I am a victim of a Muncher

Maybe I'm a couple of years too late for this post.

I found out at sixteen from a childhood baby sitter that when I was five that I had been removed from my mothers care because she had tried to make me sick. I had full memory of that time and it even though it made sense to me I didn't want to believe that such a terrible thing was true. As it happened, I had a scholarship to a school right in front of the hospital where I had spent most of my early childhood and I went and put in a request for information (which the initially declined because of my age and the "sensitive nature" of the contents of the record)

When I accessed my medical records it definitely confirmed what I had been told and was consistent with my own memory of the events, I was still living with her and the news pretty much destroyed me. She had stopped when I was returned to her care but I always sensed something off about her. I did some investigating and found she was "catfishing" (it wasn't called catfishing then) people on the internet, spinning stories to kind old ladies that she had cancer. Accepting love and sympathy across the world wide web from any one who would believe her stories or give her the time of day. I also started to observe how abnormal her day to day behaviour was and realised I had been raised in a world of drama and manipulative abuse. She was neglectful, self absorbed and drug addicted and then very aggressive sometimes. It was an extremely hard time in my life. I'm getting teary as I type.

I moved out as soon as I finished school and avoided her for the majority of my twenties. I spent a lot of time in a psychologists office having to relearn the boundaries of my existence and actually process everything that happened. A few of my close friends know but no-one gets it.

Fast forward to today. I'm nearly thirty-two now and I have two and half year old twins.

My mum went to rehab and got off the drugs about two years before they were born. For the two years it seemed like she had made some real progress. Then when babies were born a few things seemed a bit off (again) to me. She was living in a share house and would have bruises all the time. I did some more investigating and found out that while she was in rehab she had spun a bunch of stories about someone stalking her and forcing her to use drugs and who would frequently rape and assault her.

Absolutely NONE of this was true and my gut feeling is that she inflicted the bruises on herself (my childhood babysitter said she had history of that and basically caught her beating herself up once). I had never given her unsupervised time with my kids and have now cut off contact with her. She comes to visit on Sunday's and has supervised time with my kids under the watch of their father. Their father has gone away for a month to visit his parents overseas and now she has started sending me abusive messages because she feels self entitled to a relationship to her grand-children.


This is the text conversation from the weekend:

Mum: Hi. I want you to know I think your being really selfish... Those 2 beautiful babies of yours are without their dad for the first time in their life and for your own selfish reasons you are stopping them from seeing me, what do you think they are thinking? There dad is away and there Nanna isn't coming . You promised you would never do this L after seeing what "Cousin", "Uncle", and "Aunty" went through with "Cousin's son" .. I love you L nothing will ever change that,,if you don't want to see me that is fine , but please to not stop me from seeing my grandchildren ... If you don't want to talk with me that is fine you can organise it with M or Y ...I would like you to think about how you would feel if Twin 1 or Twin 2 tried to cut you out of their lives or out of their children's lives how you would feel? I love you more than you will ever know xxx

Me: The difference between you and Cousin, is that Cousin, has no history of being a munchausens and has never harmed his kids when they were small. Nor did he spin a web of lies about being in a DV relationship with his estranged father and inflict bruises on himself to perpetuate those lies. You actually terrify me. I don't want to see you because you scare the hell out of me and if you ever pull your $#%^ near my kids I'll move to another country to keep them safe from you. Keep playing the victim here if it what helps you sleep at night and continue to take no responsibility for your actions. God forbid I actually get some time with my own kids on the weekend FOR ONCE since working full time. I am not selfish. That's you. I only have their best interest in my heart not my own needy selfish agenda. You can see them next Sunday at 10:30 and if you pull any crap between now and then you can wait until "Children's father" is back.

I can't BELIEVE after everything you've said and done you have the BALLS to pull that manipulative $#%^ with me. HOW DARE YOU question my parenting and compare this situation to Cousin and "Ex partner of Cousin". What mental gymnastics did you have to do to draw that comparison? Here's the facts "Mother's name". You have this need to draw sympathy and attention to yourself and you will stop at NO END to get it. When I found out all the crap you had been pulling spinning all those lies, using rehab as a platform for your crap and involving multiple services and having everyone run circles around you that confirmed (along with all the actual evidence I have collected and my own memory of everything that happened) that yeah, you used me as pawn in your $#%^ when I was young. The fact that I have to question whether or not you would keep my kids safe is enough for me to not let you have them unsupervised. I can't risk it. I can't risk you having a bad day when they are with you. That doesn't make me a selfish person, it makes me a responsible parent something I can verify that you weren't a lot of the time. I love you, but for my own mental health I don't want to see you and you have to accept that. You also have to accept that I want you to know the kids but while they are little you won't have them out of the sight of me or their father. You forget, I worked for "Large community services org" and in community services a looong time. "Our Last name" isn't exactly a common last name. You've been busted and you aren't even sorry. Sometimes I wonder if you even have a conscience.

Mum: You have no reason to be terrified of me L .. Everyday I live with the shame and humiliation of what I have done in the past ... I adore Twin 1 and Twin 2 more than you will ever know and I would never do anything to hurt them... Thank you for allowing me to see them.

Me: The trust is gone. I don't know how you can get it back. I really don't.
----------------------------------------------

Feeling really stressed and alone.

Wow, that is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. If ever they do a Muncher text book I would love to cut and paste what you have put.

You are right, people can hear your explanation, believe your explanation but this behavior is so alien to our hard-wiring that it cannot actually be absorbed.

These people are at the extreme pointy end of .. I don't known what to call them. They are incredible liars, extremely manipulative, only ever care for themselves, have ABSOLUTLEY no empathy. They are what society in the 1970s when Meadows first called them out found to be unbelievable.

"one child dies it is a tragedy, two is a coincidence,... three is murder"

Despite all my wreckage, everyday I touch wood I am still alive. (think that was only because we gave her power over others)

There is nothing like these people. NOTHING !!!

Don't worry about hurting her feelings, she has none !! She will always be back.

Four questions for you if you could please give them some thought.

1. Do you know how she made you sick. It is usually poisoning, but often very clever, and impossible to detect. Children don't tell adults the things that would make doctors go "what the Hell", as they trust their mother and just feel sick. I worked out mine and my brothers but both were very subtle.

2. Did your mother have multiple realities. What I mean was. Our bruises etc were explained differently to different people. Teachers her father, neighbors. But she would continue with consistent explanations for these people often being very different over many years. In other words lies that were wound out over years, depending on what she either needed from these people or how curious they were to what was happening.

3. I missed mention of your father was he around. MBP mums often have bad relationships with dad, or dad is not around.

4. Finally. In many cases there is one person above others they seek attention from. Was there a father husband, that was in the picture that her martyrdom was aimed at.

Thanks Terry, I struggle to get my head around it too. Still. She won’t acknowledge it at all. You can see in her responses she totally deflects it. The one time she talked about it (we were fighting) she flat out denied it even though I had evidence.

It’s very difficult. I spent the best part of my 20’s getting help and I thought I was in a pretty good place with it. After I found out she’s still spinning stories and the lengths she’s gone to perpetuate them, I feel back at square one particularly after this weekend. It’s a new level of terror because I have my own children now and I just can’t know how she will be them. Suffice to say I would never take the risk.

It feels great to actually talk to another human being who has been through it. Life line! Thank you so much.

Do you know how she made you sick. It is usually poisoning, but often very clever, and impossible to detect. Children don't tell adults the things that would make doctors go "what the Hell", as they trust their mother and just feel sick. I worked out mine and my brothers but both were very subtle.

I think a lot of the time things would happen “outside of the vision” of medico’s and she would present with me after the alleged event. When I was talking to my psychiatrist about it she said the beauty with an epilepsy diagnosis is that it was virtually impossible to detect after the “seizure”. I think she ran with the epilepsy symptoms for the majority of the time. Later on it got more serious (at least to my memory) with the vomiting and constipation and diarrhea side of things. The hospital would manage this from a symptom point of view at the hospital but really had no idea what was causing it. When my baby sitter alerted the nurse to what was happening they put me in an isolated room and monitored how long it would take me to get sick after each visit with my mother. It was bang on about 20 minutes to half an hour each time. They ran all sorts of tests and worked out it was some kind of opiate (opioid?) which was not accounted for in any sort of drug chart of medication prescribed by the hospital and that was the evidence they needed to remove me from her care in the end. She was also in and out of hospital with her own illnesses and fake pregnancies and miscarriages around this time so a lot of her own behaviour was pointing to the Munchausen’s. That particular episode in hospital I recall very well and I was in intensive care for the beginning part. Scary stuff.

Did your mother have multiple realities. What I mean was. Our bruises etc were explained differently to different people. Teachers her father, neighbors. But she would continue with consistent explanations for these people often being very different over many years. In other words lies that were wound out over years, depending on what she either needed from these people or how curious they were to what was happening.

Yes! She spins very different stories to different people. She is an extremely charismatic and intelligent person, and very manipulative. She also can’t handle other people having a worse day than her and will often invent issues on the spot to make sure she has garnered the most amount of sympathy in the room. I remember when I was fifteen finding an old school diary of mine which she was using to plan out her deception, “Had cast put on arm this date”, “Had cast removed that date”. I remember being confused because she hadn’t broken her arm. Soon after I cottoned on to her lying to people on the internet about being an Aboriginal girl (she’s Irish) with cancer and in some sort of domestic violence situation. They would send her small gifts and books like “Tuesday’s with Morrie”. She had even made notes about the Aboriginal dreamtime and spirituality to add authenticity. To another person she was young (maybe 15?) and a different story again.

Recently to one service she was saying it was my dad that was stalking her and forcing her to take drugs. To another service, it was some made up person with the same story line. When I confronted her about the bruises she said it was some random on the bus.

I missed mention of your father was he around. MBP mums often have bad relationships with dad, or dad is not around.

I was basically the product of a one night stand. I didn’t meet my father until I was thirteen and he tracked me down. We didn’t connect at all and the novelty of him having a daughter wore off and within a year our relationship had completely disintegrated. I only saw him occasionally (twice a year-ish) until I was about 18 and then cut him off completely at from ages 20 -28. I bumped into him in the city when I heavily pregnant and said he could have a relationship with his grandchildren if he would be a consistent figure in their life. He couldn’t manage that and I cut him off again just after their first birthday. My dad isn’t a great person, but he isn’t violent or aggressive. If anything he’s more the lazy pathetic loser type. My mum and him have spoken briefly when he would collect me for visit. But I doubt he even knows where she lives, or even cares. I doubt she knows where he lives or even knows what he looks like now but he does appear frequently in her stories. I think she was jealous (to be honest) when I would take the babies to see him (not her) and that may have piqued his presence in her mind and why she has used him in this latest scenario.


Finally. In many cases there is one person above others they seek attention from. Was there a father husband, that was in the picture that her martyrdom was aimed at

My mum had a terrible upbringing. Her mother was sick with cancer and died when she was 15 and her father was a violent abusive man who did unimaginable things to her and her older siblings (this has all been confirmed). She was the youngest and endured it for the longest because she was at home. She was removed from his care and placed in foster care and she met my father around this time. I think she’s desperately alone and learnt very early on that being sick got her attention. I imagine when she removed from her father’s care and the fuss and people around her giving sympathy was the first time in her life she probably felt visible. She doesn’t really have long lasting friends (for obvious reasons) and the other friends she had were all part of the same druggie circle and largely lots of drama and chaos there too. When I look at her I wonder if she even has a sense of self. She seems empty to me. She wants to be loved. There is no one person, it’s everyone and anyone who will hear her out. The sympathy makes them stick around and she is validated by whatever drama surrounds her.

I get it. I hate her, I love her and I want nothing to do with her. It's too much.

There is a bit more I would like to add to your last question:

Finally. In many cases there is one person above others they seek attention from. Was there a father husband, that was in the picture that her martyrdom was aimed at

For the few years before she went to rehab, and while she was in rehab I had cut her off. A lot of the attention seeking and manipulation was to try coerce me back into her life. One such day before rehab she walked my dog to the vet and had him put down. She called in tears asking me to come down and visit because my dog needed to be put down, but I just went to the vet first. He was still on the table and his body was warm but I was too late. I asked the vet why they had put down a dog that (even though was old) was able to walk from my mums house (about a km away) into the surgery. She seemed confused and apologetic and couldn't really give me an explanation. I just went home and cried for days. This was just before her birthday, and week before my own birthday. She did a whole bunch of other crazy stuff around this time too and I just decided that I had finally had enough.

She went into a bit of a hole after no contact with me, with unpaid fines, debt and nearly losing her house. I was able to leverage this situation to get her into rehab where I hoped someone would pick open her behaviours. There was also that part of me that wanted to believe all her behaviour was linked to her drug addiction. I was wrong. Rehab just gave her a new crowd of people to draw into her never ending drama. She certainly tried her best to get my attention there too, the CEO (or someone nearly as high-up) of the rehab contacted me to try get me to come see her. I explained my part and stood my ground. Group therapy was probably better than any high she ever experienced from any substance she ever abused, or person.

My family have basically sided with her, it infuriates me because I've done nothing wrong except protect myself. She's masterfully used her time in rehab to paint me as an ungrateful and emotionless daughter, whilst maintaining her benevolent loving mother stance. I never really thought about that last question until now. I think I learnt early on to just put up a wall to her. If I fought back I enabled her, if I responded with sympathy I enabled her and if I did or said nothing I survived. She hates me for that.

So I just wrote a long post and the computer crashed....

It all started for me when I was born and apparently "chose" as a newborn baby to not feed from my mother! Years later I discovered I had a tongue tie which would have caused my feeding issues (My mother was a trained and experienced midwife....) when I explained this to her she still insisted that I just didn't want to feed from "her".

Fast forward to me being at school and the investigations at her insistence began for ADHD (medicated on both Ritalin and Dexamphetamine), Autism which it was primarily known as and then Aspergers because I was naughty and didn't sit still and wouldn't sleep and never listened to her or concentrated in school. Watching my own children and remembering back to how she parented I was just a very high spirited child whom she couldn't control so blamed it elsewhere. I have also been on a gluten free dairy free diet because I was coeliac which tests proved inconclusive so she downgraded her diagnosis to just gluten intolerant, then came all the testing for Irlen Syndrom because I used to have migraines regularly, this brought about a time of me having to wear coloured lenses, use overlays and write on coloured paper. (Opticians two years ago found the cause for my migraines and I'm receiving the correct care now). She also diagnosed me herself as having dyspraxic tendencies and insisted I used special pens and seats and supports and writing aids in school and at home.

This happened whilst at secondary school which is a horrendous time for a teenager to be "different" from her peers. I ended up seeking counselling from the local teenage support services available in school at that time as I was struggling with being always different no matter where I was school or home. I had previously tried to run away at 12 as my mother never let me try things as I wasn't "street smart" and hadn't earnt her trust which to her just proved how immature I was and meant I needed to be even more controlled.

Whilst I was undergoing the counselling mum couldn't understand why I was there and always asked what we spoke about as it didn't seem to be changing anything. What I couldn't say was the counselling had stopped me from running away again or commiting suicide which at one point I was seriously considering that's how low I had become. My periods were late and mum had kept talking about this with any and every expert who would hear her - what one expert did correctly explain to her but she dismissed was that because I was so athletic at the time I was still just over the weight at which periods would start and that I was just going to be late in receiving them.

In amongst all of this I wet the bed right up until I left home at 17. The only point during this time that I stopped was when I was put up for a short term foster as my mum couldn;t come with me and my new born brother since I was wetting both day and night. I didn't wet once whilst with the foster family and I can remember the day I had to leave and just feeling very sad. Because of my bed wetting I was sent and put through all manner of intrusive tests and undignified treatments. The worst one I remember was when I was awake and strapped to a board where they needed to place a balloon enema inside my bottom to help push my bladder forward for a die scan... I remember being hysterical and begging the doctors to not do it and being told by my parents to stop being naughty. The doctors didn't once question my behaviour and the scan went ahead. Years later when speaking with a doctor he suggested my bedwetting was my subconscious showing my anxiety of living with all of this at home.

I was also considered to be academically bright and mum couldn't understand why I wasn't top of my class or doing as well as all the ed psych sessions they had paid for told them. Truth is I can write assignments and know a lot about lots of things but I'm rubbish with exams - mum still cannot accept this as so and blames it on one of the many conditions she still says I have.

My mum also claimed my brother and father to have lots of problems themselves and has turned in on herself and out at others since myself and my brother left home. Just the other day she claimed that because a colleague of hers hadn't been on facebook that day it meant she must be ill or hiding some knowledge about their job - I tried to counter argue that maybe she just didn't feel like it, was busy or the internet was down but "no, I know her she hides from facebook when she knows things...."

I so badly want to have it out with her before she dies because I won't feel complete closure on my past if I don't but I cannot bring myself to hurt her. The doctors tried diagnosing her in the past but she fought and proved differently. And because my children love her as their Nana... she does say things about them but I ignore it and correct her if she tries to say things in front of them which I know she doesn't like and will harp on at me later about. Thank you for having the courage yourselves to write your experiences - I have found this extremely cathartic.