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

[Otterly]

OCD is more typically driven by fear that harm will come to you or someone you love or complete strangers because of something you did. It’s not about being in control, it stems from feeling profoundly out of control. Sufferers are controlled by their OCD.

OCD is really misunderstood as a disorder, it really isn’t being a neat freak or controlling, as it’s portrayed in the media and popular culture. It’s very damaging

I've never understood the psychopathological distinction between OCD and OCPD.

I have thought a lot about this and for me the difference is internal vs external focus and also insight. Pure O OCD in particular is about mastery of the self, to prevent bad outcomes, and OCPD attempts to move that locus of control outwards one notch by controlling one’s interactions with others and the world a little more. OCD patients tend to know something is very wrong with them and turn that inwards whereas ocpd as with most pds don’t seem to realise it. They think the rest of the world is wrong.

 

[Not_a_Doctor]

@gourmand (apologies, I can’t seem to quote your post) it’s such a fine line, isn’t it? I guess the distinction I was trying to make was that the OCD person is compelled to perform those control measures, and it might feel like they are in control, but it is really their OCD controlling them.

Spoiler: PL: personal experience with OCD

I can’t speak definitively only subjectively as someone who has been in treatment for OCD for seven years now, so take this with a large grain of salt. I’m not an expert!

When I wasn’t medicated or in therapy, the compulsions I performed felt like I was in control of the situation. If I did them correctly, my family wouldn’t die. But once I was medicated, and did exposure therapy and started to master CBT, I realised it was just an illusion. I wasn’t in control at all, and it wasn’t really control I was seeking in performing my compulsions. I wasn’t able to sit with difficult feelings. That’s what good therapy treats in OCD - being able to sit with that uncomfortable feeling (my family is going to die, I am going to get sick, something bad will happen) and accept it.

I always think of OCPD as what people really mean when they say “I’m so OCD about X”. They just like things a certain way. It’s definitely about control, but it isn’t a disorder as they can live a normal life. People might just find them annoying!

Anyway, that’s just my personal experience of the issue. I’m no expert and I’m sure there are others with personal experiences of the disease who feel completely different about it.

Themes of agency would be fascinating to explore in relation to modern psychopathology - I’m sure there’s some good stuff out there. The other aspect I’d find interesting to look at is themes of individuality. It always seems to me that our munchies, but also “the youth today” (lol, I sound like such an old geezer sometimes) are obsessed with asserting their individuality to the nth degree. You aren’t just gay anymore, you’re an ethical polyamorous greysexual aromantic enby whose pronouns are xe/they/sir and who has cPTSD, auDHD, myopia, social anxiety etc etc. Is this the result of telling all kids that everyone is special, and therefore no one feels special?

There are definitely more “special” folks in local marches. We have had tonnes of political activity in my city due to lockdowns, antimaskers, vaccine mandates, and much more. Many participants with what this thread amusingly calls “danger hair” (love this), many overweight and unemployed. It’s the SJW+ model. They go one step further than spouting whatever trendy maxim is the social media flavour du jour and actually leave their house, shake their fists for a few hours and feel like they have made a difference.

 

[Polychromos]

I can’t speak definitively only subjectively as someone who has been in treatment for OCD for seven years now, so take this with a large grain of salt. I’m not an expert!

When I wasn’t medicated or in therapy, the compulsions I performed felt like I was in control of the situation. If I did them correctly, my family wouldn’t die. But once I was medicated, and did exposure therapy and started to master CBT, I realised it was just an illusion. I wasn’t in control at all, and it wasn’t really control I was seeking in performing my compulsions. I wasn’t able to sit with difficult feelings. That’s what good therapy treats in OCD - being able to sit with that uncomfortable feeling (my family is going to die, I am going to get sick, something bad will happen) and accept it.

I always think of OCPD as what people really mean when they say “I’m so OCD about X”. They just like things a certain way. It’s definitely about control, but it isn’t a disorder as they can live a normal life. People might just find them annoying!

Anyway, that’s just my personal experience of the issue. I’m no expert and I’m sure there are others with personal experiences of the disease who feel completely different about it.

Generally I think you don't have to apologize as much for your posts, but while I appreciate your input, I would caution you to express your power levels differently.
What sets us apart from reddit, is that we try to not center our personal experiences. It's fine to talk about people you have met, but try to not talk about your own diagnosis. You could express the same thing without talking about yourself. I don't want to contest your experience, but I personally like that this is not encouraged here. Otherwise it just builds a safe haven for munchies to express how they are "not like the other munchies". As you've must have witnessed, there where several munchies in this thread that weren't scolded or exposed, as long as they didn't talk about their munchiness here.
(Just my personal opinion. People are not as hard about this in Beauty Parlor, but I personally think it's better to not create another community where Munchies can thrive. I'm also not calling you a munchie. A lot of people power level from time to time, but since you seem to like to have pointers, I felt the need to point this out.)

From what I've heard OCD is more about intrusive thoughts, and OCPD is more about having an obsessive personality. Like you said, I guess it's more about thinking everyone else is wrong for not cleaning their bathroom for 3 hours every day. However, I think saying OCD people are ALWAYS more reasonable is also wrong. Even if it is theoretically easier for them to realize that they are kind of crazy, they can be very non compliant. Even with lots of therapy.
I have a lot of sympathy for all psychological disorders. Even including NPD. But at the end of the day, you are the only person who can help yourself. It's not just about getting help. It's also about being compliant. I think that's the step that is not expected anymore, which kind of makes a lot of therapy totally useless.


Edit: I tried to do more research about Tilly doctors and I'll try to maybe timeline some generic German munchies later, but I don't have that much time right now and it's all very repetitive and kind of sad.
Would you guys also be interested in a review of one of Tilly's butchers papers? I'm not a doctor, so I could just give you a non professional tl;dr. Should I include a translated version of the paper? If so, can someone tell me what best to use to translate it?
Possible funny teaser: I have no idea what the standards for medical papers are, but here is a funny diagram, that looks like it was made in MS paint:

 

[Not_a_Doctor]

@Polychromos thanks and noted! I’d like to edit and correct but missed the editable window. KF never forgets

Would definitely be interesting to read more about the doctors that enable these girls.

 

[Oracular Slug]

I have no idea what the standards for medical papers are,

I'm pretty sure I had undergrad profs markdown better.

Would definitely be interesting to read more about the doctors that enable these girls.

Ditto!

 

[PinkDancingDogs]

Spoiler: Personal Opinion on girls and sports

6 foot tall girl should've gotten into volleyball. I personally advocate for teen girls to give martial arts a go. It depends entirely on the coaches/instructors, but find a local MA place that you connect with and take some classes with your teen. Everybody should experience the joy of hitting and learn from taking a hit in a safe way. Also, imo, despite martial arts generally not being a team sport, I've never seen anything but support from people where I am. Support that goes between ranks/belts, ages, and sexes even when they end up competing against or fighting each other. No hate, but TKD is lame, don't choose it. Choose a place that allows and requires sparring, otherwise they're just taking dance classes where they yell.

The majority of parents are not signing up their kids for sports in childhood so that they perform at even college scholarship level. Most parents want their kids to develop discipline, to learn a physical skill, to find a community, maybe have some things to list on college apps, etc. The same goes for most music lessons in childhood. Some parents (small percentage) are hoping to create the next Rachmaninoff or Tiger Woods, but most are not expecting that. I personally don't think that virtually any of these girls were elite athletes or even close. It just is an aesthetic they liked and a sad component in their backstory. These girls competed in local/regional pay to play sorts of things (with which there is nothing at all wrong).

I think overall, we're giving more weight to their background in sports than needs to be. Perhaps we've seen too many lifetime movies about bulimic gymnasts. What percentage of middle-class white girls (the majority of those featured here) took dance, skating, or cheer leading? According to Grok, it estimates around 40-50% of American girls participate in one of the three during their lives. Skating is the least common though, and all three are likely associated with middle class+ income households due to the costs involved in participating at higher levels. I think that there is a difference between the strictly eating disordered of the past and the women here. I don't think most of these munchies are perfectionists or OCD or struggling to assert control over their bodies. They are struggling to make others comply and agree-they want you to validate that it's not their fault that they aren't X,Y,Z. They want attention, no expectations, continuous support and celebration of themselves. It is a different animal I think. Some eating dx girls like Paige were like this from the beginning, it was always about Paige impacting her parents and sibling -- but many are just these girls that couldn't handle their first bits of adulting and use the weight loss to illustrate that they are really sick and totally not a faker.

I think that most of these girls would've simply gone through some self harming, perhaps ED-ish, goth, hippy, or whatever phase and then grown out of it when it stopped getting attention from the people around them. Most of the behavior would self-limit and a small minority would require some treatment (and an even smaller fraction would become lich queen), but most would get out of that path. We all knew those girls who from 13-20 struggled to find their place and were like this. But, the difference is that now they've perfected the game with unlimited vague dx, so that no one can tell them "suck it up". They get the joy from their followers and there's no naturally occurring end because there are always new followers to hope for.

I have a few questions for my fellow kiwis:
1. Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

I am curious as to people's gut instincts and anecdotal experiences on the subject.

Edit to avoid double post: @Polychromos Is that meant to show SMA syndrome? I mean a teenager with Canva could make a better diagram. But I'd love to get an idea of what German munchies are up to.

 

[Otterly]

Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

Yes
Social. Social media has created a new kind of status currency, a new way of rewarding poor behaviour. At the same time society has changed so that very few negative behaviours are shamed. We’ve gone from shaming what people DO to shaming what people THINK. So you can be a poly ace enby munchie either pots and blah blah and you’ll get that sweet positive feedback no matter how you behave. Anyone criticising you is a ‘hater’ or a ‘phobe.
It’s a disaster, because reinforces terrible behaviours and stops any kind of shame to stop them. It’s like the brakes are off and the accelerator is floored.
(And not just munchies, this goes for a lot of stuff.)

 

[Spunt]

I have a few questions for my fellow kiwis:
1. Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

1 - Yes
2 - I think there are a great many factors behind this but overall I blame the internet:

The first of course is the internet and its tendency to amplify deviant behaviour by creating insular communities that amplify and purify that behaviour. Munching is just one example amongst many. In the 1980s, if you were a teenager who thought "maybe I should fuck a toaster", you would soon conclude "no, that's stupid and weird", and that's assuming your parents didn't find you with your dick in a toaster (or with a toaster up your chuff I guess) and beat you half to death. Then you would have no further interest in toaster fucking and become more normal. But with the internet, you can log onto toasterfucking.com and meet hundreds of other toaster fuckers and read toasterfucking stories and toasterfucking porn and toasterfucking conventions and suddenly it's a subculture that demands inclusion into the LGTBBQ+. A tendency to malinger to get off school is one internet search away from becoming a community, a social group and a way of life.

Another related internet phenomenon is the attention economy. Social media is all about attention, and as we see time and time again, girls brought up in the age of social media see the usual teenage social pressures move online. There's a billion other teenagers out there competing for those clicks and likes, so you've got to stand out! Have a USP! Especially with girls whose narcissistic supply has dried up because their modelling/dancing career or whatever flamed out. Combine that with these insular zebra communities and it's a replacement for the online attention they used to get. Before the internet, you only had to compete with your peers at school or in your friend group and there was enough attention to go round for everyone, but now it's global and you've gotta be extreme!

A more social reason is the cult of victimhood that has taken over Western culture. How this has happened is another long discussion but now, especially if you're left-leaning, victimhood is social currency. The more of a victim you are the more power you have to make people do what you want. This of course appeals in particular to BPD headcases and crybullies. Many of the girls Kate showcases here use their munching in a very deliberate attempt to strongarm the people around them. Most commonly this involves bullying doctors into getting prescribed funtime painkillers, but others enjoy dominating their families, making them wait on the hand and foot, and others go down the service animal route, again using them to power trip ("you MUST take my horse on the airplane or you're ABLEIST, everyone pay attention to me and my FUCKING HORSE, you haven't got a HORSE Becky you bitch.")

tl ; dr the internet was a mistake.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

I have a few questions for my fellow kiwis:
1. Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

1. Probably.
2. In addition to what's already said, there's an element of social contagion.

There are old accounts of mass hysteria spreading person to person through girls' schools - I can't find it, but there was a Twitter thread where someone rounded up examples from all over the world; mass hysteria transcends culture, but the majority of the victims were young women.

In the 80s, you started seeing mass media covering eating disorders - and the rates of eating disorders skyrocketed. Initially, that was chalked up to better awareness and diagnosis, but patients kept saying that they got the idea to severely restrict food or purge from TV and books. (Cherry Boone O'Neill's Starving for Attention and the 1981 TV movie The Best Little Girl in the World came up a lot.)

A few years later, you got the push for awareness about cutting, which had been very rare. Therapists and school counselors started routinely asking students if they did it - and rates soared.

There've always been teenagers who were having a tough time coping. But very few of them would have come up with the idea of starving or cutting themselves on their own. At one point, ideas like that had to spread from person to person; then TV allowed them to be blasted out to everyone. Now social media gives you access to that content around the clock, and people are online are very happy to suggest that you, too, might have this mysterious disorder. (Got a rash? MCAS! Do a party trick with your thumb? hEDS! Get dizzy? Can't be a sugar rush - it's POTS!)

Some munchies might genuinely believe they're sick - mass hysteria sufferers aren't faking. And munchie social media doesn't overtly teach behaviors like making yourself throw up - but the munchosphere does share the names of compliant doctors and tips for "demonstrating" that you have your disease. Somewhere towards the beginning of this thread, there was one girl who'd tell her inner circle how she was manipulating her test results - I'm sure there's more of that around than we ever get to see.

 

[Zemblan Physics]

2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

I don’t really understand the question - what would an ”environmental” cause of munching be? I’m not being snarky, I genuinely don’t get it.

 

[Not_a_Doctor]

“1. Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental”

[can’t quote properly on tablet]

1 - absolutely.
2 - both.

There have always been the frail, wealthy women who get a spell of “the vapours” or have sensitive nerves and they were wealthy and entitled enough to lie back on their fainting couches and have the maid bring them some ether. In western countries in the years post-war various social and government interventions have made living with an illness or disability more manageable. Even in the 1940s you still had poor houses and anyone not of means infirm or unable to work would either be on the street, dead, in an institution, or in the poor houses. We’ve always had malingerers - typically men or women with back pain or some other vague illness that enables them to sign-on for benefits. But with more and more young people delaying independence by living at home longer, being more enabled by their parents and society to remain unburdened by adult responsibilities, there are definitely more of them about who are looking for a reason why life sucks and things are hard.

It’s my understanding that you don’t see this kind of behaviour as much in non-western countries with different cultural and sociological demographics. How many do we see in India, China, Indonesia, Japan, Libya, Iraq etc etc. If your country is getting blown up or you are one of 11 children then you don’t have the luxury of sitting on your ass all day pondering why life is hard.

Post GFC it’s also been incredibly hard for unskilled workers to enter into decent jobs. We are in a gig economy now and you’ve got to hustle. A postgrad degree isn’t a leg up anymore and so anyone who doesn’t have the drive or the intelligence to succeed is often looking at a life of low paid drudgery. It’s no surprise that they are latching on to these vague syndromes as a key to living an easier life sat at home, smoking weed, and getting attention online.

A lot of them seem to have the small fish moves into big pond moment when they realise that their mediocre hobby of soccer or ice skating that got them praise and attention in a small town is pretty basic compared to actual future-elite athletes on scholarships that they meet when they leave school. Same goes for the theatre kid or the singer who then goes to big-girl school and realizes they have a life of teaching students ahead of them, or living off of ramen because they aren’t talented enough to make it as a career musician. But don’t worry, mediocrity is not the cause of your failure! It’s EDS / POTS / ME / Long Covid / etc etc etc.

Back in my day [shakes angry fist at cloud] teens who got sick disappeared. You never heard from them again. Their friends moved on and they were soon forgotten. Now, they can piss about online and post about how terrible their life is and their friends will support them and new strangers will praise them for how brave they are.

Being a female teenager is also pretty shitty (can’t speak for how being a male teenager is also pretty shitty but sure it is!). There are growing pains, hormonal fluctuations, suddenly you are in pain every month, and you get headaches and mood swings. Instead of being told these are normal parts of growing up, and being an adult sucks sometimes, they are being convinced that there is something wrong with them. They can’t sit with the normal levels of discomfort living in a bone cage of dying flesh and gooey viscera brings and they have a whole community of people just like them telling them how terrible it is to be sick.

We’ve also seen a movement in the post me-too era to “believe women” which has stretched beyond the realms of believing rape victims to believing women when they say they are in pain. We now see gaslighting used in a medical context more than in an abusive relationship context, and trauma is increasingly medicalised as opposed to associated with war or violence. It’s become socially unacceptable to question anyone, women in particular, about the reality of their pain. Add to that the distrust of doctors and experts in a post- COVID world and the distrust in big Pharma thanks to the opioid crisis and it only adds fuel to the fire that these mean doctors are gatekeeping resources and determined to dismiss patients in genuine distress. No one questions them, so the behaviour continues,

I’m sure there are a multitude of other factors at play but those are the ones that come to mind.

 

[Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet)]

What percentage of middle-class white girls (the majority of those featured here) took dance, skating, or cheer leading?

This is a super interesting post that I’d like to respond to more later but just because I don’t have a ton of time right now: participating in dance when kids are young is common. It’s not super common to be in dance or skating in late high school, so I do think that’s interesting. There’s also a difference between a girl who takes dance classes and one who strongly identifies as a dancer.

At the very least, parents willing to spend that kind of time and money and effort on an eleventh grader’s hobby makes a certain statement. Same as horse girls.

 

[PinkDancingDogs]

I don’t really understand the question - what would an ”environmental” cause of munching be? I’m not being snarky, I genuinely don’t get it.

By environmental I actually meant exposure to vaccines or chemicals in food or rx drugs or whatever physically has made people sick in subtle ways contributing to non-specific but real feelings of unwellness--like some people feel the cfs/me crowd are caused by something. I worded it poorly as environmental really could be taken as one's social environment.

ETA that I love hearing everyone's thoughts on the subject.

 

[wimzi]

1. Do you feel like there are more munchie sorts than there were 30 years ago? (We know they've always been around, but...)
2. If you do see a change, do you think the cause is mostly social or environmental?

Oh interesting questions

Like you said, there have always been munchies around- or more broadly, a mix of people who lie for attention and people who somaticize psychological distress. But pre-internet, their reach was only as big as their local community, and the disorders tended to be vague and social contagions spread a little more slowly.

An interesting change I see is some of the girls documented here seem to minimize their disorders IRL to avoid scrutiny from their immediate social circle, and maximize their disorder for attention online. There were some wild cases of straight up lying and cat fishing back in the early anonymous days of the internet, but now social media incentivizes making everything a hashtag identity, so I think that pushes people to be over the top in order to fit in.

I think the biggest generational change that pushes this kind of behavior is lack of adult role models for teens. Like the amount of zoomer young adults I know who never had any older friends or have never really talked with someone more than a few years older than them is insane. There are dangers in adults and teenagers interacting socially, but in trying to protect kids I think there is an incredibly unhealthy environment created where teens only interact with each other, their parents, and parasocial relationships with online personalities. So a benign expression of that is the Gen Z employee who's too informal and over shares and doesn't understand phone+email etiquette because they've never seen how adults talk to each other, but that turn into Peter Pan syndrome, immaturity/irresponsiblity, or our munchies' pathological fear of growing up.

There have definitely always been permachildren who want to be little girls forever, but I feel like there used to be way more martyr types who were always sacrificing so much and suffering but getting things done.

My thought is that there's kind of three broad patterns in terms of what need being sick is fulfilling; the Peter Panettes who want to be nurtured and taken care of and be little forever, the control freaks who make themselves sick to manipulate those around them and control themselves and the environment, and the strivers who want a sense of achievement for ordinary things and to be so so brave and the best for just trying. Like running a 5k isn't impressive but it is if you're so sick and practically dying, they've overcome so much adversity etc.

 

[Greedy Fly]

and the disorders tended to be vague and social contagions spread a little more slowly.

I agree with your comment about the social media side of things, but I'm not sure about describing pre-internet disorders as vague. Plenty of old school IRL munchies, like the case studies in Marc Feldman's books, were cancer fakers, intentionally stopping medication for actual diseases, blood draining (remember early Kelly Rohanan?), or injecting themselves with insane shit.

I'm not sure those types really went away either, it's just that this thread focuses much more on the ones who get their attention fix online rather than directly from doctors/nurses/IRL.

The former is a lot easier to find, after all:
- They log everything online. I'm sure many in this thread would not be detected if they didn't have internet trails going back decades, that can be cross referenced for inconsistencies. For example, that frog autist one who just reports an SCI these days; KFS had to dig to find the SCI was caused by unnecessary steroid munching.
- Much more searchability. Illnesses hashtag'd for your sleuthing convenience. Ironically the same mechanism that lets them find each other and spread trends amongst themselves, lets us find them too.

 

[Oracular Slug]

According to Grok, it estimates around 40-50% of American girls participate in one of the three during their lives.

participating in dance when kids are young is common. It’s not super common to be in dance or skating in late high school

I'll weigh in on the other if I have time later, but this distinction is important. I, and probably plenty of you, got dumped in ballet/dance/whatever as a kid to be someone else's problem for an hour, making us part of that 40-50%, but it wasn't an identity or anything we kept up with. For these girls it's an identity, not just "oh, yeah, I did do that huh?" They need their thing (eg skating), they ARE a figure skater, and thus they need an excuse to not be skating.

 

[Uncle Tom's Condo]

Same as horse girls.

Horse girls, while absolutely fucking insane because why do you need three goddamn horses, aren't munchies. They exist to do horse stuff and waste money on large four-legged money pits. Horse girls would do anything to be able to ride their stupid animals and would ignore any legit diagnosis to do so. I'm totally not mad about this, btw. It's fine.

For these girls it's an identity, not just "oh, yeah, I did do that huh?" They need their thing (eg skating), they ARE a figure skater, and thus they need an excuse to not be skating.

It's almost always former solo sports girls doing this. It's never the softball pitcher or soccer/"football" goalie doing this. IDK why they can't just drink or do drugs like their male counterparts who never made it to the next level.

 

[PinkDancingDogs]

Ok so with dance and skating, let's chicken or egg a bit. Does the sport actively encourage them into munchies or are the type of girls who feel compelled to define themselves by the thing (dancer or skater) just the same girls who then are compelled to define themselves as chronically zebra sick?

 

[Elderly beef taco]

Ok so with dance and skating, let's chicken or egg a bit. Does the sport actively encourage them into munchies or are the type of girls who feel compelled to define themselves by the thing (dancer or skater) just the same girls who then are compelled to define themselves as chronically zebra sick?

I suspect it's the girls who want to stand out.

I know a few who tried sports/dance, dropped from it and went hardcore punk instead. They want eyes on them and will do whatever they can to achieve that, including huge piercings and tattoos. Which is better than being a munchy but I've also seen some who kinda do both...

 

[Potatis Salad]

Ok so with dance and skating, let's chicken or egg a bit. Does the sport actively encourage them into munchies or are the type of girls who feel compelled to define themselves by the thing (dancer or skater) just the same girls who then are compelled to define themselves as chronically zebra sick?

Can't speak to dance or skating, but local/non-elite gymnastics coaches will overstate their students' potential as a sales tactic. They make parents believe that their kid could be in the Olympics if only they pay for the next tier of lessons. The girls fall for it too, then when they inevitably fail to become the next Simone Biles, some of them "get sick" (aka start munching) as a way of explaining their failure.