Could my friend have munchausens?

[Anonnymouse124]

I have a friend with two children and they have both been diagnosed with autism. A mutual friend is convinced she’s manipulating the system to get attention and benefits as she had paid for private doctor appointments. I thought this was the most disgusting accusation so am trying to work out what I am missing. Is it even possible for this to happen?

Because a) with private/right to choose pathways it's all done online and the child is barely seen or spoken to, and b) sometimes the symptoms especially for ADHD can actually be developmental trauma or difficulties stemming from environmental or parental factors, that cause behaviours which look like neurodiversity.

OP I think you should stay right out of it, personally.

She probably went private as the public waiting lists are so long. Good on her, and she has just cleared 2 spaces for people who can't afford to go private.
Support your friend and don't listen to viscous gossip.
People with mauchaussen by proxy are extremely rare and would normally involve more acute conditions than autism. Conditions that usually require hospital stays .

It hasn’t been discredited, it’s called factitious disorder now.

I think the using diagnoses to ‘play the system’ is much rarer than most people imagine. For a start, for invisible conditions like autism where there is no definitive test, the DWP requires a lot of high quality evidence so a diagnostic report would usually not be enough.

it is also common with invisible conditions for others, even close friends and family, not to realise how much the condition affects them. I have several of these invisible conditions that have no diagnostic test and there is not a single person who understands
what I am going through - not even DM or my children: I’m sure that a number of my friends think I am playing the system and am pretending I am too ill to work. I look incredibly well but I am not.

As the oarent of 3 autistic kids-
First I had assumed would just get the support she needed, if she needed it... I truly thought you have concerns, you bring them up, you'll be believed, referrals children need will be made and the support would magically appear (as happened in circa 1997 /1998 with my neurodiverse sister)
That was not the case at all, infact it was only when I realised that navigating through mainstream education with no support had ripped her mental health apart did I realise I had to fight.
Shes 18 now, and I wish I would have fought for her diagnosis years before. She would have had a very different diagnosis.

2nd born/3rd born severely affected by autism- again, started the fight.. didnt get anywhere- the system is overloaded.
Anything thats needed is so hard to get, and the waiting times for anything are LONG.
So with him, ive navigated a system of looking realistically to see how long a waiting list is in our area, how quickly DS needs something, then going private if the wait isnt something we can manage.
In our area, the wait is 4+ years, ive been told its more like 5-6. Who's waiting all that time if they can circumvent that wait?
Private assessments, private therapies etc are all part of navigating a journey with an overwhelmed system with children where support is needed.

To get get a diagnosis of autism surely the school is also contacted and its not just the word of a parent?

My 18 yo dd was diagnosed privately earlier this year. She is so fragile that I had to choose the setting carefully and I found someone, who would do the patient bit in her own home.

I had asked a few people, who know more about autism if they thought she was autistic always to be told no, not your dd. I believed them and as dd got older, I couldn’t understand therefore why she couldn’t work certain basic things out for herself when her friends seemed to do it naturally. And why I needed to be as I am with her.

Only people, who know her very well have even an inkling she’s struggling as she masks to perfection. But there’s a lot going on inside. I’ve done an inordinate amount to keep her going. Had I not, it is very unlikely she would have finished her schooling let alone be going to university. Instead of being grateful, she is angry I’m not like all the other parents. I have been the mum she needs, not the one she thinks she wants.

Dd doesn’t accept the diagnosis. The pressure at age 15 led to her getting an eating disorder and becoming very mentally unwell. She remains unwell 3 years on.

I would think long and hard before being sucked into this. Perhaps your friend has gone through a lot of battles looking for answers.

It's currently taking about 2 years to get a diagnosis appointment for autism, variable according to which NHS trust you are in. A lot of families pay to get a private diagnosis because it feels like the first step in helping your child who is in pain and you need to understand the issues before you can help.

Having paid for that doesn't mean you get a different diagnosic outcome any more than paying for a private CT scan to check for cancer would get a different outcome than waiting for an NHS one, just a faster one.

Having received a diagnosis does not entirle you to any benefits whatsoever. A diagnosis is not required in order to recieve benefits if benefits are warranted. The diagnosis opens precicely zero doors. Benefits are based on actual needs in terms of what someone can and cannot do and how much extra support they need compared to a non-dusabled person. There are lots of children with complex needs who have no diagnosis because their syndromes are so rare that science hasn't identified a cause or pathway for what is happening. The benefits and support they get do not require a diagnosis. There are lots of children with an official diagnosis of something who have no entitlement to any benefits or support because their level of need is not extraordinary compared to non disabled children of similar age.

The nasty gossip who is criticising someone for paying for a diagnosis appointment does not deserve any friendship from anyone.

The mum trying to work out how to help her children could do with sone support, but if you aren't on her side then do her a favour and stay out of her life.

Munchausens by proxy is horrible but usually involves someone actually harming their child with drugs or poison to make them ill. Equating it to a parent's attempts to get help for their child is a really disgusting way to think of someone you're supposed to be friends with.

Or she is making people who can’t afford it, wait longer. These professionals usually do private work to earn extra money.

Perhaps different services do things differently but when my son was diagnosed with asd he was observed for 4 hours (split over 2 sessions) by a psychologist, speech and language therapist, paediatrician and a nursery nurse. He was also seen by the audiologist and eye specialist . The psychologist interviewed his nursery teacher and spoke to health visitor and his salt as well as interviewing myself and my husband. I am not sure how anyone could fake it.
Perhaps there are some children who present strongly with asd or ADHD traits and are wrongly diagnosed (although I’d imagine it’s rare) but they would still have presented with significant symptoms at the time. Professionals do not just take parents word.

Munchausen is now known as Fabricated Induced Illness (FII).

There has to be a lot of evidence to prove it. 2 private autism diagnoses is nowhere near enough evidence.

If your friend feels there is a significant pattern of behaviour and that children are at risk of harm, then ring children's services and let them investigate. They can get the gp records and act if they feel it is necessary.

When that is the case they do set NHS days. They don’t change to fit in their private work🙄

This!

Schools are contacted.

This OP is a perfect example of the ignorance and stigma parents of autistic children have to contend with, on top of the autism their children have.

Munchausens by proxy is horrible but usually involves someone actually harming their child with drugs or poison to make them ill. Equating it to a parent's attempts to get help for their child is a really disgusting way to think of someone you're supposed to be friends with.

Yeah it isn’t though, it is actually Mothers engineering situations and manipulating children for their own psychological benefit. So they tell their children they are delicate and sick, and that they can’t cope. “Is that a sniffle?” starts the chain of children being at the doctors/off school /needing referrals. So the Mum gets to be the savior, and the child dependent on them well into adulthood. They truly believe the child is sick/fragile and that they require the maximum of intervention, and the child comes to believe it too. They genuinely think they are mother of the year.

Which is why it is quite difficult to separate from mothers of genuinely sick/autistic children who are doing their best in a broken best.

All of this.

Gossip snd leaping to some fairly crazy conclusions is indeed nasty and hugely unhelpful.

People who don't understand certain medical conditions and the processes involved for diagnosis blaming the (almost always) female parent speaks volumes about them. Witchunt springs to mind.

DLA doesn't need a diagnosis its based on care needs

Did you know women were once regularly accused of munchousan by proxy simply because the drs didnt agree with what they were saying about their own children? I was when I had the audacity to tell a dr my daughter had a UTI he refused to test her I refused to leave unless he did so he agreed and put a note in my daughters medical records that I "needed watching" for signs he then didn't have the sample dip tested he sent it off to the lab who told my Dr it was positive for uti they assumed out of hours dr was just sending it for confirmation and he had already given her antibiotics because no-one would send an 18 month old home in pain right? I rang a few days later (my own dr this time) begging for help as she was worse took two lots of antibiotics to clear it turns out she has a physical internal deformity that makes her prone to UTI that message he put on her records cannot be erased either all because a dr didn't like being "told" what was wrong with "his" patient

Accusations like that about someone are spiteful and nasty

Or is she taking some of the pressure off the NHS so people who can't afford it don't have to wait as long?

My ex thinks I have fabricated my ds autism to claim benefits. I have managed to convince every teacher ds ever had, 3 educational psychologists, 2 sencos, a gp, local council sen team, specialists at the child development centre, faked my way through an ehcp and then blagged him into specialist provision. We all know how easy it is to get into sen schools.

Many people look at sen parents and feel jealous that they get extra help. Perhaps look into adopting a child with sen if you think its such a gravy train? Actually dont.

And yes re medical misogyny which is rearing its ugly head again. Part of the reasons autism and adhd numbers have risen is due to the diagnostic process recognising how both present in women. Since that the witch hunts have started.

Private diagnosis they still speak to the GP and school etc. You're a terrible, horrible friend for even posting this. Shame on you.

I don’t think this friend even exists, it’s just another attempt to slate parents of children with autism.

Schools and Drs etc are not always contacted when a family goes for a private diagnosis. Our local NHS ND team have outsourced to a private company to reduce waiting times and in those cases there is evidence from school and home as the information is already held by the ND team.

I know of many cases where a child has come back to school with a private diagnosis where school have had absolutely no input, it has all been based on parental information. I heard of 1 this week now with a dual diagnosis and school see no evidence, especially the ADHD side of the diagnosis.

A doctor whether paid private or not is not going to diagnose autism unless it is present.

Naïve.

Same.

It's quite scary. Parents know what to say to tick the boxes now.

More people need to read The Age of Diagnosis to understand what is happening.