Love you to death - channel 4

[autumnleavesonthefloor]

Is anyone else watching?

I can’t say a lot because it’s very outing but I grew up with this family. So surreal seeing it all like this. They’re some of my earliest memories.

After watching that I would be very worried if I was her new husband. She’s obviously still mentally unwell and has zero insight into the trauma she’s caused her children. How can she still insist it was all done in Marthew’s best interest when it’s been proven he has nothing wrong with him all along! I notice when she was “crying” there were zero tears too. I felt really sorry for Laura as she seems to be more affected than Matthew. I still find it hard to believe the dad didn’t know anything. I mean Matthew was eating roast dinners in his presence when he was supposed to be allergic to all foods. The whole thing is just so fucked up!

I imagine if her new dh tries to speak to her about the programme she'll stick Peppa Pig on and revert to being 5 to avoid the questions

Not even a slight feeling of guilt. Going to prison was her “holiday”. Deciding she would use a wheelchair, only watch Peppa pig while self harming, because she had reverted to being 5!

She took no accountability, was never questioned about the fact that her son needed no interventions at all once he was removed from her care.

I think Matthew having had counselling for many years, has actually grown into a very insightful young man, his sister I think is far more damaged mentally.

I hope they continue to repair and recover

The psychologist seemed to relish the attention and the opportunity to display her superiority complex on TV. It was incredibly revealing that she chose to speak poorly of absent individuals and discuss conditions she isn't legally qualified to diagnose. Furthermore, she confidently discussed concepts that didn't make any logical sense, such as the unscientific claim that trauma is physically "stored" inside the body, which is pure quackery. I have no affiliation with anyone on the program, but I was absolutely astounded by her behavior.

I think the narrative from medical professionals here is downright dangerous! FII is NOT a medical condition it describes a set of behaviours and a form of child abuse. If you as a mandated reporter suspected a child could be a victim of sexual or physical abuse you would not wait to report until you had absolute proof, you would immediately report as you are MANDATED to do. It would then be investigated by SS and law enforcement. Every single nurse, doctor, teacher that failed to report their suspicions let these children down. It was not their duty to investigate, it was their duty to report, they failed in that duty.
As a parent of a child with very complex needs I can see how certain things unfolded. My son has epilepsy, he has that diagnosis after testing and it is a proven medical fact but after that diagnosis all the information about his seizures, medication tolerance etc comes from me. Because he has that diagnosis I could (obviously would absolutely not) get more and more extreme treatments for him by reporting more and more seizures. My son is also exclusively tube fed. He has no interest in food and doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do with it but the last time he had an actual test for eating orally was when he was about 18 months old (nearly a decade ago) so he could conceivably be eating 3 course meals at home and if I wasn’t reporting it no medical professionals would be aware. Our health care is set up to listen to patients and parents and to believe us. For most of us harming our child in this way is such an anathema that I can understand how it could happen. All that being said it was clearly stated there were a lot of concerns from a number of professionals.

This is a good point!

I agree it's Laura who I feel the most for and I think is most affected by it all. While Matthew might have suffered physically, I feel he was young enough to not remember everything that happened. Whereas for Laura being older I think she has the mental impact. I hope they can go on to have good lives.

I was surprised that no one noticed sooner that he didn't have the medical conditions but I think posters here are correct in that paper records are easier to lose/be assumed lost and not tracked as easily.
I also think it still applies that if you have someone shouting loud then they are the ones who get noticed. Thinking about even now, parents at school who make the most fuss about getting support for their child/Sen support are the ones who get it (even when not needed). Those who wait patiently and are quiet about it get ignored (and their children are often the ones who need the help the most).

I didn't catch all of the first episode. Is there a reason the dad didn't want to be on the show?
While I think things were different in those days (mum does all the childcare/more SAHMs, dad goes off to work and comes home to a settled household) I do think it's odd that he didn't question Matthews needs more. Especially the contradiction in him needing tube feeding and not being able to eat yet being present when he was at meals and clearly eating!

I can see how this all started with being discharged from hospital with the oxygen and the feeding tube. My daughters were premature and one had home oxygen for a couple of months as a baby. I also struggled with my mental health...became very fixated on my own health. I luckily managed to get some help. It looks like Lisa already had some tendencies with Laura being on meds for seizures but having Mathew have a bit of a rocky start to life it seems to have spiralled out of control from there.
I really feel for Laura...the poor woman. And life living with her mum as a teen seems awful.
These channel 4 docs are so dramatic aren't they! Feel like your watching a tabloid but they really suck you in!
I hope the dad has managed to move on and have a happy life too.

I think that sadly it is so universally accepted that men take less interest, less parental responsibility and frequently leave everything regarding home life and childcare to women that courts would have been very ready to believe in his ignorance.

Totally agree with you though.

There were two parents in that house.

Whether he lied or simply had a devastating lack of curiosity about his son’s health he is guilty of neglect at the very least.

Plus society loves a good “burn the witch” narrative so that would have some influence. Female wrong doing being less frequent than male draws more attention.

Clearly she is absolutely awful, selfish, cruel, abusive.

Personally, I don’t think that Munchausens by proxy is a mental illness. I think it is horrible, wicked behaviour by horrible, wicked people.

I had some of it in my own childhood, although nowhere near what happened to this poor little boy.

While I think things were different in those days (mum does all the childcare/more SAHMs, dad goes off to work and comes home to a settled household) I do think it's odd that he didn't question Matthews needs more.

Matthew is now 25, so we’re talking about the late nineties/ early two thousands, not the 1950s. My own children are older than that, and I can tell you it wasn’t like that. Most mothers worked, the vast majority of fathers were very hands on. I worked in a nursery at that time and it was common for dads to do the drop offs and pick ups.

I still maintain that his father let him down, which is probably why he refused to take part in the documentary. Lisa is still very odd. She can’t seem to accept what she did was wrong, apart from doing a urine sample for Matthew. God knows how she managed to convince another bloke to marry her.

I guess I am speaking from my experience of a similar time. My mum along with the mums of my friends all stayed home.

I wonder whether dad felt he was a victim too and didn't want to appear for that reason.

Lisa certainly is an interesting character and it would be interesting what her new husband is like!

Just watched all 3 episodes the last 2 days.

What a complex situation for everyone involved.

It has highlighted how trauma can run down through generations of not addressed.

Agree I found it interesting hearing feo
the Kim who still thinks she did nothing wrong ( except that 1 urine sample). She honestly thinks she should have pled not guilty and then she’d have been spared jail and she only went because she said she was guilty.

But it also highlights how many woman are in jail because of trauma and I’m totally undecided when it comes to jail terms for things like this. On the one hand she deliberately defrauded people. But on the other she doesn’t believe she did.

Like I said up top. It’s an extremely complex situation.

His sister addresses this too. She said on the GMTv interview mum
said he couldn’t eat and she just sat there confused.

I deliberately responded before reading your updates OP. Mainly because I wanted to see if what I took from the documentary related to what the RL version was like from those close to the situation.

I still maintain it’s complex but the aggressiveness and nastiness isn’t shown. The manipulativeness - yes. But in the context of a woman with trauma.

I’ll keep reading the thread now!

I think you could see on Laura's little face in that GMTV interview that it had just clicked that something really wasn't right with the situation. I really feel for her but it's a credit to her that she has obviously grown up to be a very strong and grounded woman.

Can you point me in the direction of that please, I love a good doc ? 😊

I have lots of questions after watching it-

Why did the doctors operate on him if there was nothing wrong? How did she convince them that he needed it?

How did she convince Matthew that something was wrong with him, did he never dob her in and let slip he could walk/ eat etc? Did she punish the kids if they did?

I feel the same way as previous posters- the dad could've done a lot better!

Matthew was 'only' 6 weeks prem, that's hardly devastatingly early. I had a 32 weeker and was told by then it's only a matter of growth from then on.

OP said the mum was aggressive and abusive, so the kids were probably scared to say anything and had probably been trained in what to say.

I'm watching this right now and to read your updates is fascinating. I don't think the documentary really challenges Mum enough but can imagine how aggressive she could be. I also understand how a difficult and aggressive personality wasn't challenged as often as we might hope. In the area I work we have suspected this happening and it's VERY difficult to challenge. In the case where my organisation put pressure on the parent we suspected of fabricating illness they moved away and social care closed the case.

I am guessing he was too young to question it. Good kids generally accept what they are told. If mum told him he couldn't eat then he probably just accepted that. Same with walking. Probably said you need to rest your legs, if you don't then they will hurt.
Maybe the fact they got to do lots of nice things was also the incentive, maybe telling him that he would miss out if he could eat/walk.

I agree that it's the hospital I don't get. But then as someone else has said, hospitals do accept that you are telling them the truth (why wouldn't they!) and the way she manipulated the urine sample shows she is capable of thinking ahead of ways to make her case believable.

The way she presents herself in the documentary is laughable. She’s nothing like that in real life

Wow OP! This must be insane for you, is she playing a different character on the documentary? I can’t believe she did this to her own son. So appallingly sad

I'm just at the end of E2 and like a PP said, the number of times she is 'crying' and wiping her eyes is laughable. Not a single tear or wet eyes. Reminds me of that man whose six children died in a house fire. He 'cried' during the police appeal, wiping his eyes with a tissue but not a single tear either. He was also a pathological liar.

Im beginning to see that.

The programme made her out to partially be a victim too.

Im beginning to see why she was sentenced to prison

My daughter was on a feeding tube for c. 16months as an infant. I think what's missing fron the documentary is any interrogation of the medical team. My experience is that doctors and speech therapists were quite gungho about medications and interventions. A lot of pressure was put on us to blane symptoms on reflux and take reflux medication and to pile on other medications. I resisted these because the reaspning never added up to me and ultimately genetic testing showed other reasons for symptoms, and proved that these medicines wouldn't have been beneficial.

Our speech team were constantly wanting to assess safe swallow and pushing a g tube and there was no support at all for weaning off the ng tube, we had to do it totally unsupported. And our neurologists in Great Ormond St have always been very very encouraging of very strong medications to help manage what we see as quite minor symptoms (mostly anti seizure medicine to manage very mild dystonia)

I think of course the mum was in the wrong and lied and exagerated and there are no excuses for how far it went. But i wonder how many medical professionals were there enabling and encouraging further treatments. In my experience some specialists and doctors essentially aee it as their job to dole out treatments, especially to children already diagnosed as sick for whatever reason. I think there is often nowhere near enough scrutiny by medical professionals about root causes and what might actually cure or fix underlying issues.

It's quite clear mum has significant MH issues. I'm seriously wondering about C4's ethics this week after the adhd programme and now this obviously very unwell woman being put on tv.