Psychiatric MBP

I'm an adult now, but as a child and teen my mother was a textbook Munchausen by Proxy caregiver, and, feigned mental illness instead of physical illness. Was hoping to hear from others whose MPB caregivers pretended that their children had a mental disorder.

I was always a particularly healthy child, while my siblings would get lice and the chicken pox- by some miracle- even when I was exposed the vast majority of the time I would rarely ever get sick. By the time I was 9 years old, we had moved to a new neighborhood and my mother had to take a job and could no longer continue to be a stay-at-home mother.
My father was always an angry man, but, at this time his rages had gotten out of control. He was like a monster, would come home from work and rage at us for hours, and focusing most of his anger on me, specifically. I don't remember much of these days, but, my aunt said that she lived with us for some time ad told me about how my father would wake me up from sleep just to scream at me, then he'd head off to work and I'd fall back asleep (before my alarm would go off). My father would often stumble in home in a blind rage screaming "where is she? where is shelly?! ", would then find me and continue to rage at me, while the rest of the family would be seated frozen in the middle of dinner. My father is also a child molester, and I'm pretty certain that he didn't diddle my sister, only me.

As a result, while as the youngest child I was already particularly sensitive, I became an anxious and angry child. We could no longer afford all of the past times that I had enjoyed after school before we moved, and so I was often stuck inside of the house at our new home due to extreme weather conditions, ghetto neighborhood kids, and lack of funds for extracurricular activities.

This meant that I stayed home all day after school and was only exposed to my school environment and my toxic home environment with absolutely no healthy outlets. As a result, I became a mouthy and angry child, and, my mother started shopping around for doctors until she found one who would be willing to medicate a 9 year old girl.

For the next 6 years my mother would do her best to convince doctors that I was incredibly mentally ill, to the point where she described me as a nonfunctioning borderline retarded individual in order to silence me and distract onlookers from the abuse going on inside of the house. By the age of 13 I was 200 lbs, thanks to the medication, on lithium, depakote, resperadol, and geodon.

I was so overmedicated at 13 that my bone marrow had begun die, and it caused explosive menstrual cycles, and very nearly left me infertile. (The doctor never attempted to find out if it had, in fact, left me infertile. They just swept it under the rug, skeeze bags)

By the time I was 15, my mother was trying to convince doctors to perform a spinal tap on me, had already given me countless MRI's, sleep studies, countless useless specialists, etc.

Finally, my mother quietly took me off of the medication as soon as my father walked out on us when I was 15. Miraculously, I was fine, a normal teenager again. I went on to have the happiest 2 years of my adolescence just after being taken off of the psychotropic drugs that wrecked my body. During those two years I lost all of the excess weight i had been carrying while on the pills, and have never again been overweight, even as a 23 year old, I still keep a healthy figure.

But, while my mother took me off of the pills, she still kept up the act for school specialists and doctors. She did everything in her power to get me to break the rules so that she could justify sending me away to an out of state institution, which I never did. She assigned me a curfew of 5PM, and would call the police and report her 'mentally disabled child' as missing if I was even 20 minutes late. All of this, while the school staff had learned to just dismiss my mother as MBP, same with the men in my family.

spinal tap, sleep studies, mri's,
bone marrow

I think it has elements of MBP but your mum is not the classic MBP mum. Your childhood though screams child abuse.

Abuse (emotional and if I read right, early sexual, and lack of justice in the family unit),creates a child with rages and anger issues, this behaviour, follows drugs, follows more behaviour, follows more drugs, follows physical changes isolation socially, more behaviour..more drugs.. self fulfilling cycle..

you have done very well, to be where you are.

Was your mum also a Muncher (claimed mystery sickness)

You're right that there are many differences between my exprience and most others with MBP. I just wanted to see if I could introduce the concept of a Muncher who abuses the psychiatric/general healthcare system, as opposed to a Muncher who abuses the general healthcare system.

In my humble perspective, my Muncher qualifies because of the way that she'd watch my father rage at me for hours, then take me into a doctors appointment on the same day and act dumbfounded when the doctors would find that was anxious or angry at home.
Also, my behavior was always excellent and angelic at school and at friends homes, I would only ever get angry while at home. Not only that, but, my mother would often exaggerate and lie about the severity and frequency of the behavior to doctors, specialists, and teachers.

Also, I'm fairly certain that she took me off of the medication when I was 15 expecting me to have some kind of breakdown that, surprise, surprise, just didn't happen. I have been clean of psychiatric medications for 8 years now, and, while I think my upbringing has left me with some issues, I live my life like an ordinary person.

The only reason the doctors wouldn't perform a spinal tap was because I was 16 and would not consent to having the procedure done.

There is still a question of my fertility, my bone density is weak from years of heavy doses of meds, I have size 10 feet, and only ever grew to being 5'7 and three quarters- there's a question- in my mind, of possible growth stunting from massive doses of medications, and so, so much more.

Just hoping for a point of view from victims of Munchers who either agree or disagree with me, and, wondering if anyone out there has had a similar experience with unnecessary and damaging psychiatric care.

moon_in_june wrote:

In my humble perspective, my Muncher qualifies because of the way that she'd watch my father rage at me for hours, then take me into a doctors appointment on the same day and act dumbfounded when the doctors would find that was anxious or angry at home.

take it for what it is worth but the above to me is the key.

Thank you for sharing, it has opened my eyes to other forms of MBP.

Now importantly the bone density can be fixed by weightlifting. Learn how to squat with a bar on your back and you will never have an issue.

My brother and eye both had bone issues when young, and my density at 60 is greater than that of a fit 25 year old. It works, I cannot emphasize that enough.

Hi, Moon in June I love the name, I,m booboo6451, I had a step grandson up until July 12 this year when I divorced his grandpa after 26 years of marriage. But I was an adopted child and I made a promise to God at age 9 that I would never treat any stepchild like a stepchild. That goes for grandchildren also. I applaud you for your bravery fortitude and self-perseverance. I have now idea outside of a miracle how you have accomplished all this in your life. I have just recently realized that my Grandson has been a victim of MBP and he emancipated himself about 2013 from his mom I plan to find him and tell him all this she kept taking him to the psychiatrist to get attention for herself because she could'nt handle having a child that reminded her of his dad that,s what I believe. I also believe that she is a muncher. Pray for us if you're the praying type and I will pray for all of these survivors. All of the MBP survivors are miracles and deserve our attention. As we could learn from every one of you amazing people. God Bless booboo6451.