I’m not really sure how I should begin, so I’m just going to hit this keyboard and hope for the best!
I’m 20 years old and I have Munchausen syndrome. It all started when I was little, my brother spent a few months in hospital when I was around the age of 6. Mum spent allot of time with my brother while he was in hospital, because she was a single parent that meant I had to stay with strangers. I remember being really jealous, my brother was getting all this attention not only from my mum and family but also compete strangers, I felt so left out, so alone.
After that I really craved for attention. I legitimately hurt my arm one day at school and I remember the teachers making a big fuss and my mum being called. My mum took me to the hospital where it was discovered I dislocated my shoulder, not going to lie I was really hoping I broke my arm so I could have a cast, but nope I just got a sling. After that incident it was like something clicked in me, that I need to be hurting to be loved. Weird I know right?
We moved allot, so that meant I changed schools allot… how ever I spend most of my school time in the sick bay from one thing to another - feeling sick, headache, sprained ankle, sore arm ect. Being so young I still yearned for that attention. My mum got to a point where when the phone rang she knew it was the school she’d just pick up and say I was faking send me back to class. That hurt me allot, that she didn’t believe me, even though I really was faking..
I’m going to jump to when I first started to self harm. I was 13 and in high school, I wont describe what I done as I don’t want to give anyone ideas on how to get into hospital but I hurt my left leg in a way that it got infected. I hid this from everyone for about 4 days until I got to the point I was scared, I was vomiting, shaking from being so cold and not to mention in share agony. When my mum saw how sick I was she took me straight to the doctors only then for the doctors to tell my mother to get me to the hospital. I already had this big story of how I hurt myself, even though it was complete lies. I had to have an operation on my leg and spend about 2 weeks in hospital. I acted like I wanted to go home, I pretended I hated being in hospital even though deep down it was exactly what I wanted, I even started hoping I needed more surgery! I’d go back home for about a month and then do it all over again. Hospital stays varied and so did the number of operations, this continued for a few months. Then one day my mum had to take me in for a check up on my leg when the doctor accused my mother of hurting me (Munchausen syndrome by proxy) or that I was doing this to myself. I couldn’t believe what was happening, they found out I was doing this to me.. The doctor was saying that things just weren’t adding up. My mum was very calm during this whole conversation which sort of shocked me, I felt so nervous, my heart was racing I thought I could pass out! So the doctor came up with a plan to put me in a plaster cast from the top of my thigh all the way down to my foot for 3 weeks to prove there was something going on, my mum agreed to this and on went the cast (finally I got a cast, even though it was in the shittiest of circumstances) I remember in the car ride home I just started crying, my mum pulled the car over looked at me and said that she knows with all her heart I’m not doing this, and that we’re going to make that doctor look like a fool. Oh crap what did I get myself into, I couldn’t believe this was happening I needed to figure out a way to get into my cast. After some nifty work and 3 weeks up my sleeve me and my mother went back to the hospital for the moment of truth. The cast was cut off and the doctor was just as shocked as I was, my leg looked and smelled horrible and was even black in some places I was then rushed to emergency as the black meant gangrene. As sick and twisted as this may sound, I was proud of myself. I proved that doctor wrong, my mum stuck up for me, believed me and loved me.
So I’m now 20, for the last 7 years I have been in and out of hospital ranging from once a year up to 4-5 times. I’ve had numerous amounts of surgery, well into the hundreds by now. My leg is considered a medical mystery and some specialist even went as far as to blame the first hospital where I had my first operation that they screwed up somehow. I know the truth.. Only me. I’ve never told anyone any of this before.. I’ve just kept it inside. I constantly think about the future. I feel like I’m not normal, what kind of person would do this to themselves? What kind of person would put their family through this? Wastes so much time, money and resources? What kind of person can be this organized on what to say, how to say it, how to act so there is no suspicion and how to keep inflecting this self harm on my leg? This leg that so many doctors have said I’m lucky to still have. I’m ashamed, embarrassed, confused, angry and alone. I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to be this person anymore. Being so good at lying sometimes I believe myself. I have anger towards my creator, why did he make me like this? Why couldn’t I just be normal? I want help but I don’t know where to start, I want a normal life, I don’t want to be ashamed of myself anymore.. I want to start living.