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

[TonySoprano]

People are, in general, really bad at faking symptoms. We're watching you in the waiting room btw.

Of the following list:

-- Patient hears command voices telling them to hurt themselves or others
-- Patient thinks you are controlling their mind using telepathy
-- Patient accuses their neighbors of stalking them at the grocery store
-- Patient has visual hallucinations with bizarre content.

All of these can be considered blatant symptoms of psychosis. Two of the above aren't unusual. Two are very rare. Psychs can tell the difference. Can you?

I know hearing voices is common but I'd guess it's not common that the voices tell them to hurt themselves or others.. Nor that they think they're being controlled by telepathy

 

[gay frogs]

First and last are most uncommon, I think, but most common in television and movies.

 

[Occam's Epilady]

People are, in general, really bad at faking symptoms. We're watching you in the waiting room btw.

Of the following list:

-- Patient hears command voices telling them to hurt themselves or others
-- Patient thinks you are controlling their mind using telepathy
-- Patient accuses their neighbors of stalking them at the grocery store
-- Patient has visual hallucinations with bizarre content.

All of these can be considered blatant symptoms of psychosis. Two of the above aren't unusual. Two are very rare. Psychs can tell the difference. Can you?

I'll go against the grain and say the first two are rare and the second two aren't unusual.

@Ellesse_warrior you had customers casually telling you they thought their minds were being controlled??? I worked a pharmacy counter in college and thought I had heard some weird stuff, but I'm pretty sure nobody ever said that. How does that even come up lol

Edit: also, this is the thing that gets me about munchies: I don't know squat about symptoms of psychosis, but I have complete confidence that I could look them up if I wanted to. Everybody with a smartphone basically carries around the entirety of human knowledge in their pocket; if you're going to fake something, how is your first step NOT to look up the fkin syndrome you're claiming to have???

Edit2: it's late and I read the symptoms wrong . Turns out I agree with what other people were saying.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Oh good god this was on a Facebook group. THEY. ARE. ALL. THE. SAME!!!

This makes me think of the Parks and Recreation where Andy is listing off all these "symptoms" to Anne and she says "some of those are symptoms. And some of those are just being a person." A lot of these are just being a person, especially one who is aging and hasn't taken very good care of herself.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

...Dammit, now I’m curious.

I’m guessing the first and last are much more rare than the paranoid ones.

You're right. I guess you've spent too much time looking at munchies.

Command voices are extremely unusual along with bizarre visual hallucinations in a patient that doesn't otherwise exhibit disorganized thinking. This is what Hollywood thinks psychosis is so that's what fakers gravitate towards. Remember that munchie talking about seeing elephants? Welp.

Paranoid ideation is much more common. Also the negative symptoms of psychosis (like blunt affect) which are boring. Much more fun to see weird shit and hear voices in your head.

Psychiatrists have a whole toolbox for figuring this shit out since so many people fake mental illnesses. There's a depression inventory with trick questions on it, for example.

 

[Cold Waffle]

Psychiatrists have a whole toolbox for figuring this shit out since so many people fake mental illnesses. There's a depression inventory with trick questions on it, for example.

A long time ago, Sarah Jean posted a video titled "AM I AUTISTIC?" of her visiting a psychiatrist, and she was asked to fill out multiple lengthy questionnaires. One of them was the MMPI-2 and another was the WAIS-IV, but there were more that I couldn't catch (she mentioned one that had 500ish questions). She complained about how owrful it was for her to fill out so many questions because of her EDS or #ChronicHandHurtySyndrome or whatever.

Is it possible that one of those question sets might have been the type with trick questions mixed in? Or would her doctor be able to determine if she wasn't being truthful based on how she answered?

I remember it being pretty hilarious that she was going to wail about filling out the paperwork her doctor requested, but it would be even more amusing if the test(s) were rigged to weed out the fakers.

 

[Kate Farms Shill]

This is what Hollywood thinks psychosis is so that's what fakers gravitate towards.

Yeah this is what I based my guess on. Since people are way more likely to see the "the dog told me to kill her" side on TV/in movies they'd be more likely to try and fake that way, and because they're way more spectacular than boring old paranoia.

 

[yomamamasofat]

You know, they make absorbent garments that look like colorful, age-appropriate scarves but act like a bib, and adaptive spill-proof cups that don’t look like baby bottles, so that people with actual neuromuscular conditions they cant opt out of can stay clean and self-feed while maintaining some dignity...

But you know, if you want to make a mockery of those people who didn’t choose to have devastating neuromuscular conditions while drawing as much attention as possible to how much of an asshole you are, I guess that’s your right.

The age appropriate aids are not expensive either. They seem to be no more expensive than the baby products. So it's to make her look more "special". I wonder if she's ever claimed that she can't use the adult aids and that's why she uses baby bottles and bibs? I may have a lurk to see if I can find out this.

 

[Hammond]

If she does, that’s hilarious, because she’s just proving that she can’t do like the main thing.

Here’s a picture of someone with EDS doing that, as found via a quick google search:
View attachment 923750

Hot damn! I just idly tried this and can do it not only with my thumb but all of my fingers as well. Does that count for extra credit I can cash in immediately for my service dog?

I just can't dislocate my hips while walking through. I'll have to google and see if there are any easy-to-follow tutorials so I can get a cool custom chair aa well.

 

[Eglantine]

For example at one point she was having ticks including ones that made her swear as you can see here.

That video is fucking hilarious. Quack!

But then you get to photos such as this one, wherein her posture is very reminiscent of a person with Cerebral Palsy.

Take out the back row of people and you have Gypsy and Dee Dee mark 2.

 

[yomamamasofat]

Hot damn! I just idly tried this and can do it not only with my thumb but all of my fingers as well. Does that count for extra credit I can cash in immediately for my service dog?

I just can't dislocate my hips while walking through. I'll have to google and see if there are any easy-to-follow tutorials so I can get a cool custom chair aa well.

I can do this too! We must have severe EDS, POTS etc, let's go get our ports fitted and we must start infusions immediately. We also must post about how sick we are on social media. People need to know that we're sick. Especially as we have flexible thumbs.

 

[The1ThatStartsWithD]

That new sub and the creator of it was so weird. Hilarious that they’ve DFED already.

Ooh lawd, some real winners over there!

Agreed, and Linda's docs are probably aware of her history of abusing pain meds.


Also, again, I'm horrified how docs over there seem to jump to the saline infusions as soon as someone's diagnosed with POTS. Most people who've been newly diagnosed haven't made simple lifestyle modifications like drinking way more water, or tried prescribed treatments (meds, compression hose).

As for the wheelchair prescription, why the hell not recommend the patient rent a mobility scooter while she's waiting to see if the POTS treatment works? But it's all about the toys.

That's just it, they don't but munchies make it seem like all docs do this. In reality they trade doc names and go to the ones who will give them what they want.

adding to the update on Morgan’s recent post. Morgan and her pain meds...

@Morgan you know best

>What NOT to say to a munchie!

 

[Ellesse_warrior]

I'll go against the grain and say the first two are rare and the second two aren't unusual.

@Ellesse_warrior you had customers casually telling you they thought their minds were being controlled??? I worked a pharmacy counter in college and thought I had heard some weird stuff, but I'm pretty sure nobody ever said that. How does that even come up lol

I'm very friendly and like to chat. People just say whatever to me, I also used to get told a lot of really personal things too like abuse stories etc. while I was doing transactions for people. It always came up out of the blue, I'm not going around asking people strange questions.

 

[yomamamasofat]

Agony Autie is back, crying on camera about how she gets abuse when she makes speeches, how she's all alone and vulnerable and how she isn't going to hide.

Agony Autie - Thank you for your support. I’ve never... | Facebook

Thank you for your support. I’ve never needed it more than now. I’ve had 7 hours sleep in three days and I’ve lost all my weight, through stress &...

www.facebook.com

 

[eternal dog mongler]

A long time ago, Sarah Jean posted a video titled "AM I AUTISTIC?" of her visiting a psychiatrist, and she was asked to fill out multiple lengthy questionnaires. One of them was the MMPI-2 and another was the WAIS-IV, but there were more that I couldn't catch (she mentioned one that had 500ish questions). She complained about how owrful it was for her to fill out so many questions because of her EDS or #ChronicHandHurtySyndrome or whatever.

Is it possible that one of those question sets might have been the type with trick questions mixed in? Or would her doctor be able to determine if she wasn't being truthful based on how she answered?

Yeah, both of those can be used to detect malingering, and the MMPI-2 in particular is often used in this manner.

The big one is SIMS but it's kinda ethically gross. It's all trick questions designed to make people endorse bizarre or atypical psychiatric symptoms. It relies on the fact that fakers can't resist going completely over-the-top with everything, e.g.:

"I find it difficult to remember whether or not I am married" is bizarre. Most people with cognitive impairment do not struggle with this. But people who are pretending to be cognitively impaired might endorse it.

"I have no strategies to reduce auditory hallucinations other than taking medication" is atypical. By the time people with psychosis get to intake, they've usually figured out a way to drown out auditory hallucinations. At least slightly.

What occasioned all of this and why research about malingering and factitious disorder has exploded within the past decade is, I think, people faking mTBI. Neuropsychologists apparently don't take prisoners. Now pediatricians are in on it because of ADHD and malingering by proxy. Parents wanting their kids on Adderall to boost their grades so they lie about ADHD symptoms and coach their kids to do so as well. It hasn't really filtered into other areas of practice yet but I suspect that it will.

 

[AT 903]

Agony Autie is back, crying on camera about how she gets abuse when she makes speeches, how she's all alone and vulnerable and how she isn't going to hide.

Agony Autie - Thank you for your support. I’ve never... | Facebook

Thank you for your support. I’ve never needed it more than now. I’ve had 7 hours sleep in three days and I’ve lost all my weight, through stress &...

www.facebook.com

Lmao that shit show is brilliant not wonder she wants to hide

Spoiler

Going to be waiting for this vid like.

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Whoa, a slapfight between a munchie and an autistic trans psychiatrist?

Hi, I'd like to delete the internet.

 

[BT 965]

Questions with a real diagnosis of EDS are these dislocations actually real real? Like if someone “dislocated an ankle-EDS” is that the same as a real dislocated ankle could it be seen on an X-ray? Do you think it’s as severe as a real dislocation? Wondering as someone i know that keeps going on about it. Most likely they are a faker but I just want an opinion on what EDS is supposed to be like is it actually that bad ? I just don’t feel the sympathy for that person

 

[mooserangerofthenorth]

Dislocations are dislocations. EDS (in it's TRUE form) just makes it more likely to happen. Ankle dislocations are like hip, extremely hard if not harder.

 

[I hate children?]

Does she still live in Ireland? I'll go round and look through her windows..

She was trying to come to the United States for a doctor who can treat her super rare deadly last stage Lyme Disease.