Any experience with Munchausen Syndrome? (boyfriend, father, emotion, everything)
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Has anyone been a friend, relative or acquaintance of someone with Munchausen Syndrome? Where someone fakes symptoms of a serious illness for sympathy or attention?
(Not to be confused with Munchausen by Proxy, which involves pretending a loved one is seriously ill.)
I woman I know, but not well, has told people for the last couple of years that she has an extremely serious illness and at times has appeared to be literally deathly ill.
In the past couple of days however, some people who know her much better than I do reportedly have come to believe that she's not sick and has faked all of it.
I don't know what to believe. If she's faked it, she's good at it because she has looked really awful the last couple of times I've seen her. On the other hand, not all of her story adds up and there are some glaring inconsistencies.
Just wondering about others' possible experiences.
I know I could have posted this in the psychology forum, but this forum gets more traffic and I'm more interested in anecdotes than anything.
I don't know anyone with Munchausen but my aunt had Munchausen by Proxy when her kids were growing up. They were always sick with something and even all caught asthma the same year. I haven't heard her acting like that now but they have all three grown up without any sort of health problems whatsoever.
Does faking pregnancies count as Munchausen's? The daughter of a former friend/ex-neighbor used to post fake pregnancies on Facebook. She'd post sonograms (no idea where she got them), say she was having twins or sometimes it was just one baby, but there were never any pics of the baby or babies. (She did this more than once - by my count, there should have been several kids.) My friends who still lived in the neighborhood reported that there was never any baby and the girl would make excuses like "The baby is still in the hospital." I guess some people must have called her on her BS because she switched her tactics to pretending she had been injured in an accident and posting pictures of a broken foot/arm/leg on FB.
I never knew the girl as an adult, but she was extremely attention-seeking as a child. I guess it only got worse as she grew older.
I went to school with someone who claimed to be pregnant for well over a year. I always wondered if she was an elephant or something for as long as she claimed to be pregnant. I do remember she was two months along for well over two months. I'm not sure if this is Munchausen's or not either.
My husband had a co-worker who faked a pregnancy at work and she went so far as to have a baby shower. Then when it was approaching time for delivery (she was obese and was wearing maternity clothes to work) she claimed to have had a miscarriage and was supposedly off work on paid bereavement leave grieving. When someone discovered the truth, she was disciplined at work but came back and acted like nothing happened.
My mother has Munchausen Syndrome. It drives us all crazy sometimes, but we've all gotten to the point where we call her hand on it every time.
We thought for a long time that she was a hypochondriac, but there are significant differences between the two behavior disorders. It finally clicked with us when we realized just how much she enjoys her "illnesses."
Once she even convinced someone to BRING HER A WHEELCHAIR so she should wheel herself around in it. Suddenly she wanted to go to church and shopping, etc in that thing, and wanted to invite people over so she could sit in it while they were visiting. She loves for people to consider her "heroic" and "brave." My dad had had enough and he forbade her to use it and made her tell him who had brought it over. He called them himself and said, "I know you think you are helping, and I do appreciate this - but my wife can't get a prescription for a wheelchair because there is NOTHING WRONG WITH HER PHYSICALLY. So I'll be returning this to you this afternoon." My mom was furious. She started calling everyone she knew telling them how mean and callous my dad is - how he doesn't care anything about her health. Oh brother.
Recently she went to the doctor (for nothing, by the way) and INSISTED on a very expensive sort of blood test, because as she put it "Dr Online told her she probably has such and such an illness/condition." That's her favorite phrase, "Dr Online" and she says it with the emphasis on the first syllable, like "Dr ONline." It drives me crazy. Anyway, my dad had made a mistake by just dropping her off at the Dr's office for the appointment, rather than staying with her. The doctor's office told her, "You do not need this test. Insurance is probably going to deny this claim and so you need to sign this form stating that you understand you may have to pay for this out of your own pocket." She did so, of course, because she was determined to have that test run. Of course the test came back totally clear.
My dad got a bill for $900 a few weeks later, with the information that insurance had denied the claim. My mother claimed that she wasn't told this at all - that he should fight with the doctor's office as well as the insurance company, because the doctor had ordered that test, and this just goes to prove that doctors and insurance companies were just out to hose the American public and were all crooked, yada yada yada. My dad went down to the doctor's office and they explained it to him and showed him the form she had signed. He had to pay it, and did so, and then called me on the way home, hopping mad. When I asked him if he'd stayed with her while she was in the appt, he said, "Well, no...I don't like doctors' offices - I went to the hardware store." I told him, "Well, that was your first mistake. I ALWAYS go in with her if I get corralled into taking her to a doctor's appointment. You wouldn't believe the shenanigans she tries." So now my dad insists on being with her every step of the way. He won't take her unless she agrees to this. This has really put a cramp in her style, because she can't play the system if he's calling her bluff.
Once I stopped by their house just to pick up a book. When I walked into the house, no one answered my calls of "Hello! Hello?" I walked into the living room on to a bizarre sight - my mother was writhing around on the floor groaning and calling out hoarsely, "Help me - help me!" while my dad sat in a chair, blithely ignoring her and reading his paper. I exclaimed, "What on earth is going on here?" and my mother cried out, "Oh please help me - I'm dying! I'm in agony!" while she crawled toward me - and then she collapsed, holding her stomach and crying out in apparent agony.
I caught my dad's eye and he rolled his eyes at me and then rustled his paper and disappeared behind it again. So I went over and grabbed my mom's arms and said, "Oh my goodness, we've got to get you to the hospital! Do I need to call 911 or can you make it to my car?" She looked alarmed and said in a completely different voice, "Oh wait - I'm not sure I need to go to the doctor right away," and she sat up and started smoothing her hair down. I said, "Oh no - you were just rolling around on the floor in obvious agony, screaming that you were dying. Come on - I'm taking you to the doctor right this minute." And I pulled her up and started walking her out to my car. She was protesting the whole way: "Wait a minute - maybe it will pass. Just put me to bed - help me change and then you can bring me a hot water bottle and some hot tea and you can put the little bell by my bed and I can ring it if I need anything. There's no need for me to go to the doctor." "Oh, no, I insist - anyone in so much pain that they think they're dying needs to be seen immediately!" She said, "But...but...I feel a little bit better suddenly!" "Nope, we're going to the doctor right now." I said.
We got to his office and I told the receptionist, "I almost took her straight to the emergency room because she was in so much pain, so can we please be seen immediately? She's just putting on a brave face right now but she's in terrible pain." My mother was hissing at me as we sat there, "I want to go home. I'm suddenly feeling a bit better. I think I can make it if you just take me home and help me take a hot bath and rub some lotion on me and put me to bed."
The doctor did an x ray and a complete exam and then came back into the room and said, "Here is your diagnosis. You have gas."
It was all I could do not to burst into peals of laughter!
All the way home, my mother was saying, "Well, how could I have known the difference? I was in agony! I still need help getting to bed." I told her, "No way. Put yourself to bed if you must. No one has ever had to help me to bed if I've got gas. But I insist you go to bed since you feel so terrible."
Of course she didn't want to put herself to bed and then sit there in the bedroom all by herself with no one bringing her hot tea or rubbing her neck or straightening her pillows or taking her temperature. It's boring being in the bedroom all by yourself when there's nothing wrong with you whatsoever.
She was so stinking mad at me! But I'm not putting up with those shenanigans. I've had a lifetime of her drama and it's ridiculous.
I'm the OP. I keep thinking that other info will filter down the pipeline about the woman I mentioned. If she was faking her illness, she went to great lengths. For a couple of days she looked bruised on her face and had a bandage on her head. I asked if she'd been in a car wreck and she said it was from one of her treatments. Then, she claimed that she was approved for an experimental treatment and she supposedly went out of state for one treatment of whatever it was. When she came back she looked horrible with very dark circles under her eyes and when she walked whe was bent over like an old lady.
Two weeks later, after someone accused of faking it all, I saw her and she looked like the picture of health. No dark circles, beautiful clear skin and talking about taking a cross-country road trip.
Either the experimental drug was a miracle cure, or... she's faking. I can't figure any other explanation for the quick turnaround.
My grandma might have had it, although we just called her a hypochondriac. She went to the doctor at least two to three times a week for years. Luckily it was a rural doctor who coddled her, as she would throw an absolute fit if she wasn't getting her " fix". Nowadays the doc would be in trouble, but this was during the seventies and eighties. He just gave her placebos and " tonics". My mom had to wait hand and foot on her growing up, and when she got married they hired a companion/maid for my grandma.
The happiest she had ever been was when she was in a nursing home and bedridden. When she told me about her realcancer, she was almost giddy.
That's messed up.
Maybe that's why I always deny being sick. I can be throwing up and saying...I'll be okay in a minute. I don't have to go home from work. ( haha)
From what I've read, the difference between hypochondria and Munchausen Syndrome is that hypochondriacs really think they're ill and people with MS know they're faking but do it for the attention.
Now most people who know the woman I described above seem to conclude that she was faking it. Some of her actions during the course of this entire "illness" make so much more sense when viewed in that light.
From what I've read, the difference between hypochondria and Munchausen Syndrome is that hypochondriacs really think they're ill and people with MS know they're faking but do it for the attention.
Now most people who know the woman I described above seem to conclude that she was faking it. Some of her actions during the course of this entire "illness" make so much more sense when viewed in that light.
I'd say that was an accurate description of it. I'm still not sure when it comes to the mother of my ex's kid - but it wasn't hypochondria. Munchausen's and Munchausen's by Proxy are attention-getting compulsions, basically - but I believe there was a monetary component that also drove what this kid's mother was doing. So that raises the question of whether it was just sociopathy rather than fulfilling an emotional need. However, from the moment I met her, I realized it was all about the drama and the attention, whether health issues were the focus or not.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that she was just a very manipulative sociopath, and when I heard years later that she had died (apparently from a drug overdose), I was kind of happy. The world is a better place without her in it. She all but destroyed her eldest son, and I am thankful that the government services realized they had dropped the ball and removed her other children from her care while they were still toddlers.
From what I've read, the difference between hypochondria and Munchausen Syndrome is that hypochondriacs really think they're ill and people with MS know they're faking but do it for the attention.
Now most people who know the woman I described above seem to conclude that she was faking it. Some of her actions during the course of this entire "illness" make so much more sense when viewed in that light.
People with Munchausen may really believe they are sick to some extent. They may know they're exaggerating but not always. The difference seems to me to be that hypochondriacs are motivated by FEAR and paranoia - they don't want to be sick but they are just sure that they are and that others have somehow missed something. People with Munchausen WANT to be sick - it's their fantasy and they get a thrill out of others catering to them, worrying about them, etc. They may actually harm themselves trying to create symptoms.
Both are emotional disorders in my opinion - some form of mental or emotional illness. But my sympathy is much less for those with Munchausen because they INTEND to manipulate others - they intend to exaggerate and even fake symptoms "for effect." For instance, my mother with her damn gas attack. There is no doubt in my mind that she had gas - and as we all know, gas can be painful. But she didn't really WANT a diagnosis - she didn't even really want to go to the doctor. What she wanted was for her family to help her to bed, to wait on her hand and foot, to worry about her and beg her to go to the doctor. The more we ignored her the more bizarre she got - till she was writhing on the floor sobbing, "I'm dying - I'm in agony - HELP ME!"
Here's the really weird thing - she actually did have a major stroke about ten years ago. It hit her optic nerve and really affected her balance, vision, and short term memory. It also changed her personality to some extent (calmed her down, thank God). Here's what's weird though - she is in nearly complete denial about the severity of her very real stroke. She insists that colors are certain colors - she will argue with you - even though she has been told over and over again that the stroke affected her ability to discern colors. She repeatedly says, "I just don't understand why I'm so dizzy - there must be something wrong with me!" We will say, "Mom, your dizziness is from your stroke. You've been dizzy ever since you had it off and on." She will say, "No, I'm over that. That's not the sort of dizziness I'm talking about. This is something new. I've never felt this way before." And yet when you ask her, "OK, you said the same thing last week - how do you feel different from last week?" she gets recalcitrant and defensive and says, "This is just different. I've never felt like this before." I finally asked "How many different forms of dizziness can there be? Because you've been saying this every week for ten years." Her vision could be much improved by wearing glasses, but she refuses to wear glasses. REFUSES. Hell, everyone I know who's over 40 wears glasses or contacts! Her optometrist has told her over and over again to wear her glasses, which will help not only her vision, but also her sense of balance - and it will cut down on the dizziness. But she refuses - and denies that she has any significant vision impairment, though her optometrist has told my dad and me that without her glasses she is basically legally blind.
In other words, she refuses to acknowledge her REAL illnesses or symptoms and yet makes up crazy ones all the time. I recently tore my Achilles tendon and had to have surgery and wear a boot and a cast and be on crutches, etc etc for months. It's pretty hard to fake a torn Achilles tendon! But I was talking about visiting and I told her, "I'd really rather wait till I'm out of this boot since the guest room is downstairs," and she said, "You're still wearing that boot?" "Yes," I said, "I told you it's about a four month process and it's only been two months since my surgery." She said, "Well, when I tore MY tendon a few years ago, I didn't have ANYWHERE near as long a recovery time, so I just don't understand why yours is taking so long." I sighed and said, "Mom, you didn't have a long recovery time because you didn't have a torn Achilles tendon, or ANY tendon." She immediately bristled up and said, "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT." I said, "Well, I know you claimed to have one but you wouldn't go in for the MRI and you were up and about with no problem about a week after you supposedly tore it." This was after my dad refused to let her use a wheelchair.
OMG. It's maddening.
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