Gypsy Rose Blanchard recently opened up about the medical abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother and detailed which unnecessary surgery was the most traumatic.
The 32-year-old was a victim of Munchausen by proxy throughout her childhood. The psychological disorder causes parents to go to extreme measures to make their children appear severely ill. In Blanchard’s case, her mother, Dee Dee, was the abuser.
Using medications and manipulation, Dee Dee created symptoms in her daughter that caused doctors to go on endless searches to heal her. Because of that, Gypsy Rose Blanchard often went under the knife unnecessarily.
A surgery that removed the salivary glands behind her kneck stands out as the most painful. “[I] didn’t respond very well to the anesthesia,” she explained to PEOPLE. Because of that, her recovery process was “really, really hard.”
Aside from the immediate issues, the surgery created lasting problems. “To this day, it has left me with the side effects of having to clear my throat all the time,” she added. “So I’m always, if you hear me, that is a constant thing that I’ve had ever since. And it annoys people to no end.”
“It’s because my saliva is very thick and so I’m always having to clear my throat,” she added. “So it’s been a negative side effect for me.”
Gypsy Rose Blanchard Detailed Her Mother’s Manipulation Tactics
Blanchard had the glands removed because her mother put Orajel on her daughter’s gums before a doctor’s appointment. The gel made Blanchard drool, and Dee Dee convinced the physician it was an ongoing problem that needed to be fixed.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard admitted that she’d ask her mother if all the procedures were necessary. But when she did, it created horribly traumatic situations.
“She would get really, really upset with me and start manipulating me in a way that she would take her love from me,” she shared.
“In the submissive moment, things would be really good, and we would do things together that we would find fun,” she continued. “We’d watch a movie at night, we would go to the zoo together. We would just do little things around town together that was fun and bonding moments. And then I’d be a little bit more rebellious and question the sicknesses, and then that would be really, really toxic.”
Blanchard ultimately convinced her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to kill Dee Dee in 2015. She was convicted of second-degree murder and spent eight years in prison. Gypsy Rose Blanchard was granted parole and freed on Thursday, Dec. 28.