Munchausen In Proxy

Münchausen by Proxy is currently under review, possibly to be reclassified from a syndrome to abuse, given that someone is being subjected to cruel treatment. Witnessing this in real life is a very eye opening experience.

Often people with Münchausen by Proxy (MbP) are subjecting someone else, often a child, to conditions to make that person appear sick or to lead to a case where that person will become sick.  

While it sometimes can simply be that a mother may take her child to the doctor over and over again with an imaginary illness to get attention, others may slip their children poisonous substances to create the effects of illness.  They may also coach the people in their care to exaggerate their symptoms, or goad them into harming themselves without their conscious knowledge that they were doing so. What I observed was incredibly disturbing to watch as the mother pleaded me to believe that she was “right” by self diagnosing the children but GP records and other expert reports confirmed otherwise. 

Sadly, in many cases, this syndrome does often lead to being disabled or even to death for those in the care of someone with Münchausen by Proxy.  It is even believed that proper understanding of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or (SIDS) may have been delayed by doctors studying babies who were victims of Münchausen by Proxy, instead of SIDS itself.

By hurting those they are charge of caring for, they are given the attention they desire as the “caretaker, poor mother,” or “good child caring for an ailing parent,” or simply “The good nurse to the sick.”  Often, it will not be limited to one person, as entire families have fallen prey to this condition at the behest of one parent.  A mother with this condition may end up killing one child right after another to keep the attention levels of sympathy on herself at the same or higher level.

Overall, MbP is more prevalent in females than in males, and while the women were more likely to have male and female victims, evidence suggests that when men have this condition, that their victims are more likely to be male.  Given societal gender roles, and given that these people are aware of the harm they’re causing, this patten makes sense in that regard.

A growing phenomenon of Münchausen by Internet, in which the anonymity of the internet makes it easy to fake an illness and garner large amounts of sympathy and support, with people taking videos photos of them being “ill” and surrounded by various hospital equipment.

The “By Proxy” version of Münchausen is a dangerous disorder, hard to identify by doctors and often hushed up by our society’s rules surrounding accusations of murder after long illness or seemingly natural death, even when evidence is readily available.  Luckily, tests for poisons are growing more sophisticated, and are often checked for in patients who exhibit strange long term symptoms without a definite diagnosis.

However you choose to view Münchausen is up to you.  It rides a line between a disorder needing of treatment, to be classified as more of a crime that requires more jail time than treatment time.  While most of us would be okay with Münchausen itself just being classified a disorder, when the disease becomes “By Proxy,” or “By Internet,”  it bears further contemplation in the mind.