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

[donksmanSupreme42]

I mean, like pretending to their online audience that they are having for instance, extreme low potassium and they're in the ER. but really they haven't been purging or anything to achieve this ,it's not happening at all and they're just pretending.
A 'real' munchausen's patient would be purging over and over until they tanked their electrolytes dangerously then turn up at ER for real.
Online audience doesn't see a difference but one is much more likely to accidentally kill themselves.

if the audience doesnt know our subject is pretending, and thinks he's actuslly sick

then pretending to be sick and pretending to pretend to be sick is indistinguishable to the audience, in either case the audience sees the subject sick in the ER

what i mean is someone who is pretending to have munchausen's like some ppl would pretend they got mental illnesses, and make extremely obvious attempts to feign illness and make sure everything thinks he has munchausen's and is committing self-harm to appear sick

does he actually have munchausen's? or is it all a charade


sry for bad english

 

[TismFarmer]

if the audience doesnt know our subject is pretending, and thinks he's actuslly sick

then pretending to be sick and pretending to pretend to be sick is indistinguishable to the audience, in either case the audience sees the subject sick in the ER

what i mean is someone who is pretending to have munchausen's like some ppl would pretend they got mental illnesses, and make extremely obvious attempts to feign illness and make sure everything thinks he has munchausen's and is committing self-harm to appear sick

does he actually have munchausen's? or is it all a charade


sry for bad english

HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ren..

 

[Oracular Slug]

does he actually have munchausen's? or is it all a charade

Imo, charade, with some serious cluster B nonsense driving it. I figure that if it were a mother claiming her child has cancer, without actually making the kid sick, just straight up lying, that's just fraud via malingering, not MbP. Obnoxious, but so much better than the MbP mothers out there maiming and murdering their offspring.

 

[Scoia'tael]

It’s one thing if you hook up with a seemingly normal girl who then goes full munchie on you. It’s another if you sign up when she’s already in full munch mode.

Specifically in the case of Tilly's boyfriend since he's so checked out I am putting my chic little tinfoil beret on and hazarding the answer is "gay" of some stripe. The rarified world of the British uperclass especially the non-titled Tory types remains quite conservative in terms of how one presents. These are the types of people for whom options in terms of life paths don't exist. They're a dime a dozen, all chronically unhappy but not sure why, all following the same path - not opinionated or interesting enouth to become an MP, not wealthy enough (or titled enough) to run off and be an artist or live a life of true leisure and fun, just wealthy enough to buy your blonde oxbridge girlfriend (who also works in finance because you're allowed to aim high but not too high and who you probably don't even like but all your friends run in the same circles and everyone says it just makes sense) a diamond engagement ring and honeymoon someplace more exotic than Brighton but several steps below Mustique. Upper-management but no higher. Retire in 50 years with a gold watch and two children at Oxford set to begin the cycle again. They take themselves way too seriously because if they didn't they'd realize they've done nothing important with their life at all.

I imagine he's dutifully checking off the boxes that he's been taught are the keys to success: Oxford; good job in finance; a collection of quarter zip sweaters and kakhi trousers; a house in a desirable part of the city; a blonde, overeducated girlfriend from a good family... but whoops she's a poor little sick thing and he's so good for standing with her despite all the difficulties, what a good man. This allows him to go get raw dogged in the backroom at Heaven after work or something and still feel like he's doing what hes supposed to do. Many such cases.

I did go through his LinkedIn and somewhat spoiled myself for the Tilly saga but he does mention her once or twice but always with that LinkedIn professional speak that suggests absolutely nothing emotional whatsoever.

 

[Ethyllithium Boybortion]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ren..

View attachment 6997231

Is this the same munchie who used an earbud cord to make people think she was hooked up to an iv? Who was that?!

 

[Battery Low]

I feel very autistic for this but: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/muncha...hies-spoonies-etc.29936/page-290#post-5357571

It's years old (but very funny). How come it's popped back up again?

 

[InternetDramaFillsTheVoid]

can u even pretend to pretend to do something

Pretendception

 

[Trapper]

I can’t work out if Tilly is a munchie or a hypochondriac. How do you spot the difference?

Also, the way she talks about her doctor is seriously creepy, it’s like she’s trying to write romance fiction.

 

[WarpedTourWasFun]

I mean, like pretending to their online audience that they are having for instance, extreme low potassium and they're in the ER. but really they haven't been purging or anything to achieve this ,it's not happening at all and they're just pretending.
A 'real' munchausen's patient would be purging over and over until they tanked their electrolytes dangerously then turn up at ER for real.
Online audience doesn't see a difference but one is much more likely to accidentally kill themselves.

I followed someone on Instagram who claimed to have Munchausen. Their name even had munchie in it. No idea where they are now, but they had quite a few followers that copied them.

 

[fagnarok]

I can’t work out if Tilly is a munchie or a hypochondriac. How do you spot the difference?

Also, the way she talks about her doctor is seriously creepy, it’s like she’s trying to write romance fiction.

The line between "hypochondriac" and "munchie" is often very fine.

Sometimes when a hypochondriac loves the attention from their doctor so very much, they become a munchie just to keep that relationship going.
Even if one doctor / love object gets wise to their shenanigans, they will try to form a new attachment with the next one, and will often keep trying until they can form a longterm codependency with whatever sleazeball will take their money.

In the rare cases when the codependent doctor isn't purely a sleazebag just trying to extract money from an obvious faker and they actually believe the munchie, even develop some sort of protective feelings towards her (because it's usually a her), that's arguably even worse.

 

[Spunt]

I can’t work out if Tilly is a munchie or a hypochondriac. How do you spot the difference?

From the book that Kate posted, I understand the categories to be:

1 - Hypochondria. Being convinced you are ill when you are not. You do not have symptoms and it's entirely psychological.
2 - Facticious Disorder. You are a hypochondriac but have real symptoms that are psychosomatic. You are not ill but you really do feel pain/breathlessness/tachycardia.
3 - Munchausen's Syndrome. You actively harm yourself to induce symptoms. Often you are so deeply in denial about this that you genuinely don't think you're doing it, meaning it is a delusional/psychotic disorder.
4 - Malingering. You know you are not ill, but you pretend (with or without deliberately inflicting harm on yourself) for material gain, i.e. gofundme grifts, disability benefits. You are a fraud and you know it.
5 - Munchausen's by Proxy. You inflict harm on a dependent (usually but not always a child) in order to gain attention for yourself. You may or may not be so deep in denial about it that it becomes a delusion or psychosis.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

From the book that Kate posted, I understand the categories to be:

1 - Hypochondria. Being convinced you are ill when you are not. You do not have symptoms and it's entirely psychological.
2 - Facticious Disorder. You are a hypochondriac but have real symptoms that are psychosomatic. You are not ill but you really do feel pain/breathlessness/tachycardia.
3 - Munchausen's Syndrome. You actively harm yourself to induce symptoms. Often you are so deeply in denial about this that you genuinely don't think you're doing it, meaning it is a delusional/psychotic disorder.
4 - Malingering. You know you are not ill, but you pretend (with or without deliberately inflicting harm on yourself) for material gain, i.e. gofundme grifts, disability benefits. You are a fraud and you know it.
5 - Munchausen's by Proxy. You inflict harm on a dependent (usually but not always a child) in order to gain attention for yourself. You may or may not be so deep in denial about it that it becomes a delusion or psychosis.

There are also some guidelines for distinguishing among them. For example, malingerers typically aren't willing to do painful, invasive testing - they know it'll come up negative. In contrast, Munchausen's patients love being at the center of medical drama, so they'll welcome painful tests. (And if they come back negative, they can just say they have a rare and special condition - like autistic frog chick Madeleine-Camille Preuninger, who describes herself as having "a strange history of having negative test results").

Another guideline: hypochondriacs are relieved when they're told they're not seriously ill, but they'll immediately start obsessing again and become convinced that they're sick. Munchies who get good news are disappointed.

That said, the cannier munchies read up on Munchausen's - I think there was someone in the first couple of hundred pages of this thread who claimed to be a recovered munchie and said she'd act reluctant to get tests so she wouldn't raise the doctors' suspicions, and some researchers have said that munchies admit to reading the research.

Normally the categories are described as mutually exclusive ... but I'm not so sure. For example, some munchies - Jacquie and Jonzie come to mind - get hooked on opiods, and in addition to playing hospital princess, they also turn into drug seekers - trying to get the material gain that's usually the defining characteristic of malingerers. Or look at @choccy milk 's excellent series on Heather Callahan-Williams - she always hung around cancer kids and seems to enjoy playing sick, but she also raked in at least $50,000 in donations.

I often find myself wondering which of these girls know they're faking. Katie Stanina, for example, seems to genuinely think she's sick (and she does have epilepsy, but not MCAS, EDS, and all the other shit she claims). Some others definitely know they're not - which one of them said "I have a lot to do today before I get sick"?

 

[Zemblan Physics]

Facticious Disorder. You are a hypochondriac but have real symptoms that are psychosomatic.

No. Factitious disorder and Münchhausen are synonymous. You might be thinking of conversion disorder.

 

[poopinmy_line]

Someone contacted the coroner in Rose's county. Seems to confirm she is indeed deceased. Rest in piss, you creepy fuck.

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

I imagine he's dutifully checking off the boxes that he's been taught are the keys to success: Oxford; good job in finance; a collection of quarter zip sweaters and kakhi trousers; a house in a desirable part of the city; a blonde, overeducated girlfriend from a good family... but whoops she's a poor little sick thing and he's so good for standing with her despite all the difficulties, what a good man. This allows him to go get raw dogged in the backroom at Heaven after work or something and still feel like he's doing what hes supposed to do. Many such cases.

Nah, munchies have no trouble finding genuinely gullible guys who would never even imagine someone faking sickness just for attention. Frankly, with how many munchies and hypochondriacs there are in the upper classes, he probably knows a bunch of women with 'mysterious chronic illnesses' already and accepts Tilly's antics as perfectly normal.

It seems like every female lolcow with a boyfriend inspires posters to come up with elaborate theories on how he's a cunning mastermind using her as a beard while he secretly sucks a million dicks on Grindr, which there is no evidence of-but that just show how sneaky he is.
You know there are other sites to post slash fanfiction, right?

 

[fagnarok]

Nah, munchies have no trouble finding genuinely gullible guys who would never even imagine someone faking sickness just for attention. Frankly, with how many munchies and hypochondriacs there are in the upper classes, he probably knows a bunch of women with 'mysterious chronic illnesses' already and accepts Tilly's antics as perfectly normal.

It seems like every female lolcow with a boyfriend inspires posters to come up with elaborate theories on how he's a cunning mastermind using her as a beard while he secretly sucks a million dicks on Grindr, which there is no evidence of-but that just show how sneaky he is.
You know there are other sites to post slash fanfiction, right?

You're not wrong, but I think dudes on the d/l are not so much "cunning masterminds" as they are ... something else.

And I think people speculate about it because
1. it does happen sometimes, and
2. it's extremely funny when it does.
(At least, that's why I almost always rate the speculation with "Agree" or "Winner" even when it isn't necessarily true in that specific case!)

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

You're not wrong, but I think dudes on the d/l are not so much "cunning masterminds" as they are ... something else.

And I think people speculate about it because
1. it does happen sometimes, and
2. it's extremely funny when it does.
(At least, that's why I almost always rate the speculation with "Agree" or "Winner" even when it isn't necessarily true in that specific case!)

I know it's more interesting than just him gullible and having bad taste in women, but it's always the same tired "He's gay and getting ass pounded!" fantasy. Why not get creative? Maybe he has an inflation fetish and thinks her bloated stomach is hot. Maybe he's hoping she's really ill and that she'll die and leave him money. Maybe he's secretly stealing some of her steroids and selling them to bodybuilders.

 

[fagnarok]

I know it's more interesting than just him gullible and having bad taste in women, but it's always the same tired "He's gay and getting ass pounded!" fantasy. Why not get creative? Maybe he has an inflation fetish and thinks her bloated stomach is hot. Maybe he's hoping she's really ill and that she'll die and leave him money. Maybe he's secretly stealing some of her steroids and selling them to bodybuilders.

You're onto something. What if it's all of the above?!

"Downlow bisexual has inflation fetish, sells gf's steroids to get extra money to go gay-clubbing while she is in hospital, hopes to inherit when she kicks off, has no real emotional investment in any of it" is absolutely deranged. Like an alternative-universe "Saltburn" or the side plot in an unpublished Bret Easton Ellis novel.

I stan it.

 

[Fëanor Curufinwë]

Regarding the differences between a munchie and a malingerer, I've known a guy for a long time who developed extreme hypochondria after a routine surgery had a bad outcome. He gets worked up about minor things like insect bites, but he's one of the realest guys I know and I 100% believe him when he says he really does feel the symptoms, even though all evidence points to psychosomatic. He doesn't get anything out of it like fun drugs or attention, just crippling anxiety and befuddlement from doctors. It's really distressing to witness to be honest and I get worried he will be labeled a malingerer because he really does need real (psychological) help.

If the pain isn't really there and it's just your anxious mind causing it, does the difference even matter to you personally? It sounds like hell to me. Not that this applies to any of the subjects of this thread. I just have slightly more empathy for legitimate hypochondriacs after meeting one (and more distaste for malicious fakers)

 

[Oracular Slug]

If the pain isn't really there and it's just your anxious mind causing it, does the difference even matter to you personally?

Only in terms of which doctor can help you.