Community Munchausen's by Internet (Malingerers, Munchies, Spoonies, etc) - Feigning Illnesses for Attention

schlong COVID said:
About that physics chick:

I’m sure there is a correlation between US COVID policy and long COVID (which I consider an anxiety disorder in most cases rather than a post-viral syndrome). Fear based messaging, refusal to acknowledge trade-offs, lockdown isolation, societal polarization and sanctimonious online in-groups mired in identity politics - I mean, what could possibly go wrong? You’re looking for a reason for your failure to launch? I have great news, your government just handed you the perfect narrative - and your online peers are gonna give you sweet asspats to boot.

PL, I guess: I practice in a Scandinavian country, where COVID policy was somewhat more pragmatic and official messaging was “keep calm and carry on”. I have yet to see a single patient claiming to suffer from long COVID. It’s just not a thing.
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Sorry for being late and gay, but I just wanted to interject and say that I'm a Scandibitch too and I've actually met several people claiming long covid here... Not saying that I believe them, at least not to 100%, just wanted to give some other perspective. What I've noted so far is that it seems to be the same category of people that usually claims to get burnt out from work, aka relatively successful but not outstanding or talented enough to make others notice them. I really don't know what to make of these different diagnosis which symptoms mainly consist of fatigue and that only seems to hit middle- to upper middle-class people, but they're for sure occurring quite a lot here in ikea-land...
 
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Dnein said:
*BPD has strong links to self reporting childhood trauma.

Look at the scientific lit, those "strong links" all come from studies asking BPD patients about their histories, like that isn't a group notorious for lying, painting themselves as victims, and dramatizing.

I expect the link EXISTS, but I highly doubt it's as strong as people claim. Many will push it's almost guaranteed a cluster B was abused, but if you've grown up around them, you know they way they lie about every moment of childhood. I really don't know why the literature hasn't done due diligence on this subject, I guess 'benefit of the doubt".
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I remember reading a post years ago from someone who claimed to have BPD, they said making up abuse was sometimes the only way they could “justify” having the disorder and feeling out-of-balance all the time. For some reason that really stuck in my head and made a lot of sense, while a lot of borderliners are made, some really and truly just born that way and need to make excuses to justify their disorder and blame their family for it.

I can’t tell you how many people swear their parents are narcissists but it’s obvious to everyone else on the planet the issue is their own dramatics and need for attention.
 
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Poop Shoot said:
I remember reading a post years ago from someone who claimed to have BPD, they said making up abuse was sometimes the only way they could “justify” having the disorder and feeling out-of-balance all the time. For some reason that really stuck in my head and made a lot of sense, while a lot of borderliners are made, some really and truly just born that way and need to make excuses to justify their disorder and blame their family for it.

I can’t tell you how many people swear their parents are narcissists but it’s obvious to everyone else on the planet the issue is their own dramatics and need for attention.
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Without powerleveling or derailing - yes, this is correct. It's easier to tell people someone fucked you up that admit you were born with your wires hooked up wrong and have ruined your own life systematically.
I just wondered if the psychology of munchausen's and borderline overlap. The frantic attempts to fill the void that is lack of personality with... Something, anything.
"Oh no I'm so sick you can't leave me what if I died right after that wouldn't you feel bad?" It's like suicide baiting but not even ballsy enough to say you'll do it yourself.
 
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With borderline they can also very genuinely feel enormously aggrieved about something legitimately hurtful but blow it completely out of proportion and they don't realise until much later on that what the other party did wasn't so bad, or wasn't intentional, and that their response was disproportionate. Some people with borderline can recognise that and apologise, but it's hard to admit you were wrong, especially when there's a genuine wrong done to the person with borderline. Even people with no mental illnesses or personality disorders don't enjoy admitting they fucked up but it's extra hard with something like BPD.

Unfortunately most people with borderline can't do that without a lot of help and many simply refuse to believe they're ever wrong because of a combination of the disorder and other personality traits. It's inherent in the disorder that you don't believe you're actually the problem and a lot of the people who get treatment for their BPD only do so because they had some other mental health issue they sought treatment for initially, like depression, and their doctor caught it. I have all the admiration in the world for people with BPD who get help and really try to change for the better.

It genuinely sucks for people with the disorder that borderline is so stigmatised, but the stigma exists for a reason. Often it goes hand-in-hand with narcissism and antisocial personality traits, and if a person has that perfect shitstorm inside them they are going to absolutely fuck up not only their lives, but the lives of others with completely no regard for consequences and little to no guilt.


It would be really interesting if eventually factitious disorder became far more widely understood and easily identified with the advent of social media sickposting. These days, if a doctor or nurse is suspicious of a patient - or even curious - they can easily just google them and find their socials. Even if they don't find it suspicious that a patient's whole social media presence is dedicated to their illness because they present it under the guise of 'muh advocacy' or 'my health journey', when you see photos of them doing shit that is completely contradictory to how they present themselves to the medical professional - eating or drinking starbies when they claim they're strictly nil by mouth, doing a physical task they claim is impossible while being in a wheelchair and claiming 15/10 pain and so forth - it seems like it would be hard to ignore.

I know this has happened with a couple of munchies already, but it would be great if it became more widespread and that led to more research and awareness in the medical community. It would be good to see doctors willing to treat them for genuine underlying issues like health anxiety and eating disorders while refusing to play along with their MCAS or EDS or whatever.
 
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Product Placement said:
Not sure if this video fully fits the thread, but it's about “Social Media and the Rise of Self-Diagnosed Dissociative Identity Disorder,”

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This lecture actually features the same Pixielock, that was just talked about, on a Tiktok video of her purchasing a decorated cake with the message "Happy DID diagnosis!" meant for herself. There was a huge backlash towards the hospital, who held this conference and published the lecture and it was quickly taken down. While this in itself is already completely absurd she then made a response to McLean Hospital trying to refute the horrid slander she was made victim to.

 
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For The Internet said:
It would be really interesting if eventually factitious disorder became far more widely understood and easily identified with the advent of social media sickposting.
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(This is USA only : ) I don't think this is even that far off, but I think it'll be the insurance companies turning an AI loose on their patients' public socials to do find evidence that contradicts insurance claims. At that point, the patient gets a 'lose your coverage and pay us back' or 'go to therapy'. With maybe some pressure applied to medical institutions to stop enabling the behavior. The psychopaths in the SRS thread aside, most doctors seem to want to help sick people get better, but the medical institutions that they work for do not have that incentive. Their incentive is to extract as much money as possible from insurance and government, an insured munchie is like a puberty blocked kid; a lifelong medical patient $$$. Neither the munchies nor the hospitals have any reason to stop playing make believe as long as the cash flows.
 
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The Hoh Rainforest said:
Neither the munchies nor the hospitals have any reason to stop playing make believe as long as the cash flows.
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Assuming they have good insurance. Medicaid's a net loss for the hospital.

Eventually munchies will figure out they can just go to an emergency department and give them a fake name and address.
 
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lolcow yoghurt said:
DID is a fake disorder made up by criminals to get away and the tumblrinas use it so they can have an excuse to RP their favourite characters and screech online. It's all attention seeking.
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Well, it certainly seems so, when you see these TikTok people pretending to have 20 plus personalities for attention. Usually it’s because there’s something wrong with them and they can’t figure out what it is, so they just latch onto something trendy.
In their minds, Schizophrenia was never cool, bipolar is now outdated. Depression, anxiety is too simple and boring. Dysphoria and dysmorphia just means you are trans.
ADHD and autism is too common now to be something to fret about.
What I want to say is that DID is a legit disorder but it’s very rare. And no one who really has it will make a videos about it.
 
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HerbertWest said:
What I want to say is that DID is a legit disorder but it’s very rare. And no one who really has it will make a videos about it.
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DID is BPD with a bit of spice added.
Either it's BPD x NPD/HPD driving outrageous attention-seeking stunts as we typically see.
Or BPD x 'early adversity' = instability x1000.
 
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Florch said:
DID is BPD with a bit of spice added.
Either it's BPD x NPD/HPD driving outrageous attention-seeking stunts as we typically see.
Or BPD x 'early adversity' = instability x1000.
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DID is a legit disorder, but as I stated before, it’s very rare. BPD and HPD might be larping as having it. People without a personality disorder might be larping it too, just for the attention. If a person wants attention and wants to seem special, that doesn’t mean they have a personality disorder.
Imo NPD wouldn’t do that. One of the NPD traits is being seen as flawless. Narcissistic personalities usually avoid being seen as mentally ill.
 
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