The mother of a woman has confessed to her daughter that she deliberately faked her serious health conditions for the past 30 years.
Helen Naylor, 38, from Nottingham, was seven-years-old when her mother Elinor told her she had Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a debilitating condition which causes extreme exhaustion.
Helen’s childhood was filled with responsibilities. Elinor was her only focus.
Helen found Elinor’s diary, written every day for fifty-five years, in her nursing home after her death in 2016.
She now believes her mother displayed signs of Munchausen’s syndrome, where someone produces symptoms of a fake illness.
Writing in her new book, My Mother, Munchausen’s and Me, which is published on Thursday, Helen explained: ‘My mother faked debilitating illnesses for thirty years and her pretence of disability moulded my family and stole my childhood.
She manipulated me into making compromises and sacrifices to make her feel better.
‘Everything I knew about myself – my identity and my upbringing – relied on the belief that I was the daughter of two physically disabled parents. It was all a lie.
In her new book My Mother, Munchausen’s and Me, Helen Naylor, 38, from Nottingham, reveals how her mother Elinor faked illnesses including Myalgic encephalomyelitis and Parkinson’s disease
Meanwhile speaking to The Sun, she revealed: ‘I was shocked and heartbroken to discover a completely different side of the story — one where I had been shut away and neglected through-out my childhood while my mum weaved her web of lies to make herself out to be the victim.’
Helen’s childhood was marked by her mother’s illness. Elinor, Helen’s seven-year-old sister, first told Helen she had ME at age 7.
She wrote: “There aren’t any tests, treatment or medical intervention. For someone pretending they are ill, it’s the best hiding place.
Meanwhile she said Elinor was ‘enthralled with the ME, spending all her time researching it, talking about it and going to the ME group. She was clearly her favourite child.
Helen was seven years old when Elinor, Helen’s mother, informed her of her diagnosis. ME is an extremely debilitating condition that can cause extreme exhaustion.
From a very young age, she learned that mother “mustn’t bother” and would often say to her: “She sometimes said looking after me had made my condition worse.”
Helen claimed that she was expected to care for and entertain herself on weekends and holidays. She believed her mother, who was always in bed, was still at school.
Helen’s new memoir reveals the story of how Helen discovered the truth about her mother’s lies by studying her journals after her death.
But the truth was revealed in her diaries. Elinor often went shopping with friends, or had lunch with her father.
Elinor stated in one diary entry that she was out apple-picking, and then had a great day on a day trip.
Yet she told Helen — and doctors — she was sleeping for 18 hours a day.
Helen learned about her mother’s neglect by reading her diaries. She realized that she was left to her own devices as a child while her parents went on walks and drank, but Helen had never been left home alone.
Elinor gave her daughter whisky as a remedy for trouble sleeping.
Helen’s mother also told Helen when she was ten that Alan, her father, could die at any given moment from a cardiac condition.
Helen wrote in her memoir: “I waited expecting more. But she shrugged yet again to dismiss my… Dad who took care of Mum and did everything around the house.
A very rare photo of Helen when she was a baby. Elinor accidentally destroyed Helen’s film for the first six month of her life before any photos could be developed.
‘If Dad died – or was it when Dad died? – I would have to replace him as Mum’s carer because there was no one else to help us.
“I instinctively knew that I would have to abandon all of my hopes and dreams to leave home to go to university.”
“Unloved, unlovable” she confessed.
Helen married Peter at age 19.
Naylor was pregnant when her mother declared that Naylor had Parkinson’s.
The couple went on to welcome two children, Bailey, ten, and Blossom, eight.
Elinor, however, didn’t want the children to join the family. Helen revealed that her mother couldn’t deal with being the center of attention and “pulling tricks” to get the spotlight back on herself.
However Helen’s suspicions were raised when her mother’s behaviour became increasingly odd, and she began researching narcissistic personality disorder online.
It was then that she learned about Munchausen’s syndrome.
These photos were taken when Helen was just three years old. They were found in an unmarked box that was marked “Photos, mostly Helen.”
Her mother was now in a nursing facility, and Helen visited her every fall. She said that the number of falls began to increase to more than 100 per month.
Helen describes how Elinor became suspect to nurses in the book.
Elinor’s words are still etched in her mind:[The nurse]That meant I could no longer make up diseases and fake falls, and that I should live my life fully. They were not all real, but that was the only one. But it was noted on my notes that I am not going to be admitted for a falling.
On another occasion, Elinor staged a controlled fall and when Helen tried to help her up, her mother exclaimed: ‘You little b*****! You’re trying to destroy me. You want to destroy me.
In the end, Elinor died in a nursing home in 2016, having starved herself, binding her hands to create contractions and retreating permanently to bed.
It was then Helen discovered her diaries, but felt too consumed by grief to read them.
Helen only discovered her mother was actually enjoying pretending to be ill two years after she started reading the tomes.
Helen was lied to about everything.
Helen, distraught by the loss of her mother, said that she felt “crushed” by all the lies, distortions, and contradictions. She also claimed that there was never any affection for her and was always the victim.
Helen stated that Helen was expected to take care of herself during weekends and holidays. This was because her mother was still at home all day.
Helen 10, and Elinor (age 10), on holiday. Elinor claims to have ME because she is showing her black stick in both of these photos.
Describing how her mother referred to her as a ‘monster’, ‘screaming banshee’ and said Blossom and Bailey were ‘fat’, she said she will ‘never forget’ how her childhood was ‘stolen’ from her.
In the end, Elinor’s pursuit of the patient role led to her starving herself, binding her hands to create contractions and retreating permanently to bed. She was eventually so weak that she succumbed to what had been minor infections.
Since learning the truth, Helen writes: ‘While I now have a clear view of who my mother was and what she did to me, I still feel like I’ll never really know the whole story, never really have a grip on what happened.
‘I have days when nothing feels real, when I don’t know who I can trust.’