Have you ever come across munchausens by proxy?

[Namechangeone]

As per my username I’ve name changed. It’s quite an identifying situation so I’m not going to go into too much detail but don’t want to drip feed either

Edited for clarity: Has anyone experienced munchausen by proxy themselves or known someone that has? I could be wrong about this but it's what myself and others suspect.

Im middle child of 5. Us older 3 lived with grandparents, youngest 2 with parents.

I unfortunately have had quite bad luck when it comes to health. Various ICU stays, operations, long term conditions. No empathy from my parents and now grandparents unfortunately have died.

My younger brother who grew up with my parents has perfect health, had many scans after our mum claiming my brother can't barely walk/has back pain/stomach pain all sorts. Had every test going from teens until now (he is late 20s). Even went as far as paying for private tests because they didn't believe nhs consultants.
They've bought him a wheelchair/crutches for when things are bad - this typically happens when I've just had a hospital stay or there's an event coming up.
In privacy he walks around at home normal. He lives next door in a house they built for him but stays at parents house.

Recently they took him to A&E saying he needed emergency surgery as he's suddenly paralysed - scans were clear. This was day 1 after myself being diagnosed with lymphoma.

He has had every scan going that you can think of and multiple opinions. Also my brother and parents have been offered psychiatric support many times (and declined)

At home he doesn't need to even take paracetamol but if there is an event, he's in agony and needs pain relief and looking after. Apparently can't take tablets so it's calpol 🤦‍♀️
They have a prayer WhatsApp group for him & regular social media posts.

Im not envious of the lack of empathy I have - I'm quite happy in my own bubble & I wouldn't want to live this fake life. I had a good childhood with my grandparents, although miss my gran especially a lot with everything going on in my personal life.
I do have therapy/counselling etc & continue to throughout the years.

Everything had gone back to "normal" with them all but my brother is getting married in a couple of weeks and the wheelchair etc is back out. This happened after the A&E visit one day after my lymphoma diagnosis.
I can't get my head around it all.

I just basically wondered has anyone else had this experience or similar with a family member?

95% of the time it doesn't bother me, I have my own life, but then I do get times where it bothers me (like tonight for some reason!)

I believe it’s possible for adult children to be victims of MBP too. Just this week I was listening to the bbc podcast ‘believe in magic’. Very odd and sad case but it’s believed by the family that it was a case of MBP with a mother and an adult child. They had an expert on there who reckons it’s actually more common than we know, as it’s such an awful thing to accuse a parent of medical professionals shy away from it usually. The difference between FI and hypochondria is that people with FI know they’re not really ill. They interviewed a woman who’d had it who described it like a drug, with the attention being addictive. Quite fascinating really. I’m sure there are cases of people faking illness for fraud purposes (I do know someone who has done this successfully her whole adult life) but that’s a bit different.

Agree @MarionMarion a lot of people don't seem to understand what MbP is. Some of the cases described here just sound like either anxious parents or people where there could have been something wrong but people wrongly assume that "nothing showed up in tests" is the same as "nothing wrong".

Doctors made me feel my symptoms were all in my head /exaggerated for over 20 years, bcause the tests they ran came back normal. But they weren't testing for the condition I have, so of course the tests came back normal! My condition is actually life threatening and also means a long list of medications are contraindicated so I am quite lucky to still be alive. This assumption that if the first tests a doctor does come back normal then it must be all in someone's head is not only nasty but quite frankly dangerous.

I came on to recommend the podcast Believe in Magic too - incredibly complicated and sad story of a mother and daughter, but there are also older siblings and their stories might resonate with the OP.

i haven’t come across it myself to a serious degree, but I do know a mum who has made her children’s medical issues her whole identity, to an incredibly unhealthy extent. All three of her children are ND, with one now in a wheelchair due to hyper mobility. All communication/ social media etc is about their disability, and she has really left no space to celebrate who they are or what they do beyond the confines of their diagnosis. It’s very sad to watch, as they seem to be being set up for a much smaller life than they are capable of.

I work with someone like this, though I can’t work out how much she actually believes and how much she consciously fakes for attention. I suspect the lines are blurred. But I find her exhausting and frustrating and getting to the point where I think I’m going to lose my shit. So possibly munchasen rather than by proxy but it sounds like her parents encouraged it when she was younger

she constantly sees nhs drs, neurologists, rheumatologist, immunologists, etc. generally they say nothing is wrong with her. So she pays privately and then reckons she gets some obscure diagnosis. But never anything which can actually be treated. So she never gets better. I’m not sure if she’s lying about the diagnosis. I suspect so.

she is obsessed about her health and talks constantly about it. When she started with us she was telling me a list of symptoms and I said oh it sounds a bit like an unusual condition X which I have. She’d never heard of it and asked me all about it. Literally a few months later she is telling everyone inc me she has X. But it’s like she’s forgotten I have it as she explains stuff to me about it. Plus there was never a time when she said to me that she had an upcoming appointment to find out if she has x. Which I’d have expected from her. One day she was just talking about it like she’d had it years.

she fakes “attacks”. To the extent she goes to hospital saying she can’t breathe as her airways are closing but I’ve seen these attacks and they’re not convincing. She has a huge list of allergies which even if she’s ordering a plate of chips she will insist on showing to the waitress. Why the waitress needs to know she’s allergic to blueberries when all she’s eating is potato I have no idea. But if the restaurant say they can’t guarantee cross contamination she’ll still happily eat there even though she’s loudly telling everyone she may have an anaphylactic reaction and die.

she is off work 25% of the time, multiple periods of weeks/months off work due to tiredness. Happily leaves the rest of us in the shit. HR are terrified of her and won’t do anything.

she gets angry if someone else gets diagnosed with anything. So someone at work got diagnosed by their GP with fibromyalgia which is one of her diagnoses and she was practically shouting at him that he couldn’t just say he had fibromyalgia, he wasn’t bad enough, he needed more tests. It’s like she can’t bare the thought someone might get attention over their health. Sometimes in a meeting she’ll start shaking or really gasping and I just ignore her but she ramps it up and up till someone reacts and makes a fuss.

Yes, I know someone who almost certainly has it. Both sons been pretty much off school for years. Constant trips to A&E. Her pushing them around in wheelchairs with disability lanyards on etc. it's extremely difficult to prove. I think that the drs are onto it so don't order additional tests. I spoke to someone I know who works in social care and they can only recall one instance where they interviewed after a parent was found actively inducing symptoms in hospital caught on camera. It's hard to tell if someone is just anxious or over cautious. The person I know however, shows little genuine concern, likes to be at the centre of a crisis and actively distorts and exaggerates symptoms and constantly reminds her boys that they are unwell in front of others when they are showing absolutely no symptoms. If you try to reason or question a diagnosis, you get a lot of push back and a need to prove otherwise/up the severity at the risk to the children. Obviously they love their kids deeply, but I just don't think that they understand or can see the implications of their own behaviour and therein lies the difficulty. I keep hoping that the boys primary school will join the dots. I feel as though once they reach secondary school, they will drop further off the radar. I feel very helpless watching from afar (they live in another country), but don't know how to help or if I can.

This reminds me of the true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard as told in the documentary The Act. Very similar and very sad for Gypsy.
I think it would be best for you to just ignore it OP. There seems like there is no other option.

My mum was like this. I was constantly being taken to different A&Es with "stomach pains". I didn't have stomach pains. I ended up having my appendix removed and put through so many tests and examinations, all with inconclusive results obviously. I fell while rollerblading once and landed hard on my bum. Mum took me to A&E and they said my back will be a bit sore but I'm fine. Next day, mum had borrowed a wheelchair and was telling everyone I'd broken my back. I had to sit in that thing while being pushed around so she could get attention.

The thing about being the child of a parent like this is that you can't speak out because they are your mother. And you actually start to believe it because it is your mother telling you this. I have awful health anxiety because of all this and really catastrophise ever twinge I feel, but I actually avoid doctors now because I'm convinced they're going to think I'm faking it. It's a real head fuck.

It is very possible that your brother really does believe he is having these episodes. It has been implanted in his mind from a young age that he is ill. He has essentially been brainwashed. He really needs therapy, but he's not likely to realise that while your mum is still around him. What he needs is distance from her. So hopefully with him getting married soon he'll be around your mum less and start to wake up.

No, thankfully, and I'm so sorry this has been your experience.

Sadly, I know more parents of bright autistic kids who have been accused of it falsely than those who haven't, though. Generally in school years, usually in primary, because able autistic kids 'mask' and the brighter they are, the better they are at doing it. These days doctors and increasingly the Local Authorities know this is the norm when a kid is cognitively capable of it, but plenty of teachers feel sure they would be able to see through it, and so just don't believe the medical diagnoses and decide they're "fine in school". (It's so normal, there's a big parenting group called Not Fine In School.) The number of parents who have done Subject Access requests and have found this was the school opinion - and the child denied any support as a result - is just frightening. Professor Luke Clements and the charity, Cerebra, are conducting research into it, in fact.

FII (as it is deemed when not full blown MBP) exists, but is very rare. Parent blame is very common. The first offer when a child is suspected to be autistic or to have ADHD is a parenting course. My especial favourite was the mum who just this year was being told she was given a place on a course - when she was running it.

None of that is to deny that it's an especially horrible form of child abuse, because the professionals are held to ransom - if the parent is right, the child is suffering and refusal to believe that will exponentially increase that suffering and if it's a serious physical issue, possibly even carry life threatening risks. And if the parent is lying, that child's mental health and (depending on the claims) physical health is at enormous risk, too. I really do sympathise with the professionals, who just want to make the right choice and have such high stakes.

But again, it's incredibly rare. They call it, "perplexing presentation" now if nobody is sure what's happening - that's the code word for it being suspected - and our Director for Children's Services said at a meeting last July that there wasn't a single case in the county presently live under their safeguarding remit... but pretty well every parent knows of a case where a school has heavily implied it around autism, this year.

This makes me twitch slightly, seeing educators say yes, they see it a lot. Statistically, you can't see it a lot. You will (albeit very rarely see it) in your careers, yes, because you work with so many kids. And that must be a horrible, and frightening, risk to have to live with. But you will far more commonly see autistic kids, masking with great skill, and have parents telling you the truth.. which is that this masking is toxic to the child and a sign of unmet need, and that the child is decompensating (the "Coke bottle reaction") once in the safety of home. PTSD is the risk there. Which is, miserably, not an uncommon diagnosis in autistic kids, if inadequately supported in mainstream schools.

I do know someone who has children, and they stick a neurodiversity label on every aspect of their children's behaviour. The grandparents believe that the children are not neurodiverse at all, and that any behavioural issues or other issues are trivial, and fairly typical of children in general.

Having said all that, I have friends with neurodiverse children, and it can be a battle to be taken seriously. They're now receiving help, but they had to fight for it. Perhaps their grandparents also thought that they didn't need help.

That would be a big red flag for me. The guy on the podcast who’s studied it said that now we have Munchausens by Facebook which makes it even easier for people to get the validation and attention they crave. I don’t know why anyone would be posting about their dcs health on SM, unless it was an information campaign and even then any decent parent would be cautious of theirs dcs right to medical privacy. I know a woman similar. Constantly in hospital with her dc and constantly posting about it. I don’t know how they don’t recognise the cringe factor tbh !

It sounds more like he's faking it to be the centre of attention which is why it gets worse during other people's events rather than the parents making him ill or believe he's ill in order to get attention for themselves

My dsis’s ex friend had mbp. She was taken through the courts, found guilty and did time for it. She now can’t have unsupervised access to her son until he’s 18.

I have two friends going through this sort of thing at the moment. I actually have wondered if one is slipping into the realms of PFI and I’m almost sure the school think she is. The problem is she has started out saying there was something physical wrong with dc, nothing found. Now thinks they are ND, school don’t. The other similar but thinks dc is Nd, school don’t. Both children are anxious.

The issue I have with parents saying their dc are masking is in a case where the child has been known to the school since reception and even younger (bc obvs they communicate with nursery) how is it possible that a child has masked their entire school career ? I thought it was generally accepted that the youngest a child can really mask was around 8 years old. Where is the evidence that a tiny child who often has no concept of social norms is able to mask in childcare settings?

FWIW I think both parents are actually attributing fairly normal behaviour to ND. Their children are anxious and they want a reason for it. I suspect this is going on up and down the country. You can sympathise with schools really when every other parent is in there saying their dc is ND.

I think anyone who works on hospitals will know that some parents with a sick or disabled child don’t want them to get fully better.

I can understand where this comes from. Some conditions are much better supported than others and parents don’t want to lose the emotional support they get from certain staff.

I had a friend from baby groups I had to distance myself from. I’m not sure if she wasn’t attention seeking or hugely anxious. Baby was premature and from that point she always felt like something was wrong. She posts regularly on fb, gave up work to care for dd and bought a wheelchair.

dc is 16 and very over weight because her “condition” meant she couldn’t be active - she was prevented from being active by her mum imo and the bigger she got the harder it was to keep up with other dc. When she was a baby she’d show me her DD’s rash (I have eczema and allergies so am pretty used to rashes and probably blasé about them). She’d get upset I wasn’t taking her DD’s tiny rash seriously and rush her to A&E. I couldn’t watch it. I felt sorry for her and tried to reassure her but she wanted friends to give sympathy not solutions so I had to step away. Dc education has been hugely impacted and dc believes she’s ill. It’s weird and very sad.

Ah wow lots of replies - I’m not ignoring; when I’ve a chance to sit and read them all I will: Thank you & happy Easter! 🐣

You think it's "generally accepted" that they can't mask before 8?

You think wrong.

Masking is what is horribly termed a "fawning response". The child starts to try to placate the adults by being whatever they want them to be. The more able they are, the smaller they can do this. Yes, it can start when they're tiny. Most child-raising is aimed at teaching kids to co-operate and work with adult expectations, and masking is where the child internalises that and focuses heavily on it. Mostly, by pretending to be happy and cheerful at all times, and hyper-complying with adult expectations.

Kids know what adult expectations are very, very young. If they didn't, we couldn't start to educate them at 4 in a classroom.

Some parents will exaggerate or make things up. The vast majority are correctly identifying needs, though. And amongst parents with kids with these needs, the attitude you display is sadly very commonly encountered.

I do have to wonder why people are so confident in claiming medical expertise, in a context where they have none at all. If the paediatricians, child & adolescent psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, Advisory Teaching Services, ed psychs and SLTs (SLTs even have a term for this - "fight, flight or fawn" - "fawn" being masking) are all saying this is a real thing, and serious harm results if it is denied as being a real thing, then I don't understand why people persist in refusing to accept it? It's really weird. Masking isn't some strange new idea. It's been widely accepted for well over a decade. And yet so, so many teachers are convinced they know better.

Sadly in my nhs trust a mother was convicted after evidence showed she was feeding salt to her little one and also causing them to black out by smothering.it can be horrific. You haven’t really said anything about your brother though and how he himself acts…he is now an adult but you are commenting on what your parents do rather than what your brother is doing? Do you have a close relationship with your brother?

The issue I have with parents saying their dc are masking is in a case where the child has been known to the school since reception and even younger (bc obvs they communicate with nursery) how is it possible that a child has masked their entire school career ?

You clearly haven’t had a child who is autistic.
My dc masked even when he was young. He never had any meltdowns at school ever but was quiet and calm. A teacher’s dream. And when he struggled, I was told it’s because he was lazy.
But from Y1 onwards, he had daily meltdowns as soon as he arrived back home.
Teachers would have swore it wasn’t possible either….

It's interesting how a lot of people on this thread clearly have no idea what Munchausens by Proxy actually is.

I sympathise. I have a similar history, although not as bad as yours. Mine was also motivated my money. I grew up on benefits and my mum got more money for a 'disabled' child.

I think anyone who works on hospitals will know that some parents with a sick or disabled child don’t want them to get fully better.

@Denou i find that sort if comment heartbreaking tbh.

I have ME/CFS. People die from it when they get very severe. The NICE guidelines state very clearly it’s a neurological condition. But you STILL have doctors saying it’s psychological and it’s people not wanting to get better or munchausens by proxy when the patient is a teen.
Just now there is a teen who is going through hell, incl tribunal involvement etc… because she isn’t believed (and nor are her parents). And every time it goes to Court, they win and the doctors are told to buckle up and follow the NICE guidelines. And still they don’t because ‘everyone is convinced it’s in her head. It can’t be that bad’. A shame that this attitude puts her life at risk….

Your comment about ‘everyone in hospitals will know some cases’ remind me exactly of that.
How many times have said HCP being convinced they are right and it’s a psychological illness/people want to be ill etc… with no proof what so ever?? Just because ‘they know’.

Im not saying it doesn’t happen. But unless you can prove this is the case, then maybe believing the patient instead is a much better option tbh.

And yet I know scores of people (from internet groups for my condition) just like your friend's daughter, who didn't get a diagnosis till their 40s or later yet were ill and often needed wheelchairs from childhood onwards.

for all of us, the devastation of being ill was compounded by the scepticism of those around us.

i have had so many nasty comments or raised eyebrows over the years. I would love to go back to all those people with the results of my tests and get an apology.

This was my eldest.

With my second, she was fine at home in KS1 and acted out in school - was very blunt with staff on why, and that she wanted to come home! The lovely SENCO said once, all apologetic, that we must think they were awful, when we managed it so well from home... I started to laugh. After a child who masked, one who was EXTREMELY plain on the noise, other kids, confusing expectations and general horror of a very large bustling building being the issue was blissful. I assured her that it was fine - at least we were all on the same page and understood where the issues came from! She didn't start to mask till KS2, so all of it was a lot easier. (EasiER - stress on the last two letters!)

My eldest was the perfect child. School said he very rarely showed anything but happiness. Academically very able, always smiling, a teacher's dream. Then he would come home and attack me. Was catatonic (medically) at times. School absolutely did not believe it at all. When my mother filmed it they decided I needed a parenting course as he was, "fine in school".

He now has a formal diagnosis of PTSD due to school trauma.

He also has Auditory Processing Disorder, commonly co-morbid with autism, which made school even more hellish for him. Still masked. And that's diagnosed via physical audiology tests, so nobody could have ever denied it, had we only known that it existed. But he hid that in school, too.

This should be a mandatory part of teacher training, IMO. Autism is common. This will be part of every teaching career. Yet we throw teachers into classrooms and just expect them to know how to manage complex needs, with only gut instinct and the odd bit of ATS training, and as someone who had to learn herself how to parent autistic kids, because it is just not the same as typically developing approaches... it sets both sides up to fail.

It's horrible, isn't it? Realising that you were used by the person who you trusted more than anyone.