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’m sorry for your diagnosis. I hope that you are ok.
I have come across a couple of cases before and the parents were forever taking the children for medical appts/procedures.
Is your brother’s wife in on it all? He doesn’t sound a very good catch if he’s that close to his Mum that she has that much control over him!

Exactly.

I had countless doctors tell me it was all in my head.

I wonder if they ever get to find out that actually they were wrong and they had missed a serious condition. Or if they just hold me in their list of people who they "know" were fabricating illness

And @MarionMarion it really frustrates me how much ignorance and nastiness there is around CF/ME.

That’s so sad OP.

It sounds like your DM should not have had children. She couldn’t cope for whatever reason and passed three to her parents.

That alone is extremely unusual behaviour and a massive red flag not to have more.

But she did and perhaps her way of coping was to create this illness in one child so that she got attention and some form of control over that child.

She’d lost control of her first three. Now she would make sure she’d never lose another child and she’s bound him to her in a very sickly mental state and way.

It’s really sad for your DB. He’s trapped in her trauma and she has passed it on instead ir breaking the chain.

I guess she grew up in a time when there wasn’t the access to mental health. She didn’t bond with you at the start, she could have had PND. Or it could have been something else. So many questions with so few answers. I’m so glad your Gran was there to love you and teach you about love. Although very sad at least you have known love which is probably why you’re not passing on your DM’s trauma 🙏

Ive seen the youngest of four kids, a girl, told by her mum she’s fat from a young age. It’s all about control from the DM. The girl got bigger and bigger. At 32 she had stomach surgery. Lost all the weight and her mum couldn’t stand it. Everyone complimented her on how lovely she looked but her mum just ignored it. Scowled.

Eventually the poor woman started to gain again. Then transfer addiction got her and she began drinking heavily all the time. Her pancreas gave up and she died age 42.

Her mum is still alive. I sometimes wonder how she lives with herself. She controlled and manipulated that poor girl from a young age and destroyed her. I don’t think she meant to kill her. But events can unravel even beyond the most finely made plans.

You had a lucky escape. Your DM is toxic. For your DB’s sake, I’d stay low contact.

As for him he needs to move to Australia and get as far away from your DM as possible.

My intention with this post wasn’t to downplay those who have genuine conditions that go unmissed such as ME/CFS/Long Covid.

I have a rare autoimmune condition myself that wasn’t detected for years.

My brother in the privacy of the family home walks about, says he’s no pain, he’s told by my mum what to say at appointments, they genuinely just like the attention and he says he knows nothing else and doesn’t want to suddenly have to start work as he wouldn’t know what to do.
There is a lot more I could put but it really is very identifying due to the uniqueness of it & some people starting to realise it outside of the family the longer it’s going on.

If he genuinely told me he had pain/tiredness or anything I would be the first to empathise and help I really would.

He is used to the life of not having to do anything.

I truly am sorry for those who’ve had to battle for diagnoses and for the trigger from my post 🥺

Oh right so this has nothing to do with being concerned about your brother after years of covert abuse by your parents. You actually just want to have a go at him for faking disability to get out of working.

Whatever you are describing, that most certainly isn't Munchausens by Proxy though!
And if you have a rare and hard to diagnose condition then I find it astonishing you don't realise the harm that these kind of stories cause

That's because 1 in 5 ARE neurodivergent. What a nasty comment to make!

It’s definitely not munchausens by proxy . That’s when someone makes up an illness in someone else for the attention. It’s usually a parent or a carer eg childminder. Munchausens itself even isn’t a diagnosis these days. I think it’s called factitious disorder.

I have two good examples of children under 8 from families I was very involved with.

Unemployed friend of mine's DS is spoiled to the core, very obese, and can't connect with other children because of how poorly he's been socialized. He gets a day off school EVERY week. Severe victim complex instilled in him. His mother pulled him out of school for homeschooling because the school penalized her little darling, and didn't permit him to terrorize other kids. Claims the school was abusive. Claims he is ND/autistic/adhd. Complains to school every time he gets in trouble at school for 'abusing' her son. Needless to say he is absolutely not ND whatsoever and is just spoiled. SS were involved at one point, but maliciously.

Similarly unemployed friend of mine is non binary and also insists her DD is non binary even though she's only 7 and she 100% put that idea into her head. Submitted a referral to a neurological charity claiming her child had complex neurodvelopmental disease, ADHD, autism etc. As before, she is a wonderful little girl and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. The mum is actually a really wonderful mother to her apart from this so it's a shame.

Both also fully capable of working and getting jobs. I feel like if more of these types of people had jobs then they wouldn't have the time to obsess over making up illnesses for themselves and their kids.

Neither cases are particularly dangerous to their kids physical health, but they are teaching them learned helplessness because they want to keep them unemployed and dependent on them forever and they also have their identities ground very firmly in victimhood. Both parents are extremely active and addicted to TikTok as well.

Only a hit dog hollers.

True MSBP is incredibly rare. Devastating when it happens . The inssue now is that there seems to be the umbrella term of FII encompassing many behaviours that could be attributed to genuinely concerned parents navigating the health and education system and then they get swept up in the net of suspicion. This is what happened to us.

Professionals obviously want to protect children but they are casting the net so far and wide to catch the isolated rare cases of MSBP and on that process are catching a lot of innocent families

@Namechangeone Apparently can't take tablets so it's calpol 🤦‍♀️

Sorry but this made me laugh - at least you know he's safe & won't overdose (actually quite important given he's been raised to believe he's sick or even once faked an illness & it snowballed into this!)

As for the diagnosis (MBP) it doesn't sound likely if theyre neglectful of you & your genuinely ill

It could however be a number of things:

•They cant accept your ill unless the witness it in somebody else (😡 not naming names but my couldnt accept even a common cold unless half the kids had it brings up certain memories)

• they feel if your ill there must be other illnesses in the family & channel their energy's into trying to fix the one they still have at home

• your brothers the one actually fueling this in order to stay close to them

• They just really feel there's something wrong with him to still be with them & reliant on them compared to other kids in the family

To the people now saying “it’s not MBP” -

Sounds like it started as MBP when brother was a child. Now he is an adult, he is going along with it. Maybe still MBP from the mum’s perspective if she still believes it.

Either way, very difficult for OP to deal with.

Aren't you lovely.

And that's not how San Francisco is spelt.

Yes I have in my line of work. This should have been picked up before when he was a child as it is concerned a form of abuse. It’s a serious mental health condition and it sounds like it’s now impacted your brother as an adult who will now carry that through in his own life. A very sad situation xx

I don't understand your story but yes I have a family member with Munchausens which has a proxy element.

To be honest its obvious to even an idiot... they have been 'run over' 3 times on walks, they have had monoxide poisoning at least 5 times in 3 different houses and other such things that happen in such high volume they have to be deliberate.

Hers started before she had kids, in her teens she convinced the hospital to do many unnecessary surgeries and constantly had 'mystery illnesses' (they however had REAL damage... like she presented throwing up blood because she was poisoning herself with Ibuprofen but saying they was no known cause).

She was committed in her teens but has had 5 kids since, they get caught up in it but I still think harming herself is the aim... its about attention, the attention is all on her if its HER thats the 'victim'. The kids are just with her when she tampers with gas or jumps in front of cars or swallows something poisonous or 'falls' on a broken glass so collateral damage occasionally.

She has been deemed by SS as fit enough to keep 4 or her 5 kids though.

Munchausen isn't really about playing pretend, hospitals can see through fake seizures and fake paralysis easily, people with Munchausen utilize dangerous things like poisoning etc... to manifest real symptoms that can't be faked and show up on testing. With the absence of knowing its self inflicted (of by proxy) the hospital will search for a legitimate natural cause.

I once knew a woman whom I suspected of this. Out of respect for her memory I don't want to reveal details but suffice to say she committed suicide in the end. It is one of the saddest regrets of my life that I didn't spend longer trying to identify exactly what was wrong with her, and 25 years later I still think of her often even though we were only close for short periods of time. It was very difficult to identify - shrouded in secrecy, she was very intelligent and articulate but could argue her way out of anything you suggested to her so although she was clearly extremely unwell mentally at times, we never got far with trying to identify exactly why. It would be very triggering for some people if I posted about what made me suspect it, but I did so at the time and after her death became more convinced. Tread very carefully OP - I hope your situation is not as sinister as mine was but I think the fact that you suspect this at all implies there is something going on.

You can overdose on calpol.

True, I was rushed to a&e after downing an entire bottle of it when I was 5.

However you'd need about 1.5 pints of it to be in any real danger.

I have come across this professionally, as a social worker.
One case was when I was working in a hospital social work team.
It was distressing, not the least because the child could have died due to the actions of the parent (being a bit vague here because I think it hit the papers)
and the parent just carried on until the medical evidence led to the parent's arrest.

Not as an adult taking it spereodically!

Is this a new word consisting of 'sporadically' and 'periodically'