Is there such a thing as sexual harassment Munchausens?

[Jimmyville]

Very peculiarly, a woman I know is (we think) pretending to be being sexually harassed.

Over the course of the last ten months she has reported to various colleagues and friends that

• someone wrote ‘whor*’ in her windscreen
• sent her anonymous WhatsApp messages calling her a slut and telling her to move town
• a note under her front door at 6am telling her to leave

and other weirdness to do with her daughter ‘overhearing’ people call her mother a slut.

The thing is despite the concern of people she tells the stories to, she won’t report these events. The stories vary, but tend to include reference to a married man she had a fling with.

We’re beginning to wonder if she has made this up. The stories are really odd, but making it all up would be even odder. Anyone have any experience?

I've no idea about sexual harassment munchausens, but I believe that some people make up stuff like this. Presumably they get something out of the attention they get.

There are many MH issues that could result in this - or just someone "attention-seeking" for some reason? Parts of it could be real.

Do you actually have any solid evidence that she made any of these things up?

We have a female family member who has mild SEN.
She actually was raped but didn't actually think she had been (groomed) but after that she made accusations about lots of men periodically to the extent that several male family members made sure they were never alone with her. Fortunately for the men she made allegations against it was genuinely impossible in at least 3 cases for for what she claimed to have happened but there was always doubt about a couple more.
Its a very difficult situation and I feel for the person who made the accusations and I belive that in at least 1 case she was targetted because she had this history and wouldn't be believed BUT in a couple of other cases her accusations could have destroyed lives.

The latest episode involved this woman (let’s call her Sue) saying that her daughter had very been upset.

Sue’s 10yo daughter had ‘overheard’ the man’s ex wife and her friend calling Sue a slut.

The thing is, nothing about this story rings at all true and both the ex-wife and friend say the didn’t either discuss Sue or see her daughter on the evening. And I know the ex-wife, and she wouldn’t ever use the word slut.

And suddenly we are all wondering about the rest of it. No-one saw the note, and the anonymous messages were shown (not forwarded) to the man (object of Sue’s affections).

Are you friends of Sue’s?

I am a colleague and office friend. So reasonably often out with her. But it was only today that I checked one of these stories with another friend who has worked with her longer.

I had been taken in by the whole thing. Other colleague thought it was bs.

But surely this is called out though?

pseudologia fantastica

I would reserve judgement till you have a more concrete reason to believe she’s deliberately made it up. Don’t stoke gossip about your colleague.

If she has made it up, it’s an odd thing to do.

All of the gossip-stoking is being done by her, including writing to the ex-wife. It coincided with the man (also a colleague) not coming out on a Friday night when she wanted him to.

I would reserve judgement till you have a more concrete reason to believe she’s deliberately made it up. Don’t stoke gossip about your colleague.

^This

I worked with a temp who put in so many complaints about colleagues that her contract was terminated early.

Everything was about her. If someone laughed, they were clearly laughing at her, if someone left the room as she came in, it was because they were slighting her, they were deliberately giving her the worst jobs to do (ya know, the ones she was contracted to do). I think I was the only one she didn't complain about. Not sure why.

Well one thing’s certain, you’re not her friend. Sounds like you’ve come onto MN to try and harvest more material for your gossip sessions about her with your pals at work.

So Sue has had an affair with a work colleague, and has since received anonymous messages, a nasty note through her door, and a message on her windscreen. And the work colleagues ex-wife has been overheard calling Sue a slut.

Is that correct?

And you don’t think any of that happened? You think Sue is lying?

1. I worked with someone like this, it took a while but over time I came not to believe anything she said. It was all about her being the centre of anything going on.
2. She could be personality disordered and like to stoke drama.
3. She could be mildly delusional. Delusions are quite hard to diagnose unless they are dramatic and they dont respond well to medications or treatment. I think a lot of people are sub-clinically delusional.

I had a work colleague similar (if she is indeed lying), but she lied about lots of other strange things too.

Some of the lies were so strange and pointless. Like claiming to drive a Ford but driving a Toyota. That sort of thing

But it’s important to be careful and sure this person is lying. Women are harassed and abused every day by men, in eye watering amounts

Totally agree, forgot to add this. Have a few times heard what seemed unbelievable which turned out to be true.

Aside from whether it's true or not, I'm not sure that the examples you've given would really be sexual harassment, would they? Is she characterising them that way? Tbh it sounds more like a cheated-on wife trying to run her out of town...

Yeah I’m not sure where the sexual harassment comes in at all?

She’s certainly being harassed, probably by the scorned wife, if all these things have happened. It’s really not beyond the realms of possibility.

But there’s no evidence of Sue claiming she’s experiencing sexual harassment.

Thanks for replies. To take some queries in turn.

I did believe her, it didn’t occur to me not to. Right up until the weird stuff about the daughter which absolutely does not ring true at all. It was after that that all these other stories told to other people came out.

There is a sexual harassment element to all of the odd stories. At one point she claimed she needed some weeks to WFH because her son was the victim of sexual assault. Again, I believed this.

Sue has a complaint in about someone else unconnected at work, and has this passion for the unfortunate guy. There is a lot of drama.

When I was a student, way back in the 80s I knew someone like this. We all thought she was a bit odd. She would often claim that someone had tried to rape her.
A few years later I was working with her. One day she had an absolute meltdown and started throwing objects around the office and screaming.
To cut a long story short, she had been sexually abused by her father from a young age. Her accusations of rape had been her way of trying to communicate that, or maybe deal with it.
There would have been limited resources back then to deal with this. No one talked about mental health, there was no Childline, no counsellors. Her off behaviour was a cry for help.
I've no idea of this has any bearing on the person described here, but after reading this it just reminded me about this sad women from so long ago.
I've no idea whatever happened to her.

i do think it is a cry for help in some way. Although she is a senior professional, which makes it all weirder.