wanna say, like, I appreciate that game and also just, you know, like having a little bit of a gallows humor laugh about this stuff is so necessary when you are as deep in it as I am.

I am so hopefully. I think your listeners get that, but yes. Yeah, thank you for saying that. It's with pure reverence for the subject matter look. I had my dad as a guest on a recent episode of Sounds Like a Colt. And this is someone who has capital T, cult trauma. And the dude listens to every single episode

of Sounds Like a Colt, he gets it. Like, we're bringing Gallo's humor to the subject matter and sometimes we don't get it right, totally, but we're really trying here. No, I love it. It's a tightrope exercise that you guys have got going and I think you do a great job. It really is.

Thank you. Okay, last one. What's cultier? MVP or the podcasting industry? Oh boy. All right, I'm gonna go with MVP on that one mostly because I think the podcasting industry hasn't figured out exactly what it is yet.

Yeah, so true. The podcasting industry has legitimately made me ill. It's not a fakery. I am ill. So now we're coming to the point where I ask you the final big question. Andrea, the cult of Munchausen by proxy slash child medical abuse. Do you think it's a live your life? Oh, watch your back. Or get the fuck out level cult.

It is the get the fuck out level of get the fuck out cults that has ever existed. Of course, I agree. It's gotta be. It's gotta be the get the fuck outiest. Of course. I agree. It's gotta be. It's gotta be the Get the Fuck Audiist. Absolutely.

Get the Fuck out. Do not support people who you suspect are doing this. Be brave. Don't join this cult. Don't support it. Don't look away. Andrea, thank you so much for being here and chatting about the subject matter and bearing with the delicate dance of appearing on a lighthearted cult show to talk about

munchausenbyproxy.com. If folks would like to keep up with you and your glorious work, where can they do that? Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me. This was such a great talk. I hope I'm not going to give all your listeners nightmares forever. I'm very online on Instagram. So I'm just Andrea Dunlop over on Instagram, and then you can find my podcast, Nobody Should Believe Me. Wherever you listen to podcasts, it's on Apple, it's on Spotify,

it's on all the places. The whole nine yards, amazing. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week, but in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. But in the meantime, stay culterson. Our intern is Reese Oliver. Thank you as well to our partner, All Things Collie.

And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and Before Coming, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Come and join me for the cultiest event of the season. Oh hey, it sounds like a cult host Amanda here to invite you this April to New York, Boston, and Philly where I'm putting on a culty variety show that you are not going to want to miss. This show, Cult Gathering, extravaganza,

features guest appearances from the Cult Followed podcasters behind Normal Gossip, Petty Crimes, Love Letters and Strange Customs, plus Drag Burlesque performances, a musical guest, exclusive merch of meet and greet, and more. And this just in, for the New York event, use the code Colt magic no spaces at checkout for 10% off your ticket a copy of my new book is also included in the price it's going to be a hoot and Annie recruit your friends ticket links can be found at the link in our Instagram bio at sounds like a cult pod or on our website sounds like a cult.com