“My mother invented illnesses for me”: Olga Yarmolovich about childhood in hospitals and the search for non-existent symptoms
Miscellaneous / / April 03, 2023
When a person has delegated Munchausen syndrome, the weakest members of the family fall under its influence.
Taking care of children is natural. But excessive attention to their health can make parents real enemies. This happened to Olga Yarmolovich.
Her mother is sick delegated Munchausen's syndrome. This is a mental disorder in which the patient fabricates symptoms that require constant treatment. At the same time, unlike the classical form of the syndrome, its actions are directed not at itself, but at a person dependent on it, most often a child.
Throughout her childhood, Olga was taken to doctors and diagnosed with diagnoses that had nothing to do with her, from blood diseases to brain cancer. We talked to her about how she managed to escape from her mother's caringly suffocating embrace and why she decided to write a book about it.
Olga Yarmolovich
“You can’t question the doctor’s words”
- In the book you say that before the age of 5 you got sick only once. What changed then? Why did your mother start taking you to doctors from this age? Do you connect her exacerbation of Munchausen's syndrome with the move?
- I rather associate it with the collapse USSR. My mother was a very ambitious person: she graduated from medical school, married a military man and followed him to Latvia. There she worked as a doctor, which was considered very prestigious.
Then, when everything collapsed, she had to return to Russia. There was no point in getting a job in Tver - you still have to go for your husband, wherever he is.
However, soon the parents settled in St. Petersburg for a long time. Without a local residence permit, my mother was not hired. She could not get a job in her profession, so she needed to come up with some kind of explanation why her life did not work out.
It seems to me that this is how her illness was born: “Why can't I work? Because I have a small child who is constantly sick.”
Why do you think your father distanced himself from your health problems?
- I think, first of all, his mother herself removed him. And there was also such a trap of thinking: "you can not question the doctor's words." This is an aggravating circumstance in my history.
Olga Yarmolovich
Dad was of the opinion that greenhouse conditions definitely did not improve health, but as soon as he started with mother talking about hardening or something like that, she abruptly cut him off with a question: “Do you want to kill child?"
When I got older, I stopped waiting for care from dads. My mother inspired me for a very long time: he doesn’t need me, he doesn’t give a damn about me, he doesn’t love me. Therefore, at some point, I myself stopped communicating with him.
- As a result, when you were in high school, your father left the family. Do you think the mother's illness affected this?
The relationship between mother and father was not easy before. Even when they were still living together, for some reason I slept with her in one bed, and dad - separately.
But I do not think that the mother's illness was the main reason for his departure. Most likely, it was in the manner of her behavior. Roughly speaking, she brought him.
"You'll have to lie in bed for the rest of your life"
- Could you voice the three strangest diseases that you suspected?
- Let's try.
- A brain tumor. She was carefully looked for and treated by me.
- Diseases of the cardiovascular system. They have poisoned my life for the longest time and most of all instilled fear in me. Each new examination led to nothing - the diagnoses were not removed from me, and they hung like a sword of Damocles. At the same time, nothing serious was ever found, but it was impossible to run and jump - suddenly “the rhythm will break” or I will fall into fainting.
- Blood diseases. At the age of 10, I was told that perhaps due to a blood disease, I would have to lie in bed for the rest of my life without getting up. As a child, I probably did not realize all the consequences. I had a new Tamagotchi, a lot of sweets - you can live. But in fact, this is a scary story for a person of any age. When they try to give you a diagnosis that crosses out the rest of your life, it is traumatic for the psyche.
- And what real illnesses did you actually have?
— Of course, I came across some viral and bacterial diseases. And who is not? Even at the institute I have up to -7 vision has fallen. This, of course, is a big "minus", but I do not consider it critical. For some, it reaches -20.
At the same time, from childhood infections, I only had whooping cough, which indicates good immunity, and not its absence, as they tried to instill in me.
- Due to the fact that you spent a lot of time in the hospital, it must have been difficult to make friends with classmates?
“In elementary and middle school, I didn’t have many friends. The children did not understand why I was not in class for a long time, and then I come and get excellent grades. They thought the teachers were special to me.
In addition, I was red-haired and bespectacled, I loved the classic clothing style - all this did not contribute to a good impression of my classmates about me.
Olga Yarmolovich
Once the teacher had to leave, and I was left in charge. As soon as the door closed behind the teacher, everyone began to clamor and began to go about their own business, and not at all what was ordered. My attempts to call classmates to silence ended with one of them deciding to eliminate me with a kick in the stomach from the foot. I developed traumatic pancreatitis and […] traveled with emergency lights.
I mostly made friends in the hospital. I still have a friend from there, with whom we already communicate over 20 years.
- Has “healing” affected your health now?
- There are no physical consequences for the body. I read the story of a woman whose mother also had Munchausen syndrome. But due to improper therapy, her daughter will now have to sit on pills for life. In my case, the condition of the mother was reflected mainly in psychological health.
In the book, you refer to the movie Locked Up, where a mother gave her daughter a muscle relaxant to make her legs paralyzed. Have you ever suspected your mother of intentionally worsening your health?
“As a child, I never questioned her words. But while working on the book, I really wondered if we had any of the things that are shown in the movie "Locked Up" or in the TV series "Pretense» about Didi and Gypsy? I don't have any proof.
But I think the story of poisonings, which in childhood happened several times a year and led to strict diets and restrictions, is indicative. Because of this, every time I got to the table without my mother, I fell into a panic: I did not understand what I could eat and what not.
After I began to live separately, poisoning happened only a couple of times: in India, where one in two faces diarrhea, and in Cyprus, when she ate a hamburger with dirty hands in the heat.
“Tearfully asked me to urgently give birth to a child”
- In the book you describe in detail how you were separated from your mother. Could you briefly list a few factors that helped you in this?
- Yes. First, I went to law school, even though my mother wanted me to enter the medical profession. That is, I chose another profession in which she was not an expert. And accordingly, the share of her influence on my learning has decreased.
Secondly, then the father left the family and the mother had to think about what money to live on. After 15 unemployed years she had to look for a suitable job. It shifted the focus a bit from me to her own life.
Thirdly, at the same time I fluttered out of the parental nest and began to live with my husband. He became my shield. When a mother came with a demand to give birth to children, I said: “We are trying. Someone doesn’t even have a husband, but I do.”
But then we filed for divorce - this was the fourth important factor in separation from mother. Then my independent life began. This is very important for separating from parents.
Fifth, working with a psychologist and group therapy certainly helped me. And also all the people who at that moment were near and supported me.
- Did your mother try to influence you when you began to live separately? Did she find any new diseases in you?
- Yes. When I first got married, she tearfully asked me to urgently gave birth child. Then it was completely incomprehensible to me. The parents of my peers, on the contrary, said: “First higher education, and then children.”
Olga Yarmolovich
At the age of 24, my mother visited gynecologists with me, where I wandered in the hope of getting pregnant. Once, when I began to answer the question, what are my periods, my mother interrupted me: “No, everything is completely not so, let me tell you!” Adult Man Claimed to Know More About My Periods Than I Do herself.
I have a theory that she insisted on her grandson so much because she wanted to quickly start looking for diseases in him. And also that he ruined my life in the way that, in her opinion, I did.
But I didn't get pregnant, and that's very cool.
- Did you have any worries about your health when you began to live separately from your mother?
- I entered adulthood with the conviction: I am sick. I can’t be in the sun, run, ride a bike, and generally do almost everything.
Not the most pleasant fact, but up to a certain point, like my mother, I tried to manipulate others, referring to my condition: “Oh, I feel bad! I need to pity, love, take care of me.
I am extremely glad that at that moment I managed to track it and remove it from my life. This is probably the key turn - because of it I do not became her mother.
“I realized that I don’t love her”
How did you decide to write a book about your experience?
I have written before. To date, I have published four books.
The idea to write this particular one arose when we were quarantined with COVID‑19. I thought: “It would be interesting to talk about how much I was sick as a child, but in the end I was still able to socialize and lead a normal life.”
Then, thanks to the series "sharp objects”, I learned what Munchausen syndrome is. The first reaction was denial. But then, when I talked with my editor about my creative plans, the realization came: my mother invented illnesses for me.
Olga Yarmolovich
In one conversation, answering the question “What do you want to write about?”, I excitedly began to say that the book would be about how I was healed as a child, how I was bullied during medical procedures, how I "sick". The interlocutor interrupted me with a very capacious and biting question: “So the book will be about the fact that your mother has Munchausen syndrome?”
Many other specific insights came in the process of working on the book. For example, when I watched the series Locked Up, I realized that the words that the mother of the heroine says are insanely similar to what my mother used to say... It's very scary.
Did you set a therapeutic goal for yourself while writing the book?
- Yes. This was necessary because when I started writing the book, my mother was in a deplorable state. She was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She demanded that I keep talking about her. cared. There was even such a story: I sit at work in the middle of the day. And she calls me and says: “I fell. Come urgently, pick me up ”(At that moment, the mother of the heroine practically did not go because of Parkinson's disease. — Approx. ed.). It put a lot of pressure on me. I offered to hire her a nurse, but she refused.
I lived through a lot while writing this book. There was a great personal transformation, which greatly changed my attitude towards my mother. I realized that I don't love her.
What is your relationship with your mother now? Are you still taking care of her? Does she know you have a book out?
- Last year she became completely recumbent. Only then did she agree to be a nurse. Now I come to her once a week, I bring money, I take her to wash the clothes.
The mother refuses to be treated for cancer. I had a period when I tried to convince her to go to the hospital. But now I understand that it is useless. If a person himself asks me for help, I will help him, but nothing more.
Read also🧐
- 6 Types of Toxic Parents and How to Handle Them Right
- “Relationships in which the roles are mixed up are very complicated”: 2 stories about what it is like to be friends with parents
- “When Marina came to me, my mother gave her checks”: what are mommy issues and why are they dangerous