Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy Is Having a Pop-Culture Moment—But No One’s Getting It Right

The disorder is cropping up on HBO, Hulu, and in a film debuting this weekend—but as an author whose sister actually has Munchausen syndrome by proxy explains, it’s not as cinematic as we’ve been led to believe.

 The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem

“Munchausen by internet” is rattling tight-knit online support groups.

 The rise of the mother-poisoner: why so many 2018 dramas feature Munchausen by proxy

What the rising trend of violent mothers tells us about our disdain for women.

 Why Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy Is Having a Moment on TV

The rise in the depiction of the disorder arrives at a moment when an increasing number of types of mental illnesses are being portrayed on television, and even familiar diagnoses are being portrayed in more nuanced ways.

Munchausen by Internet: Current Research and Future Directions

The Internet has revolutionized the health world, enabling self-diagnosis and online support to take place irrespective of time or location. Alongside the positive aspects for an individual’s health from making use of the Internet, debate has intensified on how the increasing use of Web technology might have a negative impact on patients, caregivers, and practitioners. One such negative health-related behavior is Munchausen by Internet.

Münchausen by Internet: On Lying Online

Despite what "Catfish"-esque sensationalism may have you believe, many of the elaborate, escalating fabrications created by women online are likely a manifestation of mental illness.

Munchausen's Sufferers Use Ills to Get Attention

Classic Munchausen's syndrome cases dot the medical literature with cases of perverse ingenuity, often evading detection for years and racking up staggering medical bills. Some people simply lie about symptoms. Others have manipulated test results by heating thermometers or dripping blood into a urine container. Still others have induced fevers and other symptoms by injecting themselves with bacterial cultures, urine or feces.

Sick of the Internet

The most committed deceivers, who were splashed with the term title “hospital hobos” in the 1990s, would go so far as to have unnecessary procedures performed on themselves or others, then hop to a new doctor’s office or hospital to continue the deception. But now, “the Internet has expanded the base of people who are engaging in this kind of behavior,” Feldman says.

The Bad Mother

Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a rare, bizarre disorder. Why are so many women being accused of it?

The New Child Abuse Panic

Some doctors and hospitals have begun to level a radical new charge — “medical child abuse” — against parents who, they say, get unnecessary or excessive treatment for their kids. That this care is usually ordered by other doctors hasn’t protected parents from these loaded accusations. Although most of these cases have nothing to do with real child abuse, credulous child welfare officials have too often supported the doctors, threatened parents with loss of custody, and even removed kids from their homes — simply because the parents disagreed with the doctor’s plan of care.

They Think They Feel Your Pain

Munchausen Syndrome is the severest form of what is known in medical circles as factitious disorders, where a patient feigns, exaggerates or self-induces illness. Known among doctors as "black hole patients," "ER jumpers" or "heart sinks," people with Munchausen often go to desperate lengths to prove they are sick. In Munchausen by Proxy, parents will abuse their children in order to get them admitted to hospitals

What Is Munchausen Syndrome? It's Going to Cause a Stir on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

British doctor Richard Alan John Asher coined the term "Munchausen syndrome" in 1951. The name comes from Baron Munchausen, a fictional 18th-century German nobleman made famous by Rudolf Erich Raspe's book The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen and was known for spinning tall tales. However, Munchausen syndrome, which is known as a factitious disorder imposed on self these days, is a very real mental disorder in which someone makes others believe he or she is sick by pretending to be ill, by purposely getting sick, or through self-injury, according to the Mayo Clinic.

What Mommy Dead and Dearest Gets Right and Wrong About Munchausen Syndrome

The story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard is simply too juicy for a documentarian to resist. In June 2015, then-23-year-old Gypsy was convicted of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of her mother, Dee Dee. (Her boyfriend and accused knife wielder, Nicholas Godejohn, still awaits trial on first-degree murder charges.) But it turns out that Gypsy had been a victim of Dee Dee’s Munchausen syndrome by proxy her entire life, meaning she was told by her mother her entire life that she was ill and confined to a wheelchair despite being able-bodied. Gypsy endured more than two decades of meritless hospitalizations and treatments for myriad phantom illnesses.

When Doctors Accuse Parents of Medical Child Abuse

Medical child abuse, also known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy and caregiver-fabricated illness in a child, is a serious form of child abuse that often leaves the child disfigured, disabled or even dead.

Woman Charged With Murder After Claiming Her Daughter Was Terminally Ill

The girl made national headlines while fulfilling a bucket list before she died at age 7 in 2017. Now her diagnoses, and her death, have been called into question.