Munchausen By Proxy & Who Is Most To Blame

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Jan 9, 2023

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Munchausen By Proxy is a mental illness and a form of abuse. A person with munchausen will be a parent and/or caretaker of a person, usually a child or elderly person. They experience severe emotional difficulties. They like the attention they get for taking care of someone. It validates them and makes them feel important. Sometimes they will even cause an illness in their child just so they have a reason to seek medical care and get the attention, or validation they need for their own self worth.

According to WebMD and other websites, the exact cause of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is unknown. I spoke to a woman who once was diagnosed with this rare mental illness, and what she told me does make sense. She wishes to remain anonymous but did give me permission to write some of her story. Be aware y’all, it is sad. To know someone who is supposed to protect you and keep you safe, actually hurts you, and does it intentionally.

She said growing up her parents never made much of a big deal whenever she got straight A’s or for any of her other accomplishments. When she had her first child it was the first time in her life everyone made a big deal about something that she accomplished, and it felt AMAZING. Until it became old news. That’s when she started creating things wrong and taking her baby to a doctor, and then when one doctor didn’t say what she wanted she would find ones that would. It started with simple things like a cold or an ear infection. That would generally get her parents’ attention. Then as time went on, everything escalated. Her daughter was 11 years old and had 6 different specialist doctors plus her pediatrician. She had been diagnosed with Leukemia, rare blood disorders, something that caused her to be paralyzed, and all along this woman was giving her daughter a drug used to relax muscles in large animals, but in humans it was a paralyzing agent.

This is just incredible to believe a mama could do this to her children, but she told me it just made her life more meaningful. She was made to look like a saint within her community. They got free movie tickets, free electricity because she had to stop working to care for her child 24 hours a day, free groceries, someone even added soiree footage onto their home to make it handicap accessible for her child’s wheelchair. It was just so outta hand and all a lie just to get attention.

When doctors would tell her that treatment must be working, her daughter’s tests are all looking good, she would give her something she knew would actually cause another trip to a hospital. She would take her to new doctors and say the previous office had a delay in sending records, but she could tell them what they needed to go ahead and get treatment transferred. No records would ever come; she would just move on to someone else over and over.

Are Doctors Complicit?

Now, I understand doctors are not being charged for allowing this to happen all over this country. My question is why?

Ok now let us dive in and check just what is complicity. Up until the opioid epidemic, any patient could go into a Dr.’s office and tell them they were being treated for such and such and they were being prescribed oxy or hydrocodone from their previous doctor. The doctors, up until 2019 or so, did not even check to see what patient was being prescribed what medication. So my thoughts are, aren’t these doctors complicit to the crime that is being done? Now a lot of times parents change doctors and facilities for their children, but at the new facility the office staff will have you a release to sign to get your medical records from your prior doctor’s office.

People do also realize MOST mothers and fathers will have their children’s best interest at heart. So when they bring them in they usually can fill in all the blanks. My problem with all this is, besides a malpractice suit, usually all these kids “have” very rare deadly diseases and/or disorders. So what doctor wouldn’t want to very well get everything right. It is the Doctor’s responsibility to be sure through tests what the proper diagnosis is, not by what the parent says.

I feel, and this is only my personal opinion, if a patient shows up in an ER, the mother says what symptoms her child may be having. The nurse then accesses the patient, and the Doctor orders a test and diagnoses the patient or he refers to a specialist of the field that is determined by the patient’s status.

Some of the people I have encountered with Munchausen by proxy have a problem feeling satisfied with themselves and what they accomplish daily. They tend to need extreme validity. Most of them have figured out how to manipulate the system and the doctors into believing whatever it is they say is wrong with their child. They will lie and say medical records were lost or give some other excuse as to why they can’t get them. They then “fill in the blanks”. Most of the time the children this illness affects have seen hundreds of different doctors and have multiple illnesses, some incurable diseases. It is considered a rare mental illness, and more common among women. According to the Mayo Clinic, it affects about 2 in 100,000 children.

If you suspect someone you know may have this mental illness, it’s by all means best for everyone to seek help for them. There have been cases that the parent takes it too far and kills the child.

My final theory and thoughts here: We find the parent guilty usually with mental disease, but we put no blame on the doctor who is prescribing treatment.