General Chat

Hi Karen, There was really no pattern, but it was always an underlying problem for me never knew when it would emerge.

Hi Alan ,
Sorry you've had a bad time , Alan did you notice any pattern
in your partners behaviour ?

Karen

both afflictions are difficult to diagnose, especially Munschausen

She was not narcissistic, Rather she was not worried about personal appearance etc., but she needed to feel more important. It was probably an inadequacy she felt about herself, even though outwardly she always bragged about how wonderful she was. It is a form of manipulation

Not really, it is an attention getting device

By having a supposedly ill child it brings attention and sympathy to the parent Friends don't often notice it. It is only with 24/7 exposure that it is noticed. Very sad, but a reality and manipulation in it's ugliest form

Alan - though I'm no expert that sounds like Narcissism (sp?)

Sue x

The lady I was with did get attention from me and others including the doctors. Although she did not physically harm her daughter, she did psychologically damage her and it has reached the point daughter won't speak to mother. Mother always needed attention and control of others. The apron strings were never cut. Her excuse is that her mother never liked her. She was definitely a daddy's girl, so did get attention from him. Her way of getting through life is manipulation and always blaming the other person. Nothing is even remotely her fault.

I lived with a lady for 8 years who used munschausen by proxy It plus other things( need to control) ended things

Quote

"She also always thinks that she has some dreaded disease...She told everyone that she had throat cancer but it turned out to be a cyst...needless to say it has taken its toll on me and I dont have anything to do with her anymore...She is still like it.."
................................

Early last year I truly believed I had some medical condition & was going to die.

It all started the week before easter & I kept on missing a breath & feeling very tired.
Easter Sunday son started feeling unwell with flu symptoms, followed by daughter on the Tues. (the following week swine flu was announced & to this day i think he had it as after the initial bout of flu & antibiotics he was ill for a further 3 weeks, missing time of school & not even able to shower some days)

I now know this was the start of my illness, along with the acute worry over my son.

I felt flu like a couple of days after that but went down hill after symptoms finished. In addition to losing a breath & a missed heartbeat, I felt a lump in my throat all the time.

Week after week I practically lived at my GPs surgery. All i got told was "Virus" (But I could feel a lump...kept on losing breath, and in 3 weeks had virtually stopped eating I felt so ill, I lost 2-1-2 stone in 3 weeks so why wasn't they worried ?)

A few trips to casualty, dozens of apps & blood tests & chest xray all came back clear.

In the end one of the practice docs was recommended to me & I made an app. He was the ONLY doctor who listened to me & he prescribed anti anxiety tablets. Within a week I felt a bit better (arbeit a bit giggly at times LOL ) within 2 weeks I felt normal again - so normal all symptoms vanished. A year on I still take a low dose of meds.

What I'm trying to say is, I was convinced the lump (which was investigated & didn't exist) was cancer, my weight loss, extreme lethargy was cancer
My missed beat (which did exist turned out to be anxiety & nothing more.

Those symptoms were real, not imagined. The power of the mind and acute anxiety can be so powerful.

I now bear in mind that most people dont do this for attention, far from it. If they do hurt themselves, or others its because they are convinced if they take themselves or others to hospital, The real illness they fear will be diagnosed before it has a chance to kill themselves or someone they love.

Poor people. I don't understand it, but then I have never suffered it, thank goodness.
We have enough on our plates with the real issues in life. How awful that some people are so ill that they can suffer this .

I am at the moment thinking of people who self harm, which is a way of punishing themselves. Goodness knows why.

The hypochondriac idea upsets me a lot.
I think quite often doctors use it as tool and miss the clues which are showing them the REAL problem.

We are all different and we all need to be heard, don't we?
But sometimes there may be a really profound reason for their problems.

I just feel such sympathy for people who find themselves in that position.
I cannot even begin to understand it.
Deanna X

Munchausen AND Hypochondria?


Munchausen sufferers know they aren’t sick. They don’t have to think about it, They are not sick.
They might exaggerate the symptoms of a headache for instance, but they KNOW they are doing it. It’s not like how you know you are if you really sit down and think about it.

Hypochondriacs Blow things out of proportion. They are really afraid of their headache… so they tend to exaggerate the symptoms. Sometimes because they don’t mean to and sometimes to be taken seriously.

Q..
When you are at the doctors do you feel good because you are being taken seriously, or is it a replacement for affection that you are not getting in your daily life. Are you experiencing relief or are you experiencing gratification and excitement from the attention?

When you went to the doctor was your aim to get attention, or was your aim to get better?

Personally I don’t think you can be co morbid Munchausen and Hypochondria because the motivations are completely different. They might both feel happy when the doctors are paying attention, but the reasons behind the happiness are different.


Taken from website .

From what i can gather , like has already been said , Attention & Affection play a big role .

I wonder if like in the case of Kirilow . the person/ sufferer is aware of what they're doing .

Good clarification from Helen.

I read this thread yesterday, and then coincidentally picked up a piece of Saturday's Toronto Star when I got home and saw the story below. That's another distinction -- true Munchausen (and Munchausen by proxy) sufferers do truly believe the symptoms and illnessses are real. Abusing a child to cause symptoms for attention isn't really Munchausen by proxy (I think) ... and neither is fraud. ;)

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/845045--
miserable-childhood-blamed-for-cancer-charity-scam?bn=1

Kirilow blames cancer charity scam on miserable childhood

BURLINGTON—The 23-year-old woman who faked having cancer, ran a bogus charity and scammed hundreds of people of at least $13,000, says she did it to get back at her parents for a miserable childhood.

“I took it as an opportunity to make my family feel bad for how I was treated,” she said.

Ashley Anne Kirilow said she is sorry for what she has done. Currently unemployed, she said she has spent the money but when she gets a job she will save enough to cover what she stole.

“I can’t possibly give it back to every single person, but I can give it to charity,” she said.

Jamie Counsell, who organized two benefit concerts for Kirilow in Newmarket earlier this year, said he doesn't accept her apology. “She should be sorry, it doesn’t excuse her.”

... Her lies escalated to the point where she shaved her head, plucked her eyebrows and starved herself to appear at benefit events as a chemotherapy patient. In October she started Change for a Cure, a supposed charity that consisted of little more than a Facebook group.

Volunteers say $20,000 was given to Kirilow through Change for a Cure, but Kirilow said it was $4,000 at the most. The group is collecting testimonials from anyone who made a donation so they can provide detailed evidence to police. They say their count is already more than $5,000.

All of the money raised for Kirilow was handed to her in cash. There are no receipts.

Kirilow does not dispute the $9,000 raised for her at a benefit held at a Burlington pub last September, before she started Change for a Cure.

“It was nice to have people care about me,” she said about the event held at The Queen’s Head pub. “At the same time, I felt really horrible.”

... Her biological parents, who separated before Ashley turned 2, admit their marriage was dysfunctional. They had a bitter custody dispute, and Ashley ended up living with her mother until she was 14. She rarely saw her father.

“He should have come back for us,” she said.



She has been charged with fraud now.

Years ago I nursed a patient with Munchausen's Syndrome. He invented - and truly believed in - all the symptoms of serious illness. Munchausen's by Proxy is where the sufferer believes another person, often a child or someone helpless is ill and causes them further damage by the treatment of these imagined symptoms.

Thimk that makes sense.

karen.sent you a pm.x

its because there somthing missing in their lives (love) perhaps when they were children the only time they got any attention was when they were ill its called learned behaviour

i agree its strange
how somebody could pretend to be ill
or could get pleasure through the sickness of friends and family
they must live a sad sad life

I agree, it is very sad. BCXX

I have just taken the time to read up on this illness.
I had heard of mother's making up illnesess in their children.
It appears sufferers also make up an illness in other people and family members.

As SueMaid said, a very complex mental issue.