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

[melty]

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/special-reports/article50437920.html

Any of you guys read this one? It's a doozy.

Long but well worth the read. I can't get over the husband having to be the densest person possible, though

Hope’s ex-husband recalls her disappearing on Tuesday and Thursday nights, claiming she was taking courses at TCU to get her doctorate. He remembers being surprised when she announced she’d received it after only a year.

“I’ve had friends get their Ph.D. in a year and a half, but they went full time, but she said she took online courses and went to school,” said Ybarra, who asked that his first name not be used to protect the identity of his children. “I don’t have a Ph.D., so I had no idea [she wasn’t telling the truth].”

Ybarra said he believed that Hope was pregnant but said he was a little perplexed by the news. The two were rarely intimate, he said, and neither had a history of twins in their families.

“It was not that I had doubts, but it was odd,” Ybarra said.

“I said, Why don’t you write a check? She said, ‘It’s easier to pay cash.’ Then one day she comes home with an urn,” Ybarra said.

The urn now sits in the back of a storage unit, among other possessions — reminders of Ybarra’s ex-wife’s lies.

“… I have no idea what I’m going to do with that,” Ybarra said.

Ybarra said he remembers Hope frequently shaving her head as she claimed to lose her hair from chemotherapy. He said he now knows that chemo would have caused the loss of all his wife’s body hair.

“I’d never known anybody personally who’d had cancer, so I never knew,” Ybarra said.

Ybarra said that for more than a year, his oldest daughter wore ankle braces off and on.

“I think she was fine because she ran all the time without them,” Ybarra said. “… Now that I look back, I think that might have been the start of it.”
Eventually, with the birth of their younger daughter, talk of the older girl’s health problems just faded away, Ybarra said.

Ybarra said his ex-wife handled their children’s medical appointments and shrugged him off when he offered to take a day off from work to go with them.

Ybarra said he never considered his family to be in financial straits and insisted he was not aware of the cash donations his wife had been collecting.

“I know nothing about that,” he said. “I just knew we had savings and we had cash and suddenly, it was depleted over an amount of time. … I don’t know what she was spending it on.”

Ybarra said that he was not aware of the TV interview until after it had happened and that he confronted his wife.

Though Ybarra had continued to visit his wife in the Tarrant County Jail, he said it was not out of support but rather to find out where she kept the kids’ birth certificates, Social Security cards and the family’s rainy day fund.

 

[Predator_Too]

 

[cuddle striker]

Long but well worth the read. I can't get over the husband having to be the densest person possible, though

I'm sorry, but you don't live with a sociopath or manipulator for years and not know it.

yeah you may not be doing any of the shit, and you're probably getting hurt as well, but they know. they're complicit in the knowledge that there's something fucky in Denmark.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

that case was the reason the medical community started discussing Munchausen's and deciding on protocols for handling cases of it. until then, most medical professionals were too cowed by the fear of lawsuits to stand up to potentially abusive parents and caretakers.

the whole "moment alone to speak to every patient" thing started then. no matter the age or situation, at some point we're meant to get their caretaker out of the room and ask them questions to determine if this kind of abuse is happening. didn't always work but it's led on to other techniques which is good.

It wasn't was fear of lawsuits, because that wasn't an issue in the 1970's and 1980's during Tinning's era, but truly that no one could really fathom a mother harming and killing her own children. There is much more fear of lawsuits today and yet cases are uncovered all the time - so that really has nothing to do with it. If they suspect a mother is a MBP case they don't generally accuse her of it outright, instead they start closely monitoring (usually recording) their interactions with their children in the hospital so if they do confront the mother they already have all the legal proof of her actions that they need.

Tinning brought the topic to light and medical professionals started sharing suspicions and cases that had worried them over the years, and with the input of psychologists, it was realized MBP was indeed a thing and that it wasn't uncommon to encounter it in the course of one professional career (to varying degrees). I don't think until Tinning and other cases people could figure out that the motivation - attention - was the driving factor. I just didn't hit the radar until a case as extreme as Tinnings because seriously wtf?

 

[cuddle striker]

not lawsuits in general. malpractice suits. one false accusation or denial of assistance at the wrong time on the wrong patient, and your premiums go up. it was worse in the 80s, than the 70s.

doctors have pretty much always assumed that everything is the mother's fault, when it comes to small children. it's either directly or indirectly their fault, usually. hell, that era was when all the "how to not fuck up your baby" books were popular.

it IS true that attention-seeking wasn't really suspected back then in cases with actual injuries. it wasn't really a thing to beat your kid and brag about it, for example. so doctors wouldn't jump to that conclusion, especially in cases where the people were actually bringing the kids into the hospital. you're right that they assumed abuse would be a hidden thing, back then it usually was.

in the meantime, double post apology plus content

this page has a 50/50 mix of people with spoonieness who have real jobs and are actually sick, and munchies.
http://countingmyspoons.com/category/fibro-warriors/

here is a "how to trick exhausted med students into giving you meds and sympathy" thing, from an exhausted cardiologist



a bad mother


you too can buy childlike garbage to prop up in the background of your #sobrave photos




note that the doctor says not to brag and expound. this is where munchies just can't help themselves.

 

[Barbarella]

I think Dr Oz is responsible for creating some of these Munchies, so I'm not really sympathetic to his boo-hooing. That guy has given worthless woo-woo medical advice for years. I think that dude needs to lay in the bed he's helped to make.

 

[Orc Girls Make Due]

Oh by god, me and this community have been at barking ends for years.

Mostly on Tumblr end and not so much on IG. But dealing with actual illness and such, you can easily feel vehemently and very angered at the shit these tween to thirty year old women (and yes, it's mostly women (god the amount of troon women is baffling too)). Cry wolf at the smallest thing.

"I'm so low on spoons today! My body is hell!" Yet two hours later they're talking about they're trips to the store they had how much of haul/lift they got. Or how much energy they poured into a drawing. And posting it all for the god damn asspats.

Note, these children are usually talented or going to school, the shit they're doing is like... If they put less energy into complaining they'd attract less people like them. The first complaint and it's like a honey vat, and the MbI people are nothing but flies. So when you do actually get sick, everyone is throwing their hands up.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

(god the amount of troon women is baffling too)

I think it has to do with a lot of trans people being pressured to doing more "womanly" things, and the Munchies being mainly women will draw in insecure and emotionally unstable troons. I'm sort of surprised a lot of the Rat King I've followed isn't directly connected to the Munchie communities, because they all self-DX like motherfuckers too.

Note, these children are usually talented or going to school, the shit they're doing is like... If they put less energy into complaining they'd attract less people like them. The first complaint and it's like a honey vat, and the MbI people are nothing but flies. So when you do actually get sick, everyone is throwing their hands up.

I've noticed a sad pattern here too, it doesn't matter how talented you can be, a lot of people (like Shmorky, the famous animator) throw away their potential because its so much easier to just be a worthless, complaining waste of space that gets asspats from all the other people wasting their time this way.

 

[repentance]

I think it has to do with a lot of trans people being pressured to doing more "womanly" things, and the Munchies being mainly women will draw in insecure and emotionally unstable troons. I'm sort of surprised a lot of the Rat King I've followed isn't directly connected to the Munchie communities, because they all self-DX like motherfuckers too.

Munchies tend to put a fair bit of effort into their performance art. Way more effort than most troons are willing to expend.

Also, a new munchie has earned herself a thread.

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/truth...e-smith-trisha-rene-kirley-gibombshell.31157/

 

[valis]

I hope this isn't too far outside the scope of this thread because it's fascinating and frightening: Angela Diaz, who framed her husband's ex-girlfriend for rape threats, a rape attempt (via supposedly responding to rape fantasy posts on Craigslist) and harassment against her, so successfully that the ex spent 88 days in jail and was facing the potential of up to life in prison. There are also charges against Diaz around faking cervical cancer, a fake pregnancy and forged doctors' notes - hopefully more details about those will come out during the trial.

Previous post on here with a news story about the case: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/woman...f-trying-to-get-her-raped-by-strangers.27509/

 

[Feline Darkmage]

This was already mentioned in Kadee's thread like half a month ago, but I think it should be brought up in this thread to. We now know her cause of death, Heroin OD. She was given heroin by an older woman who is now being charged in connection to her death. This happened because she compulsively needed stronger drugs to alleviate the fake problems her mind was making up, and this community. The Munchausen's by Internet asspatters online.

They allowed this to happen by supporting her habits.

 

[Cantthinkofanything]

I'm really relieved to have found this thread. Gigantic sperg coming up, feel free to ignore...

These people are fucking dangerous to the genuinely sick. Sorry for slight powerlevel, but I'm the proud owner of a rare, very painful illness and for years the neuros/pain clinics have advised their patients to join a support site, because this particular nasty causes a massively high suicide rate in the first two years.

For a long time the support sites (there are only a couple) were reasonably safe - they are well moderated anyway, but this isn't a well-known or "sexy" condition; there's no money in it and no....whatever the fuck reward these nutters are after. Occasionally the jesus-freaks or "alternative" (meaning "bollocks") health freaks would try and infiltrate but they'd start pushing their thing so fast and so hard they were reasonably easy to spot.

Then we got a real nutjob. Bear in mind that when people first get this diagnosis, it's terrifying - someone is in agony, they've just been told it's for life, there's no specific treatment and even the strongest painkillers don't do much. So they usually hit the thread in a very bad way and very, very scared. It's vital that everyone be very gentle with them - every time there's a newbie, everyone pulls together and makes it about THEM and, if at all possible, someone in similar circumstances will make an extra effort (for instance its even rarer in young people so we make sure they know there are a handful of us; we try and match parents-with-parents etc etc.) But this is something the fabricators never do, they just see a newbie as a fresh audience to pour out all their own woes on. It's disgusting.

The reasons for the explanation, for those of you who have stood the course (well done, you gets a medal. Other peoples' health crap is booooring) is that we had parents of a child join. There are things so horrendous that our own problems cease to matter because they just pale compared to the horror of a kid having this. We said hello, but everyone kept it general for a while, trying to work out what to say.

Not our pet arsehole. Oh no. They jumped in with both feet, telling with great glee of the dreadful prognosis for this poor kid and scaring the parents shitless. We were never entirely sure if they were a fabricator, general opinion was they didn't have the illness - they'd bang on for hours about how terrible it all was but then be able to do something that should have been impossible. It's an on/off thing, but they didn't display any of the aversion-rooted behaviours we all had and got very stroppy if mental issues were mentioned - it's as if they only knew about the pain, not all the other baggage. Because the pain is what garners the sympathy, I suppose.

They also had no empathy. Every time there was a newbie, or someone was posting at 3am having not slept for days, we put our own crap aside and tried to help them, knowing it would come back when it was our turn. And it was understood that if you couldn't, you couldn't. But not only did our nutter have it worse than everybody else, it affected their lives more than anybody else....and they expected EVERYBODY to come and give them the attention when they demanded it, to the point of sending PMs essentially saying "did you not see I was having a hard time?" And it was THE central focus, they identified themselves virtually entirely through this illness - at one point they were spouting symptoms of a different condition but they went apeshit when someone pointed out they may have x instead of z. And no "off" days - most of us had the "if it's not killing me I don't want to think about it today" attitude, but this person was on every single day, always terrible.

I'm sorry, this is a long rant. But the harm these fucktards do goes deep. Firstly, and most importantly, they waste vital medical time and resources (I have no idea how medical staff don't kill them.) Outside that though, they embed themselves in very vulnerable communities where it is extremely hard to call them out and their effects can be devastating. I left the group because I no longer felt any security and this arsehole imposed themselves so much. But it's terrifying that they are also often the most vocal - that woman who pushed herself to the forefront of the 9/11 survivors was typical; I understand our pet freak left to set up her own group when it became obvious we were wary. It's horrifying to think that a frightened, stressed person in great pain would go there first.

And all this is an unusual, not-common-knowledge medical oddity. Makes you wonder just how many of them there are being very loud at the front of truly devastating illnesses like cancer. I think things like Fibromyalgia may actually do really sick people a favour - if they all congregate under a vague umbrella term and get whatever the fuck they need out of that, maybe they'll stay away from places where they can do terrible damage.

Me again...not a rant this time, a question for those of you who know these nutters or deal with them professionally....

Is a lack of humour about it a factor in these people? I'm the absolute butt of jokes amongst my family and friends, but I make most of 'em. And a friend I have with a very serious, MS-level illness is the same - it's not ever meant unkindly, it just serves as a tension-reliever and keeps things in perspective.

Our pet nut had no humour about it at all; she told me off for being flippant....about my own illness (I might've got a bit sarcastic. Ahem.) The other strange thing I've noticed in these days of social media is that the hypochondriacs list their - usually self-diagnosed - "conditions" as part of their profiles (?!?!!!?) It's all sooooo serious. Yet staff in hospital usually have the blackest, funniest sense of humour - how do these people take humour?

I'm fascinated at the same time as repulsed. It's a shame really that their pathology is a psych's dream....but the one doctor they will not touch with someone else's bargepole is a shrink!

Ta for letting me vent. I only found the farms a few days ago and have had the best laugh of my life. Ah needs to sign me up propa.

 

[Ravenor]

Is a lack of humour about it a factor in these people? I'm the absolute butt of jokes amongst my family and friends, but I make most of 'em. And a friend I have with a very serious, MS-level illness is the same - it's not ever meant unkindly, it just serves as a tension-reliever and keeps things in perspective.

It seems to be, while serious illness is no laughing matter it's the dark ironic humour that takes the edge off it "poor little snowflakes" that are in it for the points etc tend not to have this because they haven't developed the if I don't laugh about it i'd cry coping mechanism that develops amongst the long term sick, police, doctors, firefighters, soldiers and the terminally ill etc.

To them it's not a condition that is part of their existence it is who they are or want to project to the world and the second you look like your going to burst that bubble they get very defensive about it.

Our pet nut had no humour about it at all; she told me off for being flippant....about my own illness (I might've got a bit sarcastic. Ahem.) The other strange thing I've noticed in these days of social media is that the hypochondriacs list their - usually self-diagnosed - "conditions" as part of their profiles (?!?!!!?) It's all sooooo serious. Yet staff in hospital usually have the blackest, funniest sense of humour - how do these people take humour?

As I said above that is just them being defensive about their own lack of condition, anybody who has suffered from an extreme medical problem or prolonged extreme stress tends to develop a sense of humour about it - I'll give you an example my Dad has had three heart bypass operations and an artificial heart valve fitted and if you're in a quiet room with him he ticks his two favorite jokes are "I'm a clown car that's gone bang but all the bit's haven't fallen off yet" and "I'm the crocodile from Peter Pan" when someone hears the ticking for the first time.

You get flippant about it because that's just part of who you are, a not very nice part but you're making light of it because while it's serious you have developed a way of dealing with it that isn't self-destructive, they haven't because they haven't got that same stress in their life no matter what they claim.

I'm fascinated at the same time as repulsed. It's a shame really that their pathology is a psych's dream....but the one doctor they will not touch with someone else's bargepole is a shrink!

Stick around trust me you will find a lot of cows that need a shrink but won't go near them with a barge pole because it will invalidate their self-delusions in a heart beat.

Ta for letting me vent. I only found the farms a few days ago and have had the best laugh of my life. Ah needs to sign me up propa.

Not a problem and a Big warm welcome to the community from the mod team

 

[MistressCaridad]

And no "off" days - most of us had the "if it's not killing me I don't want to think about it today" attitude, but this person was on every single day, always terrible.

I've been just following this thread without comment thus far, but this in particular is what strikes me with the MBI types on Tumblr/Instagram/etc. Every post or photo has at least some mention of their crippling conditions and how brave they are for enduring them.
I work in healthcare and a large portion of the patients I dealt with who had chronic illnesses naturally had good days and bad days. BUT- on their good days, they usually wanted to make the most of them and feel somewhat "normal" (if that's the right word), not focusing on or discussing at length their health issues but rather enjoying feeling good and maybe being able to do some things they couldn't necessarily do on a bad day.
(An earlier poster mentioned the aspects of makeup and grooming... on the one hand, I see your point, but on the other hand, some of our patients made an effort to dress nicely when they could and attend to their grooming routines to at least bring some sense of normalcy to their day, like a pick-me-up even if they felt like shit. So I can give a little bit of a pass in that regard. The full-face makeup with detailed contouring and fake eyelashes in a hospital bed thing is really weird though, I agree.)

 

[Cantthinkofanything]

I haven't worked out how to copy/paste or do "likes" and whatever yet - I'm using a tablet an I'z a bit fick. But...

I WANT TO TICK!!! That is so not fair, I'm dead jealous.

I think you're bang on about the humour part - yes, it may be a bit black or distasteful, but it keeps things real. The genuinely very sick people I know have an absolute horror of being identified purely by their sickness, whereas to these fruitcakes it IS their identity. I wonder also if there is a little part of them that thinks, if they don't go for maximum drama all the time, maybe people will doubt them.

I also agree with the "dreamy hospital selfie" crap. I think maybe hospitals should start banning phones; that many people seem to think it an entirely normal thing to get dressed up, perfect their slap, then take a winsome selfie. Or its counterpart, the agonised "look at how much pain I'm in" selfie. If you're compos mentis enough to take and upload selfies, you're not anywhere near sick enough to be in the ER. It must drive hospital staff absolutely crazy.

Must admit, it blew my mind the first time I saw a Facebook profile with "Illnesses and conditions" listed (you can probably guess what was on the list.) I can't think of a better way to indicate this is NOT somebody I want to associate with! It would make me wonder what on earth they did before social media was invented to assuage their solipsism, but my Ma worked as a hospital physio her whole life - she said there were families that did the rounds of each speciality, and the entire family turned up for every appointment and stayed all day. "Pack the samwidges and fill the flask; it's Our Big Day Out tomorrow!" Mentalists.

Thank you for the welcome. Ver' pleased to meet y'all.

 

[Ravenor]

If you want the most accurate way of doing it highlight the text you want to quote an click + Quote like so -

The click Inset qoutes just under the reply box.

I think you're bang on about the humour part - yes, it may be a bit black or distasteful, but it keeps things real. The genuinely very sick people I know have an absolute horror of being identified purely by their sickness, whereas to these fruitcakes it IS their identity. I wonder also if there is a little part of them that thinks, if they don't go for maximum drama all the time, maybe people will doubt them.

Oh sorry I was fully supporting it, if that wasn't clear please let me know.

I also agree with the "dreamy hospital selfie" crap. I think maybe hospitals should start banning phones; that many people seem to think it an entirely normal thing to get dressed up, perfect their slap, then take a winsome selfie. Or its counterpart, the agonised "look at how much pain I'm in" selfie. If you're compos mentis enough to take and upload selfies, you're not anywhere near sick enough to be in the ER. It must drive hospital staff absolutely crazy.

Yea they need to ban them in some areas altogether, Mobile Phones can an do feck with hospital equipment even basic stuff like EKG's an so forth.

Must admit, it blew my mind the first time I saw a Facebook profile with "Illnesses and conditions" listed (you can probably guess what was on the list.) I can't think of a better way to indicate this is NOT somebody I want to associate with! It would make me wonder what on earth they did before social media was invented to assuage their solipsism, but my Ma worked as a hospital physio her whole life - she said there were families that did the rounds of each speciality, and the entire family turned up for every appointment and stayed all day. "Pack the samwidges and fill the flask; it's Our Big Day Out tomorrow!" Mentalists.

Thank you for the welcome. Ver' pleased to meet y'all.

Yea it's a red flag, about the only time I have ignored it on a dating site is someone I knew before who's only mention of her illness was "I may or may not show up in a wheelchair" an she had a sundowner effect with her condition i.e. the more active she was in the day the less active she was later on, so when we met up she sat in bed all day just so she could walk in, she was really sporty before her condition took hold and she still is, she rides recumbent bikes and is into archery (might even be going to the next ParaOlympics) .

It didn't work out with each other for various reasons but we ended up being good friends, she's going to be the first person I take up solo when i get my Pilots licence, I've already sailed her around Liverpool Bay solo an she loved it - it's kinda became our joke thing she's my ginny pig for any strange random stuff I do... an I do a lot of that stuff :p

 

[Cantthinkofanything]

It's cool, I knew you were agreeing. "Bang on" means I think you're 100% right - I can't be doing with people who can't find a laugh in things. I think the two easiest ways to pick out a hypo is a) it's all deadly serious and b) they're always worse than everyone else. Only a munchie would see an ill child with as competition! I'd love to be a fly-on-the-wall in an ER staff-room though - I think if I worked in an ER, I might be tempted to slip them a dose of dynamite laxative >:-)

Sailing I can get behind, but flying? Nope. I'll just stay at ground level and scream. Class though, that's an amazing thing to be doing!

 

[cuddle striker]

Me again...not a rant this time, a question for those of you who know these nutters or deal with them professionally....

Is a lack of humour about it a factor in these people? I'm the absolute butt of jokes amongst my family and friends, but I make most of 'em. And a friend I have with a very serious, MS-level illness is the same - it's not ever meant unkindly, it just serves as a tension-reliever and keeps things in perspective.

Our pet nut had no humour about it at all; she told me off for being flippant....about my own illness (I might've got a bit sarcastic. Ahem.) The other strange thing I've noticed in these days of social media is that the hypochondriacs list their - usually self-diagnosed - "conditions" as part of their profiles (?!?!!!?) It's all sooooo serious. Yet staff in hospital usually have the blackest, funniest sense of humour - how do these people take humour?

I'm fascinated at the same time as repulsed. It's a shame really that their pathology is a psych's dream....but the one doctor they will not touch with someone else's bargepole is a shrink!

Ta for letting me vent. I only found the farms a few days ago and have had the best laugh of my life. Ah needs to sign me up propa.

lack of the dark humor that usually goes with illness is a big symptom of bullshit or lying, yes. if there's no joking allowed, usually the person is faking, or has some type of personality disorder along with their physical illness- and they'll use their illness for attention or money if so.

also fuck ticking, those pump systems that have no heartbeat at all are way cooler.

 

[Bay]

There is a woman who does a video series called 'ask an autistic' on youtube claiming to have Autism herself. For some reason or another I got a strange vibe from her that she was faking it. But then she started to do other stuff as well, like shaving her head and then using a wheelchair claiming she had a rare muscular disorder associated with Autism. But in other videos she's up walking around normally. Very peculiar.

 

[There_is_no_Dana]

A cell phone/tablet ban by hospitals would be horrible for the people stuck there for extended periods of time. The TV options are shitty - I was once in for a few weeks and laying there in a bed all day is boring as fuck.