Her sister became someone unrecognizable. You can find Andrea Dunlop’s podcast, Nobody Should Believe Me, on all platforms. Her first nonfiction book, The Mother Next Door, is available now. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [email protected] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the story behind Andrea Dunlop's podcast?
You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there. I'm an action kind of girl.
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At the end of the family court hearing, the judge ruled with Megan. According to the court documents, the case was closed with an unfounded finding, meaning that, quote, available information indicates that more likely than not, child abuse or neglect did not occur, or there's insufficient evidence for the department to determine whether the alleged child abuse did or did not occur.
And with that, Megan's son was returned to her care.
They basically told her, like, ma'am, you need to get some therapy. And just this sort of soft, so it seemed like there was, like, some acknowledgement that things had been happening, but just, like, no understanding of, like, what was actually happening and, like, not a solution.
According to Andrea, Megan cut off the family. She says Megan wouldn't return their texts or calls.
And I remember, like, the first Christmas without her was horrible. And you just think like, could this really be permanent?
Andrea focused on managing her own mental health and writing her novel. A few months later, her father got a call from Megan's husband, Andy. According to their father, Andy wanted to talk about how he'd caught Megan in a lie. Andy said it was over something interpersonal, nothing medical or to do with their kid. But nevertheless, Andy's call was an opening for the Dunlops.
And we felt so much relief because he got in touch with my dad. He wanted to talk about this, what had happened. We were like, okay, now he's seen it for his own eyes. Maybe Andy would see the Dunlop side of things. And he was expressing to us, like, I really want to, you know, I know Megan misses you guys. I want you guys to reconcile. I'm working on it. I'm talking to her. She's just so sad.
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Chapter 2: How did Andrea and Megan's childhood shape their relationship?
Yet now, I was being treated with suspicion. Megan's cease and desist didn't silence Andrea. Instead, it lit a fire under her. Because she believes what her sister is doing is medical child abuse. And yeah, that is how I got here. She started seeking out a community of people who understand Munchausen's.
During that time, I met Dr. Mark Feldman, who is this tremendous expert who I've become very close with, who is a psychiatrist who's been, you know, studying Munchausen by proxy for decades. And then I became interested in how I could be useful to this cause.
She went to a conference on Munchausen's hosted by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. And there, for the first time, she met other people who had the same story as her family.
That was the first time I'd ever heard from another family member who'd been through a case. And it's just like completely changed the direction of my life and my career.
And the way she wanted to help was to tell their stories.
I'm a storyteller. That's what I have skill set in. Obviously, at that time, I was writing, but I was getting interested in podcasting. And just thought, because I was a big podcast listener and loved the medium, and it was like, oh, this is a true crime podcast.
So in 2020, she started developing a show of her own.
By and large, like people don't know what this is. They don't understand it. There's a lot of misconceptions. I was like, well, this is something like I can be helpful with. I know the media because I'm a publicist, I'm a writer. I can tell these stories. Didn't want to present myself as some kind of like objective journalist that's just like found this topic interesting, right?
This would be totally disingenuous.
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