Today on Unfiltered Stories, we delve into the harrowing journey of Kate Smith, a victim of Munchausen By Proxy at the hands of her mother. Beginning at just 2 years old, Kate endured fabricated medical abuse centered around a foot injury that never existed. After years of doctor hunting, her mother finally found a doctor who agreed to amputate Kate's leg from the knee down due to non-existent chronic pain. Join us to hear Kate's courageous story of survival and resilience.
#munchausenbyproxy #survivorstories #traumasurvivor
Follow Kate here: https://youtube.com/@AdaptiveKate
TikTok: @Adaptivekate
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅
Facebook âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB
Tiktok âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT
Snapchat âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN
#munchausenbyproxy #survivorstories #traumasurvivor
Follow Kate here: https://youtube.com/@AdaptiveKate
TikTok: @Adaptivekate
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅
Facebook âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB
Tiktok âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT
Snapchat âž® https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I am Kate. I am a survivor of one-child syndrome by proxy. In the beginning of my childhood,
00:06I had a very normal childhood. I played with my siblings. I had four siblings. Grew up in a
00:12household with both of our parents. We grew up in Florida. I moved from Florida when I was 12
00:16years old and we moved to South Carolina. I don't remember a lot of my younger childhood and I know
00:22that I was super close to my dad. I was always like a daddy's girl so I had a much
00:27stronger
00:27relationship with my dad than my mom but I don't remember a very negative relationship with my
00:32mother until I was nine and later. I didn't get a lot of attention from my mom but I remember
00:38a
00:38decently normal relationship. I'm going to give you the definition of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
00:43It's also known as factitious disorder and what I'm most likely to refer to it as is medical child
00:49abuse. It is a condition where my mother, which is normally a parent to a child, causes harm,
00:56fake illnesses. They may even go as far as injuring the child, medicating the child to have the child
01:02diagnosed with things that they do not have. They will lie about medical records, go as far as forging
01:08medical records. Often they would just say medical records were destroyed in some manner in cases
01:14like hurricanes and they would self-diagnose their children and tell the doctors that their children
01:21were diagnosed with these things and they were very manipulative and the doctors would believe
01:27that these illnesses existed because they would educate themselves so well on these illnesses that
01:32it seemed very believable. So I lived a very normal childhood until I was nine years old and I fell
01:39off
01:39my bike when I was nine. I sprained my ankle. I always had this dry skin on my heel. I
01:44would add lotion to
01:45it and I remember this dry skin on my heel but I never had issues with it that I couldn't
01:49remember.
01:50But I fell off my bike and we went to the doctor and next thing I know I am in
01:55a wheelchair and I'm
01:55in a wheelchair for over a year over a sprained ankle even though I could walk perfectly fine.
02:00So my mom showed up with this wheelchair. It looked like it was maybe from a yard sale. It was
02:05an old
02:05raggedy big wheelchair, a little too big for me and my mom said I had to be in that wheelchair
02:10even
02:11though I walked perfectly fine. The doctor said that my ankle was only sprained. I gotta leave the hospital
02:16in crutches but later my mom showed up with a wheelchair and said that the doctor said I need to
02:22be in that wheelchair and even though I knew I could walk I didn't think anything of it. I'm nine
02:26years old so I did what
02:27my mom told me to do when I was in the wheelchair. So I spent about 11 months in this
02:32wheelchair. I was in the
02:34third grade. My mom held me back in third grade. Hospital homebound me so that I could be home in
02:39this wheelchair.
02:40If we went out in public I had to be in the wheelchair. I could walk at home but I
02:44had to be in the
02:44wheelchair in public. If my wheelchair didn't fit somewhere she'd have me get up and walk. She would
02:48make it look like she's walking with me with assistance but she would let me walk if my wheelchair
02:54didn't fit somewhere. When I was in the wheelchair for approximately 11 months my mom took me to a hospital
03:00in Tampa, Florida and they had me walk and they determined there was nothing wrong with me. They actually
03:06refused to treat me no matter how much my mom pushed. They said no there was nothing wrong with
03:10me. They got into an argument and essentially we never went back. My mom took me to different doctors
03:15and they put me in a leg brace. This is a picture of that leg brace and I wore this
03:19leg brace
03:19up until we suddenly moved to South Carolina. So I was really confused why the doctors and my mom were
03:26fighting. I mean I knew I could walk and I understood the doctor said I walked okay because I always
03:32thought
03:32that I walked okay. I walked it home but I didn't understand why my mom was so upset and arguing
03:37with the doctors and I was a kid and I was just super confused and then I got put in
03:41this leg brace
03:42and I hated how ugly the leg brace was and I had to wear this and I could never understand
03:46why I had
03:47to wear this leg brace. I just had some dry skin on my heel but my mom said it was
03:51needed but it was my
03:51way out of the wheelchair so I thought in my head okay well maybe I don't need the wheelchair so
03:57since I get
03:58to be in the leg brace maybe there is something wrong. My mom's trying to prevent it from getting
04:02worse and I did believe that I had something wrong with my foot but she convinced me that it was
04:08something that would get worse if I continued to walk on it. So my dad was in my life. My
04:13dad did
04:14believe that there was also stuff wrong with me. There was a point that we did end up having to
04:18move
04:18to South Carolina and my dad had to stay behind. It was a very quick sudden move so my dad
04:23had stayed
04:24behind for a little about a year a little over a year to fix up our old house and sell
04:28it and then
04:29when he did move to South Carolina he was on the road truck driver so he wasn't around much to
04:34really
04:34know what was going on. My mom just filled him in on everything and she was very manipulative so she
04:39was the one that kind of dealt with everything and just told him what was going on so that's the
04:44only
04:44thing he had to really go on. She was getting my sister diagnosed with things that she never had and
04:48I it seems that people were getting suspicious and she was under investigation by child services
04:54and we suddenly moved. She told us that we were moving because we lost insurance and she said that
04:59she couldn't afford my and my sister's health bills without the insurance and it didn't make much sense
05:05because she always knew how to get on Medicaid and government assistance. We always had it even when
05:12we went went to South Carolina we had it. So after we moved to South Carolina my mom established
05:18new doctors I was still in the leg brace I wear that leg brace about three four years and then
05:23they started doing surgeries they started doing plastic surgeries in my foot like skin grafts and
05:29things and when I got older I realized plastic surgeries are elective but all of my foot surgeries
05:35were plastic surgeries. I remember four or five foot surgeries from skin grafts to stretching the skin
05:40and they were all done by a plastic surgeon at an orthopedic hospital so it didn't make much sense why
05:46they
05:46brought in a plastic surgeon to do my surgeries but they were going off of my mom's word that I
05:50was
05:51having all these issues it started as nothing but dry skin it was completely normal you see there's
05:57nothing wrong I had a nice plump feel um this was the back of my foot this was one of
06:02my skin grafts I
06:03had done and see obviously it looks worse after my dry skin and they were trying to correct a problem
06:09that
06:10wasn't there so as I grew older so I was 13 when the surgery started I now started to realize
06:17something
06:17was very wrong because I wasn't having the pain my mom was describing my foot wasn't breaking open the
06:23way she was describing but my mom later turned it on me when I started questioning things she started
06:29getting me help for psychiatric treatment I started getting diagnosed with psychiatric problems I never had
06:34I started getting put on psychiatric medications I had been admitted to the hospital for psychiatric
06:39treatment several times to the point I became extremely depressed I became like rebellious against
06:45my mom I even tried to kill myself a couple times and that did not help me that actually made
06:52things so
06:52much worse and only presented her with a much larger case against me to make me seem like I was
06:59unstable
06:59mentally and it she started to make it where nobody would believe me because I was trying to speak up
07:05and I was trying to get help and she just made it seem like that I was in denial and
07:09I was crazy
07:10after my skin graft surgery which was one of the many surgeries that I had my mom gave me um
07:16to put me to sleep
07:17when I went to sleep my skin graft was like that picture it was nice and pink it was healed
07:23when I woke up
07:24my skin graft had been cut it was peeled back my mom made it seem like it happened from me
07:29walking and that
07:30it was a breakdown but my foot was normal when I went to sleep and when I woke up it
07:35was suddenly worse
07:36I knew something happened I knew my mom did something to me but I couldn't get anybody else to realize
07:43that
07:43that is what happened so she ended up prompting yet another surgery when it actually healed perfectly fine
07:49I mean I and I still to this day I can't understand why why she would do that why she
07:56wanted me to
07:56continue having surgeries I was in a lot of pain because of the pain my mom was causing like I
08:03wasn't
08:03in pain when my surgeries would heal I would heal I would walk fine I went to middle school I
08:09went to
08:09high school up through the first couple months of ninth grade and I was very active I was in the
08:15color
08:15guard and marching band I was a junior firefighter like I was active even though I was having these
08:23foot surgeries in between she was causing me excruciating pain with these surgeries and I had to
08:28keep going over it and then it would heal and I'd be doing fine until she would cause me to
08:33do yet
08:33another surgery to the point when I started fighting for it to stop because I couldn't handle it anymore
08:38mentally or physically she took things from me like she took the junior firefighting program from me
08:44I later was taken out of school it was for me trying to stand up against bullies she said but
08:51my mom saw a window to go ahead and remove me from school to keep me more sheltered and so
08:57she could
08:57control me more so I had to be homeschooled for high school to the point my friends remember me they
09:03know my story they were witnesses to how active and how normal I was and they 1000 believe everything
09:10that happened to me because they knew me and they knew that I was perfectly fine and everyone around
09:15me has even reached out like old neighbors and people are like we we knew it we knew it but
09:20we
09:20didn't know how to help you we didn't know what to do we knew something was wrong like a neighbor
09:24admitted
09:25she called child services but they didn't do anything and I know they didn't do anything in South
09:29Carolina child services came by a couple times but when they would come by they always give my mom a
09:34heads
09:35up she knew when they were coming they would come they would never talk to us they would only talk
09:39to
09:39her and they would leave my mom just seemed like we were this happy family that and we were well
09:44taken
09:44care of and we look clean we look like we're doing well but behind doors my mom was extremely abusive
09:52towards me they did several of those plastic surgeries well they they brought up amputation for
09:59chronic pain so the reason for amputation was they said it was going to be for chronic pain
10:04i was living in chronic pain but the thing was i was only in pain during surgeries i was only
10:08in pain
10:09when my mom inflicted pain on me and when they said amputation i i couldn't believe that they were
10:17talking about it in 2009 i did ask like for another option and i got one more surgery and this
10:24surgery was
10:25one of the worst surgeries i had before my amputation and they cut a giant hole in my heel
10:31and they healed it with a wound back and actually it healed this was after they cut the hole this
10:36is
10:36what it healed into and i walked i jumped off um the rock quarry in clemson there's like this rock
10:42quarry we used to climb up to and we would jump off a lot of people in the neighborhood people
10:46would go to
10:46that and i jumped off a bridge into lake hartwell as well just weeks before my amputation but even though
10:53i was fine they decided in 2010 they wanted to amputate and the even crazier thing in february
10:59of 2010 the day that they booked my surgery they did scans to check for osteomalitis and just
11:08infection in the bone i had nothing i had nothing wrong with my foot the only thing the radiologist
11:13documented was that i had flat feet and my right foot is still a flat foot and they still scheduled
11:19my amputation anyways and they said the diagnosis was for chronic pain even though scans were normal
11:24i had no infection the wound healed i was walking fine i walked into surgery the day of my amputation
11:31i walked into surgery and flip-flops i walked in surgery and flip-flops i was a flip-flop kid
11:37i had
11:38pictures of me the halloween before surgery i wore flip-flops all the time my grandmother made me these
11:43little fuzzy flip-flops and that's how okay that i was and they still amputated and i will be
11:49completely honest i knew my leg did not need to be amputated i did not tell the doctor because i
11:56seared
11:56my mom my mom had done horrible things to my sister and had almost killed my sister and things that
12:04my
12:04mom had done i was terrified of her and i knew it wasn't going to stop i truly felt it
12:10i felt deep down
12:11that no matter what i said she was going to find a way out of it we would even possibly
12:16move again
12:16she'd find new doctors i thought it was going to be over once she amputated my leg i thought that
12:21was going to be the end and as bad as that sounds i just wanted the abuse to stop and
12:26i thought that
12:27was my way for it to stop is just let them cut it off because the foot's not a problem
12:30anymore if they
12:31cut it off but then more happened i did get two options it was either to amputate or they were
12:37going
12:38to cut out my heel bone um and there's no place to attach my achilles tendon so i would have
12:42a dead
12:42foot for the rest of my life and i'd be in a leg brace well my dream was to be
12:46an emt and a firefighter
12:48so i asked the doctor i said well if you cut out my heel can i be a firefighter and
12:54he said no he said
12:55i would be in a lake brace forever and my foot essentially wouldn't work and i said i can't i
13:00don't
13:00want to do that and my mom pushed and persisted well well the amputation um she would finally be out
13:06of
13:06pain right and doctors like yeah like they they said that i'd be out of pain i could still be
13:11a
13:11firefighter if i had the amputation and i i couldn't even react like they document that i was fully
13:20okay with the amputation but i wasn't my mom was the one pushing for it and i'm over here like
13:26i just
13:26want to be a firefighter like i wanted to stop i just want to be a firefighter and i wanted
13:33to speak
13:34up so bad like it i can't even explain it because a lot of people are like why did you
13:40let the doctor
13:40amputate your leg i had some medical knowledge because i was a junior firefighter and i was an
13:47ems explorer until my mom took it away from me i had knowledge i knew it didn't need to happen
13:53but i didn't know what to do next like i wanted to tell the doctor i did but i also
13:59knew how
13:59manipulated my mom was she already made me up to be the sociopath so i felt like i wasn't gonna
14:06win this no matter what and my mom was gonna end up moving us again and she was gonna find
14:13new
14:13doctors and there was no way out of this and i just so badly wanted to be a firefighter and
14:18i just what
14:18i just let them do it because i didn't know what else to do they ended up amputating uh below
14:25the knee so
14:25halfway between my shin and my ankle because they said it was for better prosthetics again my heel
14:31was the only problem and uh even though it should never happen they said they had to go higher so
14:37i could have better prosthetics so i could have my dream of being a firefighter and get good prosthetics
14:43and after my amputation my mom actually tried to sabotage my amputation
14:50she started pouring things in it like peroxide and things and scrubbing it and getting the scabbing
14:57off and picking the stitches open to the point that my leg actually got infected and they documented it
15:04and they put that it was unclear if the family was messing with the wound to prevent wound healing
15:08but they never reported it they finally admitted me to inpatient wound care because they said that they
15:14put my amputation in a cast and the next day the family took the cast off so they admitted me
15:21and
15:22had to heal my whole amputation with the wound vac and the wound vac is extremely painful so she wouldn't
15:27even stop she wanted my amputation even higher she wanted them to keep going and thankfully they did put
15:34me in inpatient wound care and since they healed it with the wound vac they didn't let me go home
15:39until it was mostly healed and then they had an inpatient nurse uh out sorry outpatient nurse that
15:45had to come to my house and change my wound back and my mom was not allowed to touch it
15:50only the nurse
15:50was allowed to touch it until i was fully healed after that it finally stopped so i guess my mom
15:56might
15:57have probably she got caught since they were gave very clear instructions about the nurse having to touch it
16:02she wasn't allowed to touch it anymore it all stopped my amputation healed i eventually got a prosthetic
16:08and i had to learn how to rewalk again i was 16 years old when my leg was amputated about
16:15five
16:15months later is when i fully healed and it finally it stopped and i had so much hate for my
16:22mom and
16:24i had a plan so i was told i can't leave until i was 18 because there was an incident
16:30where i actually
16:30tried and the police brought me home but they also thought that i was a troubled teenager because my
16:35mom made me out to be mentally unstable and we lived in a small town and my mom had called
16:40the police on
16:41me a couple times uh when we got into fights uh she made up things she told them one time
16:46that i beat
16:46her with a broom when i didn't so i was pretty known by them and when they brought me home
16:51they even said
16:52like i'm there until i'm 18 and if i don't like it then i can leave when i'm 18 but
16:57my parents are there to
16:57take care of me and i'm there i had to go home so i had a plan that on my
17:0318th birthday i was leaving
17:04no matter what that meant i was homeless in a tent under the bridge i was leaving and it actually
17:11didn't
17:11come to that when i was 17 about a year after my amputation my mom actually left on her own
17:17she met
17:18someone and she ended up moving away to be with them at 17 i was finally free of my mother
17:25it was
17:26finally over i felt a little bit safer i actually went back to join the ems explorer program when my
17:32mom was out of my life and i am happy to say that i am an emt today i am
17:38a firefighter and i am in
17:40paramedic school i didn't give up when i said then i was serious about following my dreams to be
17:46an emt and firefighter i followed those dreams and i did exactly what i set out to do and now
17:53i'm working full-time on an ambulance and i couldn't be happier i put my life together in the
17:59way that i wanted and i did not let her dictate even losing my leg it was not going to
18:04stop me from
18:05living the life that i wanted to live after i went digging into my own story i actually uncovered
18:11child service documents in florida in orlando florida um which is where i was born
18:16and i thought that my abuse started when i was nine years old but it actually turned out my
18:22abuse started when i was two years old i uncovered documents that said i had two broken fingers in
18:28december of 1995 a bruise to the head in february of 1996 a bruise to the head in april of
18:331996 a
18:34fracture to the left foot in may of 1996 a fracture to the left leg in june of 1996 a
18:41fracture to the left
18:41arm in july of 1996. it says that i suffered additional injuries while under the mother's
18:48supervision i suffered burns to my feet and legs after my mother accidentally spilled hot water on me
18:55in august of 1996. and they put that the department offered the parents voluntary
19:01voluntary protective services including parenting classes and counseling the parents denied the need
19:05for any intervention i stated the child is simply accident pro i had so many injuries in such a
19:11short time period period my mom was investigated by child services she did have to go through in-home
19:17visits for quite a long time and i i believe that is why i never saw a doctor about my
19:22foot from age
19:23two to nine over that dry skin and she used to say that it happened from a cast that a
19:28doctor put a cast
19:29of my foot wrong but i i wondered if it was a burn um just because of the way that
19:34it looked but i don't
19:36know what to believe anymore and uncovering the more i uncover the worse it gets on i have no idea
19:43what happened to me i am on tiktok i'm known as adaptive kate and i have been sharing my story
19:49about
19:50my childhood syndrome by proxy there i um am trying to uh start advocacy and awareness for my child center
19:58by
19:58proxy i share my story and what happened um i've been in the process of reaching out to congressmen and
20:05i want to start a bill of law to change statute limitations i really want to also get the name
20:13changed i really want this to be recognized more as medical abuse and not as a mental illness yes it
20:19is
20:20a mental illness but most abuse most abusers do have some sort of mental illness and i really hate that
20:28my child center by proxy is looked at as only a mental illness and not as the abuse that it
20:34is
20:34it should be categorized as abuse and um i so i i fully believe that because they know what they're
20:43doing when they are harming their children they know exactly what they're doing even if they are sick
20:47they still know what they are doing their lies the harm that they're causing they know and i really just
20:54hate that they just want to stigmatize as mental illness because it's not getting the true um
21:02justice that it needs to because it's labeled as mental illness i just want to help other survivors
21:08out there and in any way i can do that i i really want that i want any survivor that
21:16has any chance at
21:17least of getting justice or getting their story out there i would love to see that
21:21and i hope some more survivors speak up i do know it's hard right now as i have been a
21:27survivor
21:27attacked on social media on tiktok ever since gypsy rose was released a lot of people know her story
21:33most people know her story and i cannot share my story without many horrible comments invalidating me
21:41saying i'm stealing her story saying i'm not a real survivor that i just want her fame and her clout
21:46and that is not what i'm trying to do i've been sharing my story for three years um gypsy is
21:51not a
21:52part of my story my story has nothing to do with hers i'm not stealing details from her story and
21:57i do
21:57really hate that we are invalidated and made to be even more voiceless because people think that there
22:04are not other survivors out there and there are actually quite a bit of survivors probably more than
22:09you know more than you even think that exists and i just hope that we can stand up and we
22:15can fight
22:15for change and get proper advocacy and awareness out there
Comments