To know anyone irl with munchausens?

[Lw87]

Watching the gypsy rose doc, I'd never heard of munchausens disease before and can't even think I'd know anyone with it in real life

Has anyone actually had an RL encounter with someone with this?

Again can’t say much due to confidentiality but one patient I had (in mental health) I strongly suspected was making her symptoms up and lying about her history of sexual trauma. It sounds awful to say that but I’ve worked with hundreds of people with sexual trauma and never doubted anyone before or since. There was something really off about this young woman, she’s the only patient I’ve ever been really wary of. I never liked turning my back on her.

I found out by chance from colleague who worked with her in a previous job that she had a history of lying about things like pregnancies.

I vaguely wonder if I’ll see her name in the paper one day. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.

I found out by chance

I used to have a little friend who was always poorly, she was so tiny and fragile. Spent several weeks with a feeding tube. We were maybe age 5 so I didn’t think too much of it and then we moved away but years later my mum mentioned that my friend had actually been made ill by her mother and that none of the “treatment” had been necessary. Her mother was a vicars wife and an absolute pillar of the community type. But clearly mentally very unwell. I think sadly it’s relatively common.

Quite a few by proxy - but to be fair I gave spent a lot of my working life in child protection work of one kind or another

wow, so much energy and ingenuity wasted on being so utterly selfish and destructive

We’re pretty sure my mum has it. She started getting loads of attention when a sibling was having behavioral difficulties and it was like something flipped in her brain. She suddenly started complaining of various odd medical issues and bought a medical dictionary to back up her assertions. After a local woman got loads of empathy and support over a specific diagnosis her symptoms suddenly morphed into that. Then she decided one of my siblings was sick too and she constantly undermined them telling them that they were wrong if they said they felt well. This sibling has now got massive anxiety and still lives at home in their mid 20s having never managed to get any qualifications and has never so much as gone on holiday without her. Over the years I’ve tried to intervene and at one point it seemed like I was making progress but my sibling is too codependent on her and they now collude with one another on it.
I know some people will say you can’t be sure that they aren’t sick and it may be an invisible illness but trust me I’ve seen them when they think nobody can see them and they are like different people. I’ve even seen my mum fake a fall.

@StoneofDestiny it just came up on my suggested on YouTube! It's called Gypsys revenge.

I'd never ever heard of it before just watching this and it's heartbreaking. It must be so scary for medical pros as well

I think it's quite common on MN

I don’t think muchausen by proxy is classed as a psychological disorder any more, it’s just a form of child abuse.

Classing it as a disorder the abuser has diminishes their responsibility and deflects from the real victim.

@DisasterPasta

I don’t think muchausen by proxy is classed as a psychological disorder any more, it’s just a form of child abuse.

Classing it as a disorder the abuser has diminishes their responsibility and deflects from the real victim.

exactly, both are types of behaviour, not a condition

I know someone who made their child ill on multiple occasions, ED visits etc. They ended up in court over it and proved guilty and sent to jail.

@DisasterPasta

I don’t think muchausen by proxy is classed as a psychological disorder any more, it’s just a form of child abuse.

Classing it as a disorder the abuser has diminishes their responsibility and deflects from the real victim.

I agree with you.

It makes you wonder what kind of mental state someone must be in to do that to their kids though.

You’d think they’d need to be mentally unwell to do such a thing

I know someone who enabled their daughter in a similar way. It wasn't extreme and it wasn't self (or parent inflicted) injury but it was a constant flow of the child 'feeling ill' whenever something happened they didn't like.

For example, if the mum (who is a TA) gave too much attention to other kids the child would suddenly start feeling nauseous, or complain of stomach pains, anything to distract the mum's attention from other kids. Another time the child slightly knocked her foot at school but had been at my house later running up and down the stairs with my kids. As soon as her mum arrived she complained of a pain in her leg and that weekend the mum took her to A&E to have it x-rayed - it was fine!

The worst was that the child (aged around 11) did have a small foot injury that needed a plaster for 6 weeks. Apparently this also required a wheelchair! After the plaster came off, she kept on a brace for months, along with the wheelchair and then sticks.

What made it ridiculous was that everyone saw the child running and swirling around whenever the mum turned her back and sometimes when she was looking. But she would not believe it even when she saw it. 6 months later, by which time she'd moved to secondary school, the wheelchair was back with no explanation.

There were many small episodes like this over the years.

It must be terrifying. It's thrown me off tbh because I'd never heard of it, now I'm on Google looking at what causes it

When DD had a weird set of symptoms it was entirely clear that this was suspected by our GOSH team. I remain utterly horrified that they focused on me (as imagined perpetrator) and didn’t really investigate what was causing DD’s (admittedly bizarre) symptoms. Her condition is one that has been associated w FII, but that FII was the conclusion they leapt to (not a genuine medical condition) appals me. They had absolutely not one shred of evidence to do this - just the association.

My mum had MH problems (undoubtedly some form of personality disorder), but was also a product of her own upbringing with a lot of emotional abuse and neglect, especially as a girl in a family of eight kids with a fire and brimstone Catholic mother. I was her first born child and born early due to a car accident that was her fault: (she always drove like a bat out of hell) Nobody expected me to survive back then, and I attracted a lot of media attention. I had a badly broken leg from being pulled out, and everyone assumed I had some form of brain damage as a result of oxygen deprivation as I needed resuscitation at birth. I didn’t walk until I was nearly three, because everyone assumed I wouldn’t be able to. I was pulling myself up on the dog when the visiting health nurse noticed my hips were badly dislocated from the traction in the humidicrib, and that the dogs guarded me from my mother. I had already had several gynaecological surgeries by this time looking for sources of mystery vaginal infections reported by my mum but never verified medically. This continued until I was eight and I explained to a doctor when I was having my arm reconstructed for the second time that she was responsible for breaking it, and I had never had any problems urinating or itchy bits. SS were never called (mum was a nurse) but my godmother had a long conversation with the hospital and my parents about how they had all been taking notes and one more problem and they would take custody of me. Fuck I wish they had.

@Lw87 Thank you

In the course of work yes, but it is incredibly difficult to work with and engage with the families let alone prove

Yes my birth mother has it- horrific for anyone involved, very hard to prove, proved deadly for one of my younger sisters and the impact of it still effects both my youngest sister and I.

Yes. Fortunately not as in doing things to make a child ill.
One claimed her child had all sorts of physical aliments. Usually relating to walking or teeth. Nothing could be found wrong with the child. When the DC got old enough to object that there was nothing wrong with their legs and they could play games the mother started with a shopping list of conditions for herself. Including claiming to have caught a condition that you're born with.
The other went more down the line of speech problems/SEN. Until the child reached 16, passed exams and promptly moved abroad to work. Again the mother then developed vague conditions of her own needed to see lots of specialists and probably buggered up a medical study they got involved in.

[quote Lw87]@DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou oh really? What is the new name for it?[/quote]
Fabricated or induced illness.

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/fabricated-or-induced-illness/overview/

@coachmylife

When DD had a weird set of symptoms it was entirely clear that this was suspected by our GOSH team. I remain utterly horrified that they focused on me (as imagined perpetrator) and didn’t really investigate what was causing DD’s (admittedly bizarre) symptoms. Her condition is one that has been associated w FII, but that FII was the conclusion they leapt to (not a genuine medical condition) appals me. They had absolutely not one shred of evidence to do this - just the association.

I have seen a pt suspected of this too with absolutely no evidence just because it initially was not a condition that could be diagnosed easily. It horrified me that it was so casually bandied around. When I wrote in the medical records that this was recorded without evidence or proper assessment I got in trouble and the consultant was furious.

@coachmylife

When DD had a weird set of symptoms it was entirely clear that this was suspected by our GOSH team. I remain utterly horrified that they focused on me (as imagined perpetrator) and didn’t really investigate what was causing DD’s (admittedly bizarre) symptoms. Her condition is one that has been associated w FII, but that FII was the conclusion they leapt to (not a genuine medical condition) appals me. They had absolutely not one shred of evidence to do this - just the association.

I had similar I think at GOSH. Or at least firm disbelief of there being issues. I’ve since had an apology from the consultant and a firm diagnosis for my child.

I on ce treated a man in A&E (I'm a nurse) who fabricated a whole story about having terminal cancer and said he was experiencing nasty side effects of treatment but was visiting our city to see friends before he died.
It all came out as lies when we contacted his "home" hospital, they knew him & his stories well. Apparently he travelled through the country doing the same thing. He left the dept quite quietly after we challenged him.
He then returned the next week with the same story, unfortunately for him, I was on triage the night he returned. He totally denied everything, denied he had ever attended this dept (had changed his details when booking in). So very sad & strange

I did suspect another parent of this. She would tell anyone who'd listen that her children had a terrible disease caused by parasites. She fed them around 15 pills a day that she bought online.
Her children actually appeared to be in perfect health, bright skin, very fit and bright, but one was hugely anxious.

I would sometimes bump into the mother at a local cafe and she'd have a huge stack of the children's medical notes and would invariably be crying.

It was very strange. My view is that she genuinely believed in what she was doing, that there was no malicious intent but that the only illness the children knew was their mother's instability.

Yes two people. A teenage friend used to fake fits. I half suspected it but they confirmed to me they had faked it when they got older. Understandable I guess as their home life was not good.

Also a relative who died. She told Drs she could not walk and refused to try. Multiple tests could find nothing and she refused to do any activity that would keep her muscles okay. Eventually, her muscles wore away and she did end up in a wheelchair and finally in a home. Tragic that she made herself disabled. No idea what the motivation was.