Speaker 1: There's this feeling there. Moms are good no matter what.
Speaker 1: Moms are good even if they do the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: It's because they love you so much. If you need
Speaker 1: to accept the lie to live, then you accept the lie.
Speaker 2: I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 2: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 2: change everything. Today we're telling Helen Naeler's story. Helen grew
Speaker 2: up in the Midlands of the UK.
Speaker 1: The place where I was born was a really little town,
Speaker 1: so you basically knew everybody, and I'd walk through town
Speaker 1: and bump into ten people I knew.
Speaker 2: She was an only child. Her parents were Eleanor and Allan.
Speaker 1: We lived in a really nice three bedroom semi detached
Speaker 1: which was painted yellow with a brightly door. They have
Speaker 1: very seventies taste in decor, so it quite swirly brown
Speaker 1: carpets and very peach. If there was a color choice,
Speaker 1: it was peach.
Speaker 2: Helen's parents were older than her friend's parents.
Speaker 1: Mum was thirty five when she had me. My dad
Speaker 1: was over forty, and at the time that was quite
Speaker 1: a big deal.
Speaker 2: Helen was very young when her dad's health took a
Speaker 2: turn for the worse.
Speaker 1: When I was seven, my dad was diagnosed with heart
Speaker 1: and lung problems. He had cardia myopathy and asthma that
Speaker 1: eventually became emphysina.
Speaker 2: Not long after her dad's diagnosis, Helen's mom, Eleanor, also
Speaker 2: got sick. She stopped getting out of bed and stopped
Speaker 2: being able to play with Helen. She was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: ME my algic and cephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.
Speaker 2: It can cause muscle and join pain, dizziness, and headaches.
Speaker 1: The most common symptom is extreme tiredness, making any activities difficult,
Speaker 1: going for a shour, going to work. You can not
Speaker 1: sleep well, you can have problems cognitively.
Speaker 2: ME can cause debilitating exhaustion. It's chronic, and there is
Speaker 2: no cure. The disease sometimes occurs after a viral infection,
Speaker 2: kind of like a long COVID. Treatments are designed to
Speaker 2: help patients manage their symptoms and learn to adjust to
Speaker 2: a much slower pace of life.
Speaker 1: My mom used to say if she wanted to do something,
Speaker 1: she'd have to spend a week resting to prepare to
Speaker 1: do that thing, and then a week after resting to
Speaker 1: get over it.
Speaker 2: Her mom retired early because of her illness. So from
Speaker 2: the age of seven on, Helen grew up with two
Speaker 2: sick parents. Her life revolved around their illnesses.
Speaker 1: It completely shaped my life. I was the child of
Speaker 1: two disabled people, and that was my identity.
Speaker 2: While her friends were in first grade learning to read,
Speaker 2: Helen was worrying about her parents, especially her mom.
Speaker 1: Although I knew that my dad's illnesses were more serious,
Speaker 1: life revolved around my mom.
Speaker 2: Her mom's chronic fatigue took over their family's life completely.
Speaker 2: Eleanor slept for eighteen hours a day and didn't even
Speaker 2: have enough energy to walk to the mailbox.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't walk me to the end of the road.
Speaker 1: We're talking like a small road with a corner shop
Speaker 1: at the bottom, and she wouldn't walk me there because
Speaker 1: she couldn't. She would be in bed every afternoon that
Speaker 1: I remember. We didn't go out at weekends.
Speaker 2: On the rare occasion that they did leave the house together,
Speaker 2: they had to adapt their activities around her mom if
Speaker 2: they went shopping. Eleanor wrote a mobility scooter.
Speaker 1: As a teenager. That was so embarrassing, Like already I
Speaker 1: had these parents who were older, and they stood out
Speaker 1: and now she was on this scooter like hurling around
Speaker 1: the shopping center. I was just so mortified.
Speaker 2: But over time, Helen got over the embarrassment and learned
Speaker 2: to accept her mom. Helen became her primary caretaker because
Speaker 2: they didn't have any extended family nearby, and Helen's dad
Speaker 2: spent most nights at the pub drinking.
Speaker 1: My dad was a really isolated figure. He didn't have
Speaker 1: many friends, he wasn't at work, he didn't have close
Speaker 1: family members. He was a functioning alcoholic one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I can't remember seeing him anything but a happy drunk.
Speaker 1: He wasn't aggressive, but undoubtedly he was an alcohol.
Speaker 2: So Helen and her mom leaned on each other. It
Speaker 2: was them against the world.
Speaker 1: I had a really close relationship with my mom. She
Speaker 1: was my best friend. I talked to her about everything.
Speaker 1: I absolutely adored her. I thought she was perfect, absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2: But her mom needed a lot of support.
Speaker 1: And there was a sense of if my mom said jump,
Speaker 1: then you had to jump.
Speaker 2: Helen would come home from school and go straight to
Speaker 2: her mom's bedside. She'd sit on the edge of the
Speaker 2: bed and tell her mom about her day. Then Helen
Speaker 2: would make her mom a snack and set up a
Speaker 2: place for her to rest on the couch.
Speaker 1: We would watch on TV together and drink a cup
Speaker 1: of tea. I felt very very responsible for her. I
Speaker 1: was responsible for my parents' happiness and my parents' emotional stability.
Speaker 2: Eleanor's emmy was debilitating, but over time she found other
Speaker 2: people who struggled with the same simils dumbs.
Speaker 1: She was a part of an m group in the
Speaker 1: town and ended up leading it, and so every week
Speaker 1: she would have to sort of run these meetings. She'd
Speaker 1: do all this research to then write newsletters for the
Speaker 1: me group.
Speaker 2: Helen was proud of her mom pro finding purpose in
Speaker 2: community even though she was struggling with her disease.
Speaker 1: She actually won an award for being a health champion.
Speaker 2: Helen's mom went to bed early every night.
Speaker 1: My mom would go to bed, my dad would go
Speaker 1: down the pub, and I was just left to entertain myself.
Speaker 1: It was important that I was silent, because if I
Speaker 1: made any noise then I would wake my mom. So
Speaker 1: I would watch TV with subtitles on and no sound.
Speaker 2: When her own world in her little yellow house got
Speaker 2: too small, Helen escaped into her dream world. She loved
Speaker 2: to write.
Speaker 1: I wrote a lot of stories. I wrote a story
Speaker 1: about a girl who went into her loft and disappeared
Speaker 1: into a wonderful alternative reality with a happy family. I
Speaker 1: used to dance around the guard and singing. I'm sure
Speaker 1: the neighbors loved it.
Speaker 2: One day, when Helen was eight, she overheard her mom
Speaker 2: talking about her dad's health.
Speaker 1: I heard my mom say the doctor said he could
Speaker 1: just drop dead at any minute. I remember switching around
Speaker 1: and looking at her, absolutely horrified, and that weighed on
Speaker 1: me for the rest of my childhood.
Speaker 2: Hearing that shifted Helen's mindset. Even as a child, she
Speaker 2: felt responsible for her mom. She also learned to be
Speaker 2: extremely tuned into her mom. She tried to do whatever
Speaker 2: she could to make her happy. Over time, Helen lost
Speaker 2: track of where her mom's needs ended and where hers began.
Speaker 1: She used to tell me my likes and dislikes. I
Speaker 1: liked Sally, I liked strawberries. Those were my favorites. I
Speaker 1: deferred to her opinion.
Speaker 2: Helen learned to look to her mom for answers she
Speaker 2: idolized her. As a teenager, Helen missed out on typical
Speaker 2: teenage experiences because as soon as school ended, she went
Speaker 2: home to take care of her parents.
Speaker 1: In my teens, my average day would look like I
Speaker 1: would get up and go to school. My parents were
Speaker 1: both at home all day every day. My dad would
Speaker 1: go to the pub every day, then my mom would
Speaker 1: go for a nap every day, and then I'd come
Speaker 1: home and it was just all very insulated.
Speaker 2: But then when Helen was sixteen, there was finally a
Speaker 2: break from their quiet, careful routine.
Speaker 1: We went on this like once in a lifetime holiday.
Speaker 1: We decided to go to America.
Speaker 2: They planned to spend a few days in Chicago, then
Speaker 2: two weeks vacationing in Wisconsin and visiting extended family that
Speaker 2: lived there. Helen was worried about the strain and the
Speaker 2: trip would take on her mom.
Speaker 1: We went to the airport and she was in a
Speaker 1: wheelchair being wheeled to the aeroplane.
Speaker 2: But to Helen's surprise, we.
Speaker 1: Got to America and for two weeks she was just
Speaker 1: a normal mum. She was walking around. Literally, we had
Speaker 1: a non stop holiday. We did something every single day.
Speaker 1: We went to water shows, water parks. We got up
Speaker 1: in the morning and went to a diner, and then
Speaker 1: went and saw my cousins and then went out for
Speaker 1: the day and did something ridiculously American, and then we
Speaker 1: did something in the evening. It was just this incredible
Speaker 1: experience for me, like life changing. And what was the
Speaker 1: most amazing was that my parents were both well. My
Speaker 1: mom said the heat made my dad's chest better.
Speaker 2: The climate also seemed to help with her mom's chronic fatigue.
Speaker 1: I just thought, oh, my goodness, America has cured my parents.
Speaker 1: America has made them better.
Speaker 2: Helen was ecstatic. It was like she slipped into a
Speaker 2: better world where her parents were healthy and they were
Speaker 2: a normal, happy family. But the dream didn't last.
Speaker 1: We got on the plane to come home, and we
Speaker 1: got back to the UK and she was back in
Speaker 1: that wheelchair being wheeled back through the airport, as if
Speaker 1: the last two weeks hadn't happened. It was a huge
Speaker 1: moment for me. I saw what my life could be like.
Speaker 1: And I was like, why are we not going to America?
Speaker 1: Why are we not packing up and going because you
Speaker 1: could be well, you tell me all the time how
Speaker 1: you wish she could be. Well, we've got the answer.
Speaker 2: Let's just go.
Speaker 1: I prayed every night for my parents to be better.
Speaker 1: The idea that it was within gross was just like
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand.
Speaker 2: On a family trip to the US, Helen's mom, who
Speaker 2: was normally chronically ill and stuck in bed, experienced major
Speaker 2: relief from her symptoms. Her dad, who had serious heart
Speaker 2: and lung problems, was doing much better too. On their trip,
Speaker 2: both her parents had energy and they went on adventures
Speaker 2: together every day. Helen was overjoyed they had found a
Speaker 2: cure for her parents America, but when they got back
Speaker 2: to England, their symptoms became as debilitating as they were before.
Speaker 2: Helen wasn't ready to accept that this was their normal again.
Speaker 1: It was a huge moment in that I saw what
Speaker 1: my life could be like, and I was like, why
Speaker 1: are we not going to America? Why are we not
Speaker 1: packing up and going because you could be well, you
Speaker 1: tell me all the time how you wish she could be. Well,
Speaker 1: we've got the answer, Let's just go.
Speaker 2: But her parents didn't want to move to the US,
Speaker 2: so Helen channeled her energy into doing well in school
Speaker 2: so that she could have a life.
Speaker 1: Ever on, I did really well in my A levels
Speaker 1: and then off I went to university and I went
Speaker 1: to Nottingham, which it isn't even the top three cities
Speaker 1: in the UK. Yet I felt like I was in
Speaker 1: this enormous city that was totally overwhelming. I walked through
Speaker 1: ten and I didn't see anyone I knew. That was
Speaker 1: really shocking to me.
Speaker 2: Helen had spent her childhood in teenage years hyper focused
Speaker 2: on her parents' health, living in a town where she
Speaker 2: knew everyone. When she left for college, she was plunged
Speaker 2: into a completely foreign world.
Speaker 1: I did feel really lost. It was scary. It was
Speaker 1: obviously brilliant because I never thought i'd get away. The
Speaker 1: freedom was incredible. At the same time, I hadn't been
Speaker 1: given any life skills by my parents.
Speaker 2: Helen didn't have the same street smarts or life experiences
Speaker 2: as her peers, but she certainly knew how to take
Speaker 2: care of herself. She'd been doing it since she was seven.
Speaker 1: So it was a really steep learning curve. I have
Speaker 1: the skills to do it, and I had the confidence
Speaker 1: that I'd been doing this forever and that I could
Speaker 1: do it again.
Speaker 2: Sure enough, Helen found her stride at college, and during
Speaker 2: her first year there, she met a boy named Peter.
Speaker 1: I met Peter three friends. We used to meet up
Speaker 1: with another guy and another girl and just hang out.
Speaker 1: Peter would walk me home and we got chatting, and
Speaker 1: I found out that his dad had also had heart problems,
Speaker 1: and he just understood the situation that I was in
Speaker 1: in a way that no one else understood.
Speaker 2: Helen and Peter began to spend more and more time together.
Speaker 2: The connection between them was instant.
Speaker 1: We got together and we got engaged after six months,
Speaker 1: we got married twelve months later. It was all very whirlwind,
Speaker 1: but at twenty one, you feel like a proper grown up,
Speaker 1: so that's.
Speaker 2: What you do. But Eleanor was not welcoming to Peter.
Speaker 1: She was very mocking about my relationship, like, are you
Speaker 1: going to call your lover?
Speaker 2: Do you love him?
Speaker 1: Helen? Are you in love with him? There was no safeguarding.
Speaker 1: There was no sort of like, well hold on, let
Speaker 1: me check this person out and see what I think
Speaker 1: of them if you're going to marry them, and like
Speaker 1: you're going to marry them six months after you started
Speaker 1: dating them, Like that's actually ridiculous, you're twenty. My parents
Speaker 1: didn't do any of that. They were just like, oh great,
Speaker 1: let's arrange the wedding.
Speaker 2: At first, Helen struggled to accept that Peter actually wanted
Speaker 2: to be with her.
Speaker 1: I spent a long time thinking that I'd put on
Speaker 1: a mask when he met me, and that I tricked
Speaker 1: him into marrying me.
Speaker 2: Shortly after Helen and Peter got married, Helen's dad collapsed
Speaker 2: and had to be rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 1: His health declined significantly after that, so then he was
Speaker 1: on oxygen. The last two years of his life were
Speaker 1: a nightmare. He was just having heart attacks all the time.
Speaker 1: It would be like four am phone calls saying this
Speaker 1: is it, You've got to come. And I remember jumping
Speaker 1: in the car with my husband and rushing thinking are
Speaker 1: we going to make it? Are we going to make it?
Speaker 2: Her whole life, Helen had been afraid that her dad
Speaker 2: could die at any minute, but during those two years,
Speaker 2: the constant ham of worry grew into a fever pitch.
Speaker 1: I went into a real period of depression, really really
Speaker 1: struggled dealing with that situation. Me and my husband had
Speaker 1: visited one weekend. We got the phone call, then went
Speaker 1: straight upstairs to where he was in the ward. The
Speaker 1: nest said, I'm really sorry, but he's passed away, and
Speaker 1: my mum just collapsed to the floor and I don't
Speaker 1: I remember crying initially because it was all about looking
Speaker 1: after my mom and caring for her and making sure
Speaker 1: she was okay. I remember holding his hand and he
Speaker 1: was still warm. His eyes were open, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is weird. His eyes are open. And my mom
Speaker 1: was so snappy with me and was like, well just
Speaker 1: close them then, and I got really upset. It just
Speaker 1: sort of finally hit me and I said, I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave without him, and my mom said, well,
Speaker 1: this is it, isn't it, Helen, he's dead. Of course
Speaker 1: he's not going to come with us.
Speaker 2: Eleanor had no room for her daughter's grief.
Speaker 1: This was her moment, and it wasn't about me. After
Speaker 1: his death, she used to say to me, it was
Speaker 1: just your dad, but it was my husband. So every
Speaker 1: single occasion that could possibly bring up those feelings for her,
Speaker 1: I would send her flowers, I would call I would
Speaker 1: really make a big deal of it. And for years,
Speaker 1: years and years, she didn't even acknowledge that Father's Day
Speaker 1: might be a bit difficult for me.
Speaker 2: As the years went on, Helen remained her mom's caretaker.
Speaker 1: Because she was my mom, and because I was an
Speaker 1: only child, it wasn't like I could just say, right,
Speaker 1: I'm married now Celia. I couldn't let her go. I
Speaker 1: felt very very responsible for her. We would have her
Speaker 1: to our house every Christmas and it would be really strained.
Speaker 1: I hated Christmas because Peter really really struggled with my
Speaker 1: mum's behavior. My mum would be attention seeking and difficult,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I just had to keep the peace.
Speaker 2: Helen and Peter had been trying for a baby and
Speaker 2: a difficult miscarriage. Finally Helen became pregnant, but the pregnancy
Speaker 2: was quickly overshadowed.
Speaker 1: At exactly the same time, my mum got a diagnosis
Speaker 1: of Parkinson's disease. The consultant called it mild parkinson Ism.
Speaker 2: Despite the early diagnosis, her mom's health was declining quickly.
Speaker 1: She was getting worse and worse, so she was getting
Speaker 1: more medication. She was going to these Parkinson's support groups.
Speaker 1: She wasn't interested in how my pregnancy was going. She
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in what scans I'd had, She wasn't interested
Speaker 1: in me thinking about baby names. She just wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 2: Soon Eleanor required constant care and moved into a nursing home.
Speaker 1: She started having fools and it was happening so frequently
Speaker 1: that the paramedics were actually told on her notes not
Speaker 1: to take to a hospital.
Speaker 2: Helen tried to be there for her mom. It was
Speaker 2: hard to see her struggling in this way. She visited
Speaker 2: the nursing home often, and one day they had plans
Speaker 2: to go shopping in town together, so Helen went to
Speaker 2: go pick her mom up. When she got there, her
Speaker 2: mom was sitting on the couch and then she sort.
Speaker 1: Of pretended to fall. It was very slow motion, and
Speaker 1: when she got to the floor, she said, oh, my goodness,
Speaker 1: did you see that? I just fell off the sofa.
Speaker 1: And I was like, not really, and she said I
Speaker 1: need to go to bed. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: come on then, you know, i'll help you up. I'll
Speaker 1: put you to bed. And she said I can't walk,
Speaker 1: You'll have to carry me. And I said, well, i'll
Speaker 1: help you, but like I can't carry you, you know,
Speaker 1: come on, get up, and she sort of turned demonic.
Speaker 1: She was sort of crawling along the floor and saying, fine, oh,
Speaker 1: cruel there, then, is this what you want? Is this
Speaker 1: what you want from me? Lift a bitch?
Speaker 2: Her mom had never used a word like that before.
Speaker 2: And it shook Helen.
Speaker 1: It was kind of terrifying, so I ended up hiding
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, thinking what am I going to do.
Speaker 1: I tried calling Peter and he was like, just leave,
Speaker 1: but I didn't feel like I could leave.
Speaker 2: After that, Helen stopped visiting her husband. Peter supported her
Speaker 2: decision to pull back from her mother.
Speaker 1: We were having to kind of back off her more
Speaker 1: and more and we would just be like, Okay, she
Speaker 1: can't be around the children anymore.
Speaker 2: Eleanor's health was declining rapidly. Doctors were constantly scrambling to
Speaker 2: help her and find answers.
Speaker 1: She bound her hands up into fists so that she
Speaker 1: couldn't unclench them. She wasn't eating, she was just getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse. She was referred to a hospital where
Speaker 1: they did every test end of the sum They literally
Speaker 1: tested her for everything, and eventually they said that they
Speaker 1: had found nothing physically or mentally wrong with my mum,
Speaker 1: but she would die in the next few months. By
Speaker 1: that point, I'd spent three four years banging my head
Speaker 1: on a brick wall trying to get someone to listen
Speaker 1: to me, to say this isn't right, something's wrong, and
Speaker 1: I need you to find out what's going on, and
Speaker 1: they basically said to me, we've tested her for everything
Speaker 1: and we can't help.
Speaker 2: Doctors had run out of ways to help her mom,
Speaker 2: and Helen had to.
Speaker 1: I tried to stay in contact with her, but she
Speaker 1: didn't really want it. Obviously. There was a massive decision
Speaker 1: not to go and see her in her final months.
Speaker 1: I decided it was better this way. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a horrible decision to make and not something I took lightly,
Speaker 1: but actually having contact with her was more damaging.
Speaker 2: It was painful for Helen not to visit. She still
Speaker 2: loved her mom very much. She got occasional updates from
Speaker 2: the medical team. One day, the call was different.
Speaker 1: I'd had this phone call a few days earlier saying
Speaker 1: your mom's got a mouth infection. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: so will you let me know how that goes then,
Speaker 1: and like call me back in a few days, and
Speaker 1: they were like, well, yeah, it might not be that long.
Speaker 1: A few days later they rang me and they said,
Speaker 1: your mom's died.
Speaker 2: For a moment, everything stood still. Helen's mom had been
Speaker 2: the center of her attention for her entire life. Her
Speaker 2: mom's sickness had been the guiding force in every decision
Speaker 2: she made. And now it was all over, with her gone,
Speaker 2: everything was all mixed up. Nothing made sense, not even
Speaker 2: her own grief.
Speaker 1: It was a shock. It was a real shock because
Speaker 1: we were estranged. I think quite a few people thought
Speaker 1: I wouldn't grief, or perhaps I wouldn't feel sad about it.
Speaker 1: It's just such a complex grief. It isn't straightforward, it
Speaker 1: isn't normal. It was worse than my dad. My dad,
Speaker 1: I was sad, but it was really straightforward. I missed him,
Speaker 1: and I was sad that he was gone, whereas this
Speaker 1: was so much more or complex.
Speaker 2: Ever since she was a little girl, Helen used her
Speaker 2: writing as a tool to make sense of her messy
Speaker 2: and confusing world.
Speaker 1: That's a way of me making sense of things and
Speaker 1: getting things straight in my head. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of a natural reaction for me to write about what
Speaker 1: had happened.
Speaker 2: Helen began writing a book about her life with her mom,
Speaker 2: and as a part of her writing process, she decided
Speaker 2: to read her mom's diaries.
Speaker 1: I knew that my mom had written daily diaries. I'd
Speaker 1: seen her writing them when I was a teenager, so
Speaker 1: she'd written it from when she was twelve till the
Speaker 1: year before she died, and she was on it. She
Speaker 1: really didn't miss a day, and so I decided that
Speaker 1: I needed to read them as part of writing this.
Speaker 2: This wasn't one or two diaries. Her mom had made
Speaker 2: daily entries for fifty five years.
Speaker 1: So obviously that is a huge amount to read. It
Speaker 1: took a while. It took me probably at least a
Speaker 1: year to read them, and I did have to have
Speaker 1: breaks because it was quite a lot.
Speaker 2: At first glance, these entries were boring.
Speaker 1: She just writes about the basics, the weather, where's she being,
Speaker 1: what she done. There's no real feelings. A few read
Speaker 1: my diaries from when I was a teenager. Gosh, the
Speaker 1: teenage ants that would seep out of those pages, and
Speaker 1: yet there's nothing like that in my mom's diaries. She
Speaker 1: doesn't fancy anyone, she doesn't have any friendship problems, there's
Speaker 1: no feelings.
Speaker 2: Reading the diaries became part of Helen's daily routine. She
Speaker 2: was slowly reading her way through her mom's life from
Speaker 2: when she was twelve years old onwards.
Speaker 1: I read it like i'd read a novel or something.
Speaker 1: I just always had one with me. They were tiny
Speaker 1: so I could just keep them in my handbag, and
Speaker 1: whenever I had five minutes, I just read it few pages.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Helen had heard her mom tell the
Speaker 2: story of her life many times. She knew it well.
Speaker 1: What I expected to find was exactly what she'd told me.
Speaker 1: She'd had a really hard childhood with a really difficult
Speaker 1: sister and difficult parents, and then she'd had a really
Speaker 1: successful time at work, met my dad decided to have me,
Speaker 1: and then from that point she'd got ill. And that
Speaker 1: was just completely wrong.
Speaker 2: Helen started reading passages in her mom's diary that diverged
Speaker 2: from the story she'd been told. Then Helen saw the
Speaker 2: line that stopped her in her tracks.
Speaker 1: She writes, I have found my illness.
Speaker 2: After her mother died, Helen decided to write a book
Speaker 2: about what it was like growing up with her as
Speaker 2: a parent. As part of her writing process, she read
Speaker 2: through the daily diaries her mom had kept for over
Speaker 2: fifty years. That's when Helen saw the line that changed everything.
Speaker 1: She writes, I have found my illness.
Speaker 2: Helen read and reread the words to make sure she
Speaker 2: wasn't imagining it, but there it was in her mom's handwriting.
Speaker 2: For the first time she learned the real story of
Speaker 2: how her mom got diagnosed with EMMY.
Speaker 1: She goes on to nag the doctor to diagnose her,
Speaker 1: and then verylically, she's into getting the sick, getting mobility scooters.
Speaker 2: The picture came into focus. Her mom had handpicked her
Speaker 2: illness and then spent years performing it. The diaries revealed
Speaker 2: an elaborate deception, the tale of a double life that
Speaker 2: her mother lived, one where she was perfectly healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one part, she's recording how ill she is every day,
Speaker 1: and yet it doesn't actually match up to what she's doing.
Speaker 1: So she'll say, this was a really bad day, and
Speaker 1: yet she's been apple picking, or you know, this was
Speaker 1: a really terrible day. I went shopping all day.
Speaker 2: It was possible for Helen's bomb to fake having m
Speaker 2: E because there was no definitive way to test for it.
Speaker 2: Diagnoses were primarily based on a patient's own account of
Speaker 2: their symptoms, and most of the time people don't lie
Speaker 2: to doctors. Most people don't choose to be bedridden.
Speaker 1: At the time. It was almost like, you don't have
Speaker 1: anything else, so it must be this.
Speaker 2: For her whole childhood, Helen was consumed with worry, watching
Speaker 2: her mom lay in bed in chronic pain. When Helen
Speaker 2: went after school. She was constantly concerned about how her
Speaker 2: mom would take care of herself. But the diary told
Speaker 2: a very different story.
Speaker 1: The thing she said to me and to other people
Speaker 1: about how she needed to rest and plan and do
Speaker 1: all that, that's just out the window. None of it
Speaker 1: was true. She was going apple picking, and she was
Speaker 1: going on city trips and going shopping.
Speaker 2: That really hurt.
Speaker 1: My whole childhood was shaped by the emmy what she
Speaker 1: couldn't do, and it wasn't true. She could have just
Speaker 1: been a totally normal mum.
Speaker 2: Helen couldn't believe what she was reading. She felt sick.
Speaker 1: I was unraveling what had happened and what had happened
Speaker 1: to me, My story of how I am the child
Speaker 1: of two disabled parents and have cared for them. That's
Speaker 1: actually a lie.
Speaker 2: We could have been living a normal life for years.
Speaker 2: Helen's mom lived a lie. But it didn't make sense
Speaker 2: to Helen. Why would her mom choose this?
Speaker 1: She had money, she had health, she had friends, She
Speaker 1: could have had a really good life, and yet she
Speaker 1: chose something so destructive.
Speaker 2: Helen scoured her mom's diaries trying to find an answer.
Speaker 1: It was like she was totally unveiling herself. Her mask
Speaker 1: sort of slips, and she writes about how everyone is special,
Speaker 1: but I'm really special, and just goes into this rant
Speaker 1: about how special she is and how no one has
Speaker 1: appreciated how special she is.
Speaker 2: Helen started to get an understanding of her mom's inner world.
Speaker 1: She had been a narcissist from birth. There's always a
Speaker 1: huge vanity. So she talks about how beautiful she is
Speaker 1: and how long her legs are, how slender her hands are,
Speaker 1: in a way I can't even imagine writing about myself.
Speaker 2: Helen's mom had always told her that she'd gotten sick
Speaker 2: after giving birth to her, that before that she had
Speaker 2: lived a happy, healthy life, But her diaries told a
Speaker 2: different story. As Helen read, it was like she was
Speaker 2: being reintroduced to her own mother. Eleanor's pattern of fake
Speaker 2: illnesses had started when she was a child.
Speaker 1: What was really striking for me was that from the
Speaker 1: beginning she was obsessed with illness. In her twenties and
Speaker 1: we're talking about early twenties, she's constantly going to the
Speaker 1: doctor for things breast scams, brain scams. Has she broken this?
Speaker 1: Has she done this, you know everything, She's been constantly
Speaker 1: checked for, and she doesn't just take what the doctor says.
Speaker 1: She needs to go to the consultant and has the
Speaker 1: highest opinion on things. I really didn't expect the obsession
Speaker 1: to be so early.
Speaker 2: Eleanor's view of her own life was at best self
Speaker 2: centered and at worst delusional. Her entries paint a picture
Speaker 2: of a world where she is in complete control. Like
Speaker 2: when she wrote about getting pregnant with Helen.
Speaker 1: Nothing about wanting a baby, nothing about thinking about a
Speaker 1: family is one day, she just writes in her diary,
Speaker 1: decided I was pregnant. So she's some sort of omnipotent god.
Speaker 1: She's created a pregnancy.
Speaker 2: As she read on, Helen came across something else that
Speaker 2: was incredibly disturbing. Events from her own childhood that she
Speaker 2: had no memory of. Her mom had abused her growing up,
Speaker 2: and she died mented it in her diaries.
Speaker 1: She drugged me. I was six months old, and she
Speaker 1: feeds me Chinese food washed down with whiskey. When I
Speaker 1: was a week old, she went shopping and just left
Speaker 1: me at home. It's neglect, but it's also abuse, And
Speaker 1: I really didn't expect to find that what was really
Speaker 1: hard about reading. It was that there'd be months of
Speaker 1: her talking about the weather or going to the supermarket,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly there would be she's drugged me, or
Speaker 1: she's in some way injured me. It's just so emotionless.
Speaker 1: She's so cool. She doesn't try to hide anything which
Speaker 1: is interesting or make excuses for anything.
Speaker 2: One of Helen's earliest memories was falling off a chair
Speaker 2: and breaking her arm, but as she read through her
Speaker 2: mom's diaries, she learned that didn't happen the way she
Speaker 2: remembered it. Her mom talks about having broken Helen's arm
Speaker 2: herself when Helen was only two.
Speaker 1: According to the diaries, she did it. I definitely broke
Speaker 1: my arm. My mom probably caused it, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how.
Speaker 2: Helen learned that social services got involved and somehow her
Speaker 2: mom explained the injury away.
Speaker 1: Reading that when I had small children and I've got
Speaker 1: a very recently two year old, I can see how
Speaker 1: small her arm is, and I can see how easy
Speaker 1: that would be to break.
Speaker 2: As an adult, Helen's mind turned to her father. He
Speaker 2: had been there and witnessed a lot of the abuse,
Speaker 2: so in many ways he was complicit, but it seems
Speaker 2: like Eleanor had a lot of power over him too.
Speaker 1: I can make excuses for him. I can say that
Speaker 1: he was a man of a differents who relied on
Speaker 1: the fact that his wife was the mother and that
Speaker 1: she would know everything and do the right thing. I
Speaker 1: can say that he was isolated, and that I suspect
Speaker 1: she said she'd leave him and take me with her.
Speaker 1: Does that excuse it all? No? Do I think he
Speaker 1: had a really awful life. Yeah, So it's just like
Speaker 1: holding all of those things at the same time.
Speaker 2: Growing up, Helen had carried immense guilt for ruining her
Speaker 2: mom's life. She knew her mom had gotten sick after
Speaker 2: she was born. She felt like everything was her fault.
Speaker 2: But now Helen revised the story of her life. Her
Speaker 2: mom had gone down a dark path long before she
Speaker 2: was born, and none of it was her fault.
Speaker 1: It was really like, oh gosh, this hasn't been the
Speaker 1: story that I thought it was going to be. I
Speaker 1: really believe I'd ruined her life, that she'd had me
Speaker 1: and I had breaken everything, that if I haven't existed,
Speaker 1: she would have had a happy life. And that's not
Speaker 1: what I read at all. This was always going to happen.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter whether I was there or not.
Speaker 2: Every neatly penciled, diligently dated diary entry was like a
Speaker 2: puzzle piece. At first, it was a scrambled and confusing mess,
Speaker 2: but slowly pieces started to click into place. Helen saw
Speaker 2: that everything, the narcissism, the faked illness, was all connected.
Speaker 2: Her mom was not sick with EMMY or Parkinson's. She
Speaker 2: was mentally ill with a condition called Munchausen syndrome. People
Speaker 2: with Munchausen's fake or exaggerate medical conditions as a means
Speaker 2: of gaining control, sympathy, or power.
Speaker 1: What I realized was that for women with not statistic
Speaker 1: personality disorder, it often doesn't look like masculine narcissism. It
Speaker 1: often looks like victimhood. It's about getting attention and about
Speaker 1: being the poor little woman. Munchasen's is kind of perfect
Speaker 1: for that, because who questions an ill person and says,
Speaker 1: I think you're making it up? Who would do that?
Speaker 1: Without the diaries, I think I would still be in
Speaker 1: the dark. I don't think I would have properly been
Speaker 1: able to pull the pieces together. There's lots of events
Speaker 1: that I see differently now.
Speaker 2: Like the trip to America, where her parents seemed miraculously cured.
Speaker 2: Her mom could choose when she felt well based on
Speaker 2: what was convenient for her, and her dad hadn't actually
Speaker 2: been doing as well as her mom told her.
Speaker 1: My mum said to me, Dad is better in the heat,
Speaker 1: and yeah, at the same time, I remember him gasping
Speaker 1: for air because it was so hot and he couldn't breathe.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize that those two things were opposites
Speaker 1: until I wrote my book and my agent said to
Speaker 1: me which one was it? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, I've held this for thirty years and never
Speaker 1: put it together. My dad wasn't better there, but she
Speaker 1: told me that he was, so I believed her. It
Speaker 1: seems incredible. I don't think you can underestimate the power
Speaker 1: that a parent has over a child. I was talking
Speaker 1: to my daughter about a cushion downstairs once and I
Speaker 1: said to her, the gray one, you know, the gray one.
Speaker 1: She was like, in the blue one. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: the gray one, the gray one. She was like, oh okay,
Speaker 1: And she said she was trying to convince her that
Speaker 1: this blue cushion was gray because I'd said that it
Speaker 1: was gray, and when I got downstairs, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not gray, it's blue. Sorry, I got that wrong.
Speaker 1: But the power that we have as adults over children
Speaker 1: to say that this is this that even when you're
Speaker 1: looking at something, you're like, my mom must be right,
Speaker 1: so I must be seeing this wrong. If you need
Speaker 1: to accept the lie to live, then you accept the
Speaker 1: lie right.
Speaker 2: Slowly, Helen began writing the book about her mom.
Speaker 1: It took me quite a few attempts to write it
Speaker 1: because I didn't really know how to put it all together.
Speaker 1: She wasn't a cartoon villain.
Speaker 2: Helen pulled together all the strands of truth and fiction
Speaker 2: that had shaped her world growing up, her mom's version
Speaker 2: of events, her own memories, and the diary. She published
Speaker 2: her book, which is titled My Mother Munchausen's and Me.
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to be the only person
Speaker 1: in the whole world who had been through this. That
Speaker 1: turned out to be completely wrong. I have had probably
Speaker 1: one hundred people contact me from all over the world.
Speaker 1: Some people have told me that I've explained their life
Speaker 1: to them, and you know, I've had people saying I'm
Speaker 1: sixty and I've just realized what's happened.
Speaker 2: Helen realized she had concrete answers that many people in
Speaker 2: her situation never get.
Speaker 1: I've got the diaries, and I've got so much proof
Speaker 1: in a way that a lot of people don't. I
Speaker 1: think I'm quite unusual in that a lot of people
Speaker 1: who've been through something like this unsurprisingly go down some
Speaker 1: really dark roads with their mental health and with ways
Speaker 1: of coping with that. And for some reason I've got
Speaker 1: through this and being able to write about it, which
Speaker 1: is quite unusual. But it is amazing because I can
Speaker 1: hopefully verbalize for people who can't say it, what's happened.
Speaker 2: Helen will never be able to get those years of
Speaker 2: her childhood back.
Speaker 1: It's a huge betrayal. So much of my life was
Speaker 1: sacrificed to what she needed, which was actually what she wanted.
Speaker 1: So much of who I am had to be hidden.
Speaker 1: It's taken me until the last five years to start
Speaker 1: to get back to who I am, what do I like,
Speaker 1: what do I want to do? Believing that my opinion
Speaker 1: matters and that I matter enough to be looked after.
Speaker 2: Helen says her relationship with her husband has been healing.
Speaker 1: Luckily for me, I picked the right guy. He's a wonderful, faithful,
Speaker 1: fabulous person, which is very jammy. It's taken me a
Speaker 1: long time to believe that he loves me, because I
Speaker 1: just didn't think I was lovable. It's taken me a
Speaker 1: really long time to accept that he wasn't tricked, that
Speaker 1: he did want this, and that we both make each
Speaker 1: other much happier than we'd be without each other.
Speaker 2: Eleanor went to extreme lengths to control and abuse her daughter,
Speaker 2: to keep Helen's world small and make sure it would
Speaker 2: always revolve around her, but she underestimated her daughter's resilience.
Speaker 1: I do think in a way, my mum neglecting me
Speaker 1: was a real doubtful because it meant I became so
Speaker 1: self sufficient. It just absolutely defeated everything she wanted me
Speaker 1: to be. I was supposed to fail it at a thing,
Speaker 1: but I'd learned to look after myself.
Speaker 2: Today, Helen has built the life she always dreamed of. She, Peter,
Speaker 2: and their kids lived together in Nottingham, where Peter and
Speaker 2: Helen met and fell in love. They go on weekend
Speaker 2: trips with their kids, play the TV loudly, and treasure
Speaker 2: every day they spent together. We end every weekly episode
Speaker 2: with the same question, why do you want to share
Speaker 2: your story?
Speaker 1: A really big thing for me to say was that
Speaker 1: mothers aren't necessarily good. There's this feeling that moms are
Speaker 1: good no matter what. Mums are good even if they
Speaker 1: do the wrong thing. It's because they love you so much.
Speaker 1: I'd had so many people saying to me, this can't
Speaker 1: be true, she's your mom, as if being a mum
Speaker 1: and being a bad person don't go together, and I
Speaker 1: really wanted to challenge that.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Betrayal Weekly, I came up
Speaker 2: with my plan, which was I'm gonna buy a gun.
Speaker 2: That's my way out.
Speaker 3: Walking into this gun store thinking that I cannot believe
Speaker 3: this is my life. I can't believe this is my life.
Speaker 3: I was floored. I had never felt so helpless in
Speaker 3: my life.
Speaker 2: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
Speaker 2: team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
Speaker 2: us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com, or follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 2: Betrayal Pod. You can also connect with me on Instagram
Speaker 2: at It's Andrea Gunning. To access our newsletter, you additional
Speaker 2: content and connect with the Betrayal community. Join our substack
Speaker 2: at Betrayal dot substack dot com. We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 2: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
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Speaker 2: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 2: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Speaker 2: Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
Speaker 2: produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
Speaker 2: by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced
Speaker 2: by Olivia Hewitt and Monique Leboord, with additional production from
Speaker 2: Ben Fetterman. Casting support from Curry Richmond. Our iHeart team
Speaker 2: is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio editing and mixing
Speaker 2: by Matt Delvecchio. Additional audio editing by Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's
Speaker 2: theme composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by myb Music.
Speaker 2: And For more podcasts from Heart, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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